Cognitive style, conservation and reading achievement

Includes bibliographical references (pages 76-81)The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interrelationships of cognitive style, conservation and reading. Forty-six children from a total of seven first and second grade classrooms were administered the Children's Embedded Figures Test and three conservation assessment tasks. On the basis of scores obtained on these tests, children were assigned to either the field independent or field dependent group and were designated as conservers or nonconservers. Reading readiness and reading achievement test scores were gathered from each child's cumulative record located in the school file. It may be concluded from the present study that there is a relationship between cognitive style and conservation. No sex difference was observed in the scores obtained by the male and female subjects assigned to the field independent group or between the male and female subjects assigned to the field dependent group on the conservation tasks. Success on certain conservation tasks were found to be related to both reading readiness and reading achievement. No statistically significant relationship was observed, however, between cognitive style and reading readiness or between cognitive style and reading achievement