First and second graders were taught to recognize a set of written words either more accurately or more rapidly. Both before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture naming task. Results indicated that children who learned to recognize several unfamiliar distractor words suffered more interference after training. In contrast, children who were already familiar with the words and learned to recognize them faster experienced less interference after training. Results are interpreted as suggesting that automatic word recognition is distinct from rapid word recognition, and that in the course of learning to read, beginners learn to recognize words automatically before they achieve maximum speed in recognizing those words. (Author)