Rapid naming components and its relation to reading comprehension in Spanish

Abstract

Rapid naming is one of the main reading predictors, especially in transparent orthographies such as Spanish. Although it has been consistently studied at the level of reading words, few works try to explain its relationship with reading comprehension. From the perspective of the analysis of the rapid naming components (pauses between items and articulation times), this research explores the relationship between rapid naming and reading comprehension in Chilean students from first to fourth grade. In addition, we evaluated whether this relationship is explained by accuracy of reading words and fluency. Results show that both components share a significant amount of variance with comprehension. However, the relation between pauses is the greatest with comprehension. In addition, word reading accuracy and fluency are variables that mediate the relationship between rapid naming and reading comprehension. Results are discussed in the context of rapid naming as a variable related to fluency in reading and the usefulness of its evaluation in school context.