The development of epiphonological and metaphonological processing at the start of learning to read: A longitudinal study

The processes involved in the processing of phonological information (awareness and phonological recoding) now occupy a key position in the study of the acquisition of reading. The research performed in the field of learning to read have helped support the idea that the learning of writing is based on the ability to develop a phonological knowledge of the formal properties of the spoken language (Mattingly, 1972). Many studies have therefore been devoted to the relations between the learning of reading and phonological skills, that is to say the ability to perform a phonological analysis of spoken language. The present research concerns the development of the phonological skills both before and during the teaching of reading through the longitudinal study of children in their final year of nursery school (NS) and in first grade (FG).     

Relations between early reading and writing skills among Spanish-speaking language minority children

Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children’s Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language) were related to their Spanish and English early writing skills using a sample of 554 children whose home language was Spanish. Multivariate regression analyses with simultaneous outcomes (Spanish and English invented spelling skills) were conducted to evaluate whether children’s early reading and writing skills were related across languages. Results indicated that children’s print knowledge and phonological awareness skills, but not oral language skills, were significantly related to their Spanish and English invented spelling skills. Spanish early literacy skills were not differentially related to Spanish and English reading and writing skills. The magnitude of the relations between print knowledge and oral language skills and children’s invented spelling skills varied as a function of child age; however, the magnitude of the relation between phonological awareness and invented spelling skills did not differ as a function of child age. Furthermore, results suggested that language minority children’s early reading and writing skills are related but distinct constructs and that children may be able to apply information gained from learning to read and write in their first language when learning to write in their second language.     

Transfer of reading-related cognitive skills in learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Chinese elementary school children

This study investigated transfer of reading-related cognitive skills between learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Chinese children in Hong Kong. Fifty-three Grade 2 students were tested on word reading, phonological, orthographic and rapid naming skills in Chinese (L1) and English (L2). The major findings were: (a) significant correlations between Chinese and English measures in phonological awareness and rapid naming, but not in orthographic skills; (b) significant unique contribution of Chinese and English rapid naming skills and English rhyme awareness for predicting Chinese word reading after controlling for all the Chinese and English cognitive measures; (c) significant unique contribution of English phonological skills and Chinese orthographic skills (a negative one) for predicting English word reading after controlling for all the English and Chinese cognitive measures; and (d) significant unique contribution of Chinese rhyme awareness for predicting English phonemic awareness. These findings provide initial evidence that developing reading-related cognitive skills in English may have facilitative effects on Chinese word reading development. They also suggest that Chinese orthographic skills or tactics may not be helpful for learning to read English words among ESL learners; and that Chinese rhyme awareness facilitates the development of English phonemic awareness which is an essential skill predicting ESL learning.     

Phonological awareness and reading acquisition

Recent research has suggested the importance of oral language ability in learning to read. It was proposed that the young child's awareness of the phonology of his language would greatly influence early reading success. The results revealed a strong relationship between the first grader's reading performance and two measures of his phonological awareness, invented spelling and phoneme segmentation abilities. Development of phonological awareness was not related to the child's sex, intelligence, socioeconomic status, or chronological age within a 12-month span. A third measure of phonological awareness, auditory analysis skills, was found to have less predictive value. The results suggest that an understanding of phonological relationships above and beyond that required for ordinary speaking and listening enables the beginning reader of English to make contact with his alphabetic writing system at the phonemic level. Instruction at the appropriate age level should facilitate this understanding.     

Chinese-English biscriptal reading: cognitive component skills across orthographies

This study examined the associations of Chinese visual-orthographic skills, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness to Chinese and English word reading among 326 Hong Kong Chinese second- and fifth-graders learning English as a second language. Developmentally, tasks of visual-orthographic skill, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness improved with age. However, the extent to which each of the constructs explained variance in Chinese and English word reading was stable across age but differed by orthography. Across grades, visual-orthographic skills and morphological awareness, but not phonological awareness, were uniquely associated with Chinese character recognition with age and nonverbal IQ statistically controlled. In contrast, Chinese visual-orthographic skills and phonological awareness, but not morphological awareness, accounted for unique variance in English word reading even with the effects of Chinese character recognition and other reading-related cognitive tasks statistically controlled. Thus, only visual-orthographic skills appeared to be a consistent factor in explaining both Chinese and English word reading, perhaps in part because Hong Kong Chinese children are taught in school to read both Chinese and English using a “look and say” strategy that emphasizes visual analysis for word recognition. These findings extend previous research on Chinese visual-orthographic skills to English word reading and underscore commonality and uniqueness in bilingual reading acquisition.     

Literacy skills in Maltese–English bilingual children

This research considers aspects of literacy in Maltese–English bilingual children. The study examined the reading and phonological awareness skills in English and Maltese of children whose home language is Maltese and second language English. A sample of 50 typically developing Maltese pupils aged 8 years 0 months to 10 years 5 months was selected. Since commencing school at the age of 5 years, the children have been learning to read in Maltese and also in English. For the purpose of this study, Maltese reading and reading‐related tests were constructed to parallel the UK and US standardised assessments. The novel tests and the standardised tests were administered to all the children. Results showed that Maltese children read better in their first language (Maltese) than in English, the language of instruction. Findings also showed that phonological awareness measures correlated across first and second languages. The results are discussed in terms of L1 and L2 transfer, whereby the transparency of Maltese orthography and English phonological processing skills facilitate performance on phonological tasks in both Maltese and English.     

Reading and reading-related skills in children using cochlear implants: prospects for the influence of cued speech

We assessed the reading and reading-related skills (phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory) of deaf children fitted with cochlear implants (CI), either exposed to cued speech early (before 2 years old) (CS+) or never (CS-). Their performance was compared to that of 2 hearing control groups, 1 matched for reading level (RL), and 1 matched for chronological age (CA). Phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory were assessed respectively through a phonemic similarity judgment task and through a word span task measuring phonological similarity effects. To assess the use of sublexical and lexical reading procedures, children read pseudowords and irregular words aloud. Results showed that cued speech improved performance on both the phonemic awareness and the reading tasks but not on the phonological short-term memory task. In phonemic awareness and reading, CS+ children obtained accuracy and rapidity scores similar to CA controls, whereas CS- children obtained lower scores than hearing controls. Nevertheless, in phonological short-term memory task, the phonological similarity effect of both CI groups was similar. Overall, these results support the use of cued speech to improve phonemic awareness and reading skills in CI children.     

Dyslexia in adults: Evidence for deficits in non-word reading and in the phonological representation of lexical items

Difficulties in reading and language skills which persist from childhood into adult life are the concerns of this article. The aims were twofold: (1) to find measures of adult reading processes that validate adults’ retrospective reports of difficulties in learning to read during the school years, and (2) to search for indications of basic deficits in phonological processing that may point toward underlying causes of reading difficulties. Adults who reported a history of difficulties in learning to read (n=102) were distinctly disabled in phonological coding in reading, compared to adults without similar histories (n=56). They were less disabled in the comprehension of written passages, and the comprehension disability was explained by the phonological difficulties. A number of indications were found that adults with poor phonological coding skills in reading (i.e., dyslexia) have basic deficits in phonological representations of spoken words, even when semantic word knowledge, phonemic awareness, educational level, and daily reading habits are taken into account. It is suggested that dyslexics possess less distinct phonological representations of spoken words. This research was supported by a grant from the Danish Research Council to the first author.     

Development of and Relationship Between Phonological and Motivational Processes and Naming Speed in Predicting Word Recognition in Grade 1

In this 2-year longitudinal study the developmental relationships among letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid naming, and task orientation were examined, and linguistic-motivational pathways of word reading acquisition were traced from kindergarten to Grade 1 by means of structural equation modeling. The participants were 100 Finnish-speaking nonreaders. Results showed that kindergarten (5–6 years) letter knowledge predicted subsequent preschool (6–7 years) phonological awareness and task orientation. RAN was a unique longitudinal and concurrent predictor of word recognition, suggesting that rapid naming provides a reliable prediction of prospective word reading ability at least in a transparent language. Controlling for phonological awareness and rapid naming, task orientation contributed uniquely to the prediction of word reading competence, suggesting that motivational and linguistic factors are both at work as children face the gradually growing demands of learning to read and write in Grade 1.     

Bidirectional relationships between children’s executive functioning,visual skills,and word reading ability during the transition from kindergarten to primary school

This longitudinal study investigated the bidirectional relationships between executive functioning (EF), visual skills, Chinese and English word reading abilities in children transitioning to primary school. A total of 165 children in Hong Kong were followed from the third year of kindergarten (Time 1) (mean age: 62.80 months, SD: 3.74) to the first year of primary school (Time 2) (mean age: 77.25 months, SD: 4.60). Assessments for measuring EF, visual skills, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and Chinese and English word reading were administered to the children at the two time points. Results of cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that after age, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness were controlled, EF and visual skills exhibited a bidirectional relationship. Furthermore, EF and word reading in Chinese or English reciprocally predicted each other during the school transition period after other skills were controlled. However, visual skills and word reading in Chinese or English did not predict each other. These findings highlight the close associations between EF and visual skills as well as the importance of EF in learning to read Chinese and English in kindergarten and early primary school.     

On the interaction between phonological awareness and reading acquisition: It’s a two-way Street

We have investigated the reciprocal influence of reading acquisition and phonemic awareness. Using a between-grades quasi-experimental design, we have found that learning to read is the most important factor that accounts for the drastic improvement of phonemic segmentation skills during the first year of schooling. On the other hand, we found that improving phonemic skills in kindergarten facilitated reading acquisition in children at risk for developing reading disorders. We suggest that, for most children, exposure to the alphabet automatically triggers phonemic awareness, which is a necessary condition for efficient acquisition of reading. However, the emergence of phonemic awareness requires a previously developed sensitivity to phonology, which in some children may be absent. The present data suggest that, if phonological skills are absent, they may be developed in preschoolers by explicit training, thereby preventing failure in reading acquisition.     

Interactions in the development of spelling,reading and phonological skills

Early interactive processes of development in reading, spelling and implicit and explicit phonological awareness were assessed in a group of children at four time-points as they progressed through their first three years in school. Exploratory causal path analyses were used to investigate the contribution of each ability to the subsequent growth of skill in reading, spelling and phonological awareness. The resultant structural models demonstrate a role of spelling in the early stages of reading acquisition, as well as differential contributions of implicit and explicit phonological awareness to both reading and spelling. They also suggest a developmental cascade from implicit to explicit phonemic awareness in the normal acquisition of phonological knowledge and associated skills. In the early formulative stages of reading implicit phonemic awareness and reading act reciprocally to build skill in each other. But, as ability in word recognition improves, implicit phonemic awareness plays a diminished role in reading. This pattern of initial reciprocal influence and later dissociation is repeated in the relationship between implicit phoneme awareness and spelling. Explicit phonemic awareness is an important factor in the first stages of spelling development but only emerges later as a significant contributor to reading. The early influence of explicit phoneme awareness on spelling, in conjunction with the major contribution of spelling to beginning reading, indicates that experience in spelling promotes the use of a phonological strategy in reading. Within a developmental context, explicit phoneme awareness initially appears to grow out of an implicit appreciation of the overall sound properties of words. Thereafter, ability to identify and segment phonemes develops independently of implicit phonemic awareness and plays an increasingly important role in the further growth of reading and spelling.     

Predictors of reading and comprehension abilities in bilingual and monolingual children: a longitudinal study on a transparent language

Many studies have shown that learning to read in a second language (L2) is similar, in many ways, to learning to read in a first language (L1). Nevertheless, reading development also relies upon oral language proficiency and is greatly influenced by orthographic consistency. This longitudinal study aimed to analyze the role of linguistic predictors (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, pseudoword repetition, morphosyntactic comprehension, lexical knowledge and rapid naming) in reading outcomes (fluency, accuracy and comprehension) in a group of bilingual children (n = 30) reading Italian as an L2, compared to a group of monolingual children (n = 56). We ran a multi-group structural equation model. Our findings showed that rapid automatized naming was a significant predictor of reading speed in both groups. However, the study revealed different patterns of predictors for reading accuracy, predictors for monolinguals being LK, phonological awareness and lexical knowledge, while pseudoword repetition was a predictor for bilinguals. Morphosyntactic comprehension was the most significant predictor of comprehension skills in bilingual children. Implications for clinical and educational settings are discussed.     

Preschool predictors of dyslexia status in Chinese first graders with high or low familial risk

The present 4-year longitudinal study examined preschool predictors of Grade 1 dyslexia status in a Chinese population in Hong Kong where children started learning to read at the age of three. Seventy-five and 39 Chinese children with high and low familial risk respectively were tested on Chinese word reading, oral language skills, morphological awareness, phonological skills, rapid naming, and print-related skills from age 4 to 6 and a standardized dyslexia test at age 7. Results showed that children of the high risk group performed significantly worse than the low risk group in Chinese literacy, phonological awareness, and orthographic skills at age 7. All the children with dyslexia had word reading difficulties in at least one preschool year. Results of the logistic regression showed that preschool verbal production, syllable deletion, and letter naming were the best predictors of dyslexia outcome at age 7. As in alphabetic languages, preschool oral language skills like verbal production, phonological skills, and print-related skills are the most significant predictors of children’s later reading difficulties.     

Towards identifying dyslexia in Standard Indonesian: the development of a reading assessment battery

With its transparent orthography, Standard Indonesian is spoken by over 160 million inhabitants and is the primary language of instruction in education and the government in Indonesia. An assessment battery of reading and reading-related skills was developed as a starting point for the diagnosis of dyslexia in beginner learners. Founded on the International Dyslexia Association’s definition of dyslexia, the test battery comprises nine empirically motivated reading and reading-related tasks assessing word reading, pseudoword reading, arithmetic, rapid automatized naming, phoneme deletion, forward and backward digit span, verbal fluency, orthographic choice (spelling), and writing. The test was validated by computing the relationships between the outcomes on the reading-skills and reading-related measures by means of correlation and factor analyses. External variables, i.e., school grades and teacher ratings of the reading and learning abilities of individual students, were also utilized to provide evidence of its construct validity. Four variables were found to be significantly related with reading-skill measures: phonological awareness, rapid naming, spelling, and digit span. The current study on reading development in Standard Indonesian confirms findings from other languages with transparent orthographies and suggests a test battery including preliminary norm scores for screening and assessment of elementary school children learning to read Standard Indonesian.     

Difficulties in L2 Hebrew Reading in Russian-speaking Second Graders

The present study examined factors that influence the process of learning to read in a second language. The Hebrew reading comprehension skills of 68 Russian-speaking children (mean age 7 years 6 months) were screened at the start of Grade 2. From this sample, 40 participants were selected: 20 successful learners and 20 unsuccessful learners. These two groups were then tested on a wide range of language skills (e.g., phonological processing, vocabulary, syntactic and morphological awareness) in both languages (Hebrew and Russian) and reading skills in Hebrew (e.g., reading speed and accuracy). Two factors, level of spoken Hebrew and phonological awareness deficits in both languages, were significant. Phonological awareness difficulties constituted the key factor associated with poor decoding whereas insufficient mastery of spoken Hebrew was important in the case of reading comprehension. An interesting dissociation was also found in our poor readers between impaired phonological awareness and other unimpaired phonological processing abilities such as oral pseudoword repetition and working memory. These findings suggest that, in addition to poor spoken L2 proficiency, poor readers are characterized more by a metalinguistic rather than a linguistic deficit in their native tongue.     

Effects of a phonological awareness program on English reading and spelling among Hong Kong Chinese ESL children

This study investigated the effects of a 12-week language-enriched phonological awareness instruction on 76 Hong Kong young children who were learning English as a second language. The children were assigned randomly to receive the instruction on phonological awareness skills embedded in vocabulary learning activities or comparison instruction which consisted of vocabulary learning and writing tasks but no direct instruction in phonological awareness skills. They were tested on receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness at the syllable, rhyme and phoneme levels, reading, and spelling in English before and after the program implementation. The results indicated that children who received the phonological awareness instruction performed significantly better than the comparison group on English word reading, spelling, phonological awareness at all levels and expressive vocabulary on the posttest when age, general intelligence and the pretest scores were controlled statistically. The findings suggest that phonological awareness instruction embedded in vocabulary learning activities might be beneficial to kindergarteners learning English as a second language.     

Associations between inattention,hyperactivity and pre-reading skills before and after formal reading instruction begins

Concurrent associations between teacher ratings of inattention, hyperactivity and pre-reading skills were examined in 64 pre-schoolers who had not commenced formal reading instruction and 136 school entrants who were in the first weeks of reading instruction. Both samples of children completed measures of pre-reading skills, namely phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid naming, and letter name knowledge, as well as a measure of verbal ability. School entrants also completed measures of letter sound knowledge and beginning word identification skills. Teachers completed rating scales of inattention and hyperactivity. In the preschool sample, teacher-rated inattention and hyperactivity were not correlated with measures of children’s phonological processing but were correlated with letter name knowledge. In comparison, inattention, but not hyperactivity, was independently related to all measures of school entrants’ phonological processing and alphabet knowledge and their knowledge of high frequency words. Structural equation modelling on the school entrant sample revealed that the relationship between inattention and beginning word identification was mediated by pre-reading skills, suggesting that attention problems may compromise reading development during the earliest stages of learning to read through their impact on pre-reading skills. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the consideration of inattention in the design of effective and engaging early childhood learning environments.     

Predicting delay in reading achievement in a highly transparent language

A random sample of 91 preschool children was assessed prior to receiving formal reading instruction. Verbal and nonverbal measures were used as predictors for the time of instruction required to accurately decode pseudowords in the highly orthographically regular Finnish language. After 2 years, participants were divided into four groups depending on the duration of instruction they had required to reach 90 % accuracy in their reading of pseudowords. Participants were classified as precocious decoders (PD), who could read at school entry; early decoders (ED), who learned to read within the first 4 months of Grade 1; ordinary decoders (OD), who learned to read within 9 months; and late decoders (LD), who failed to reach the criterion after 18 months of reading instruction at Grade 2. Phonological awareness played a significant role only in differentiating PD from ED and OD. However, phonological awareness failed to predict the delayed learning process of LD. LD differed from all other groups in visual analogical reasoning in an analysis not containing phonological awareness measures. Letter knowledge and visual analogical reasoning explained above 90% of the PD-LD difference. Preschool composite (objects, colors, and digits) naming speed measures best predicted reading fluency at the end of Grade 2. The supportive role of orthographic knowledge in phonological awareness, the role of visual analogical reasoning, and the inability of phonological measures to discriminate late decoders are discussed.