Serial naming speed and the component elements of speech time and pause time: relationships with the development of wordlevel reading in children aged four to five years

Serial naming speed and its association with reading ability was examined in a longitudinal investigation. Participants were 68 children aged between 4.0 and 4.5 years when the study began and between 5.0 and 5.5 years when the study ended. Serial naming speed was measured at three equidistant time points over the 12-month period as children progressed from a preliterate to early-literate stage. Childrenʹs responses were digitally recorded to computer to enable analysis of the sound files. During analysis, the articulation time for each word and the length of each pause between the spoken words were measured independently. At the end of the study, childrenʹs word-level reading ability was measured. Results suggest that children aged 4.0 to 5.5 years show wide variability in serial naming speed that is predominately attributable to the length of the pauses between the articulated words. There appears to be a developmental association between the duration of the pauses and word-level reading ability.