Introduction: Stress in Spanish is associated with an orthographic mark that indicates stress, but there are also other clues that point to it. Most words have the same stress (on the penultimate syllable), and closed syllables (syllables ending in a consonant) attract the stress. In this paper we study these clues, and consequently the function of stress as one of the phonological codes that intervenes in the reading process. Method: The study was performed with children who had little reading experience, much more prone to use the phonological route. A naming task was used, and stress was manipulated, as well as the regularity-irregularity of the syllabic structure with regard to stress. Results: There were no differences between words according to their stress, whether it fell on the last or penultimate syllable. However, there were differences dependent on whether words were regular or irregular. The former were read with fewer errors. Discussion: This result was interpreted as evidence of the functional relationship of stress with the syllabic structure, as well as of its role in the lexical access process which is performed during reading. Finally, we discuss the suitability of including prosodic variables as part of programs for training in phonological awareness. (Contains 4 graphs and 4 notes.)