Alphabetical Seriation as a Reading Readiness Indicator

Past research has shown seriation in prereaders to be predictive of later reading ability. A new alphabetical seriation task, involving a random set of letters as elements to seriate, was proposed as a better predictor of reading readiness than traditional seriation. Although both tasks require the ordering of discrete elements, alphabetical seriation also presupposes a limited knowledge of linguistic material which adds to its predictive value for reading. The effects of having a printed alphabet card present as a perceptual support were also examined. Results supported the viability of the new alphabetical seriation task as a seriation task and as a better predictor of reading readiness than traditional seriation. The perceptual support of the alphabet card increased the amount of time spent on the task, without a corresponding increase in accuracy. Time measures further suggested that most kindergarteners were not performing the seriation operationally. Elkind's theory of perceptual reorganization is suggested to account for the relationship between seriation and reading.