| On his interactive instructional model of reading, Stetson stresses the importance of visual and auditory memory in the learning of reading and spelling skills. The purpose of the study was to investigate Stetson's assumptions that (1) auditory memory has a greater effect on phonic analysis and literal comprehension than visual memory, (2) visual memory has a greater effect on immediate recognition, structural analysis, and written spelling than auditory memory, and (3) language facility has a greater effect on inferential comprehension than memory.; Four hundred students in grades 1-6 who received educational evaluations at the University of Houston Diagnostic Learning Center were selected for the study. From their records, test scores were extracted for the following variables: verbal intelligence, written spelling, sight recognition, structural analysis, phonic analysis, literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, auditory memory for words and sentences, and visual memory for objects and letters.; Descriptive statistics were reported for all the independent and dependent variables. Analysis of variance was used to examine the significance of the mean differences by grade. Setwise multiple regression was conducted to determine the effects of the independent on the dependent variables.; Analysis of the mean scores indicated that students had average scores in IQ, inferential comprehension, and visual memory, but below average scores in literal comprehension and auditory memory. Scores on tests of memory correlated significantly with all tests of academic skills. Furthermore, there were significant differences in the scores by grade level for all 14 variables.; Results of multiple regression analysis supported hypotheses that (1) visual memory is significantly more related than auditory memory to sight recognition, structural analysis, and written spelling, and (2) language facility is significantly related to inferential comprehension. However, the hypotheses that auditory memory is significantly more related than visual memory to phonic analysis and literal comprehension were not supported.; One major conclusion from the study was that visual memory was significantly more related to the specific reading and spelling skills examined than auditory memory. |
