The hypothesis that reading difficulty of learning disabled (LD) children is attributable to deficiencies in verbal encoding was investigated with 60 LD and normal children (mean CA=9.1, mean IQ=103.5). Ss were compared on recall of a serial short-term memory task after pre-training of named and unnamed stimulus conditions. Data suggested that primary reading deficits in LD children are attributable to verbal encoding deficiencies (visual-verbal integration) and not in areas of visual learning as suggested by the perceptual-deficit hypothesis. (IM)