AN EXPERIMENT WAS CONDUCTED TO DETERMINE THE EFFECT OF 2-WORD ASSOCIATIONS IN LEARNING TO READ THE SECOND WORD OF A 2-WORD CHAIN. ABOUT 45 FIRST AND SECOND GRADE STUDENTS WERE CHOSEN AS SUBJECTS AFTER PRETESTING TO INSURE THEY WERE ABLE TO READ THE FIRST (STIMULUS) WORD BUT NOT THE SECOND (RESPONSE) WORD OF EACH WORD PAIR USED IN THE STUDY. EIGHT STIMULUS AND EIGHT RESPONSE WORDS WERE USED. EACH TRAINEE FIRST RECEIVED INSTRUCTION IN WORD ASSOCIATION BY RESPONDING ORALLY WITH THE RESPONSE WORD AFTER LEARNING THE STIMULUS WORD. READING TRAINING FOLLOWED THIS FIRST PROCEDURE THROUGH WORD PAIR RECALL AND WORD MATCHING TECHNIQUES. A WORD RECOGNITION TEST WAS THEN GIVEN ON THE EIGHT RESPONSE WORDS. TWO MEASURES OF LEARNING WERE USED--(1) NUMBER OF CORRECT READING RESPONSES, AND (2) SPEED OF RECOGNITION. RESULTS FROM BOTH MEASURES SHOWED CONCLUSIVELY THAT THE STRENGTH OF ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN WORDS DID INFLUENCE THE OVERALL ACQUISITION OF CORRECT READING RESPONSES. (JH)