A group of 73 normal children (ages 8 to 10) was compared to 49 age-matched developmentally dyslexic children of average intelligence on the California Verbal Learning Test for Children (CVLT-C), to determine if reading disability was associated with impaired verbal memory. Dyslexics differed significantly from controls on 9 of the 12 CVLT-C memory measures, with a 78 percent rate of overall correct classification. The total number of words recalled across learning trials appeared to be the most sensitive index. Results indicated, however, that learning-disabled readers and normal children had the same rates of verbal learning, forgetting, and memory development, and were equally able to utilize semantic categorization. Reduced memory efficiency in dyslexia appears to result from verbal encoding difficulties rather than memory deficit per se. (Contains 22 references.) (Author/DB)