LEVELS OF CATEGORIZATION AND SIGHT WORD ACQUISITION

Prereading first graders were trained in a group of six sight words drawn from superordinate, basic, and subordinate levels of categorization as well as from a list of frequency control words. After teaching the selected to the students following an interference task, the students were posttested for immediate recall of the previously learned words. They were also tested for recall after a forty‐eight hour delay. Results of the posttesting indicate that the level of categorization from which a word is drawn affects its learnability as a sight word. Students demonstrated that basic level words were easier to learn and recall, regardless of their frequencies.