The purpose of this study was to investigate whether 3- and 4 -year-old children effectively translate retained visual information into auditory information on recognition. Thirty 3- and 4-year-olds were given immediate recognition tasks in a phonemic mode or in a visual mode. Visual stimuli presented in the recognition tasks consisted of drawings of objects with long names or short names. The results obtained were that the response latency for recognition in a phonemic mode was lengthier than that in a visual mode, and that the response latency for the phonemic recognition of longer names was lengthier than that of shorter names. Moreover, there was no significant difference in scores between recognitions in a phonemic mode and in a visual mode. These results suggested that 3- and 4-year-olds translate retained visual information into auditory information effectively.