The correlations of perceptual-motor maturation to readiness and reading in kindergarten and the primary grades.

This study lends further support to the additive nature of perceptual-motor skills and their correlation with reading. Using multivariate analysis, the investigation quantifies the extent to which success in readiness and reading in kindergarten and grades one and two is related to perceptual-motor organization. In addition to establishing concurrent validity, the results support the hypothesis that perceptual skills in kindergarten predict reading proficiency at the end of grade one. Perceptual skills play a significant role in learning to read in the primary grades. Beyond grade two, however, when cognitive and language skills appear to have a greater influence in normal children, perceptual organization remains a necessary but not a significant condition for learning.