The relationship between the reading ability and the basic word processing ability in the kindergarten, first, and third grade children were investigated. Picture Stroop task, word reading task, and visual and auditory word memory task were used to measure the speed and the degree of the automatization of processing words. The result of the path analysis showed that the reading ability in kindergarten children was explained by the processing speed and the degree of the automatization. It was concluded that for the beginning readers these basic processes decided their reading ability.