An investigation of factors associated with letter-sound knowledge at kindergarten entry

Letter-sound knowledge is necessary for children to begin reading and writing, and kindergarteners who know only a few letter sounds are at risk for later reading difficulties. This study examines the letter-sound knowledge of 1197 first-time kindergarteners who were economically disadvantaged, in light of six hypotheses about letter-sound knowledge acquisition: (1) the letter-name structure effect hypothesis, (2) the letter-sound ambiguity hypothesis, (3) the letter-name knowledge hypothesis, (4) the own-name advantage hypothesis, and 5) the phonological awareness facilitation hypothesis, as well as the (6) interactions between phonological awareness and letter-name structure. Results using three-level multilevel modeling indicate that letter sounds have varying levels of difficulty and several letter- and child-related factors are associated with naming a letter sound correctly. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Letter names, letter sounds and phonological awareness: an examination of kindergarten children across letters and of letters across children

In this study 149 kindergarten children were assessed for knowledge of letter names and letter sounds, phonological awareness, and cognitive abilities. Through this it examined child and letter characteristics influencing the acquisition of alphabetic knowledge in a naturalistic context, the relationship between letter-sound knowledge and letter-name knowledge, and the prediction of Grade 1 phonological awareness and word identification from these variables. Knowledge of letter sounds was better for vowels and for letters with consonant–vowel names than for those with vowel–consonant names or names bearing little relationship to their sounds. However, there were anomalies within each category reflecting characteristics of the individual letters. Structural equation modelling showed that cognitive ability, comprising receptive vocabulary, non-verbal reasoning, rapid automatized naming of colours, and phonological memory significantly contributed to alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness. In turn, letter-name knowledge but not phonological awareness predicted letter-sound knowledge and subsequent reading skill.This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first author. Thank you is extended to the participating schools and children and to Ian Newby-Clark for his orientation to AMOS. Michelle Bell, Shelly Moretti and Jodi Page have since graduated from the University of Guelph     

Automatic Activation of Sounds by Letters Occurs Early in Development but is not Impaired in Children With Dyslexia

The automatic letter-sound integration hypothesis proposes that the decoding difficulties seen in dyslexia arise from a specific deficit in establishing automatic letter-sound associations. We report the findings of 2 studies in which we used a priming task to assess automatic letter-sound integration. In Study 1, children between 5 and 7 years of age were faster to respond to a speech-sound when primed by a congruent letter, indicating that automatic activation of sounds by letters emerges relatively early in reading development. However, there was no evidence of a relationship between variations in the speed of activating sounds by letters and reading skill in this large unselected sample. In Study 2, children with dyslexia demonstrated automatic activation of sounds by letters, though they performed slowly overall. Our findings do not support the theory that a deficit in automatic letter-sound integration is an important cause of reading difficulties but do provide further evidence for the importance of phonological skills for learning to read.     

Effects of reading and spelling predictors before and after school entry: Evidence from a German longitudinal study

Previous studies indicate that the effectiveness of reading and spelling predictors in transparent orthographies is affected by the onset of literacy training at school entry. In this longitudinal study with 65 German speaking children, the effects of literacy predictors on reading and spelling abilities were compared before and after school entry. Phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, and rapid naming were assessed before and after school entry. In addition, reading and spelling abilities were assessed at the end of first grade. Path model analyses showed that letter sound knowledge before school entry predicted reading and spelling at the end of first grade, while rapid naming after school entry predicted reading but not spelling abilities. This study shows that the onset of schooling influences the predictability of early literacy predictors and indicates that with the onset of formal literacy education, predictors representing automaticity in serial processing increase in significance for reading abilities.     

Considering linguistic and orthographic features in early literacy acquisition: Evidence from Korean

This study investigated (1) the role of syllable awareness in word reading and spelling after accounting for the effects of print-related skills (letter-name and letter-sound knowledge, and rapid serial naming), and (2) unique contributions of orthographic, semantic (vocabulary and morphological awareness), phonological, and print-related predictors to word reading and spelling for 4- and 5-year old Korean-speaking children (N = 168). Syllable awareness was found to be positively related to word reading and spelling after accounting for print-related skills and phoneme awareness. Letter-name knowledge and orthographic awareness were uniquely related to word reading and spelling after accounting for other language and literacy-related skills. In addition, phoneme awareness was uniquely related to spelling whereas rapid serial naming was uniquely related to word reading, after accounting for other language and literacy-related skills. Semantic knowledge such as vocabulary and morphological awareness were not related to either word reading or spelling after accounting for other language and literacy-related skills. Word reading and spelling remained uniquely and positively related to each other. These findings are discussed in light of crosslinguistic variation in early literacy acquisition.     

Increasing Word-Reading Speed in Poor Readers: No Additional Benefits of Explicit Letter-Cluster Training

The present study examined whether explicit training of letter-clusters leads to more gains in word-reading speed than training of the separate letters of the same clusters. Ninety-nine poor reading second-grade children were randomly assigned to a cluster-training, a parallel letter-training, or a no-training condition. The cluster-training condition showed superior short-term and long-term improvement on rapid naming of trained and untrained letter clusters, whereas the letter-training condition showed superior short-term improvement on rapid naming of trained letters. In addition, compared with the no-training condition, the cluster and letter training showed the same superior short-term and long-term improvement on trained words and pseudowords. However, both training conditions showed only marginally more short-term improvement for untrained pseudowords and only marginally more long-term improvement on a word reading-fluency task. Apparently, improvement of rapid naming of letter clusters does not, or barely, result in improvement of untrained words and pseudowords.     

Training letter and orthographic pattern recognition in children with slow naming speed

Although research has established that performance on a rapid automatized naming (RAN) task is related to reading, the nature of this relationship is unclear. Bowers (2001) proposed that processes underlying performance on the RAN task and orthographic knowledge make independent and additive contributions to reading performance. We examined the benefits of training orthographic pattern recognition and speeded letter recognition for children in Grades 1 and 2 with slow naming speed. Children first received training in either orthographic pattern recognition or speeded letter recognition, and then switched to the other type of training. Results indicated that speeded letter recognition can improve through training, but only when preceded by training in orthographic pattern recognition. Orthographic pattern recognition training improved the accuracy and speed of reading training words, whether training occurred alone or following letter training. Letter training prior to the orthographic training provided no additional benefit. Together, these results argue for the importance of orthographic training for children with slow naming speed.     

Reading in two orthographies: A cross-linguistic study of Dutch average and poor readers who learn English as a second language

The present study investigated the reading of secondary school students in their first and second language (L1, L2). Twenty-six average and twenty-six poor readers matched on age, gender, listening and reading comprehension participated. They were native Dutch speakers who started learning English at secondary school (grade 7). We examined whether differences in L2 between the two groups reflect differences in L1 with regard to reading and relevant subskills. In addition, the relationship between reading and its predictors within and across the two languages was investigated. Between group differences were similar in L1 and L2 when task conditions involved high levels of phonological and orthographic complexity or demanded speeded processing. Furthermore, serial rapid naming predicted speeded word reading in both languages and L2 text reading accuracy, while L2 phoneme awareness and orthographic knowledge explained unique variance in L2 text reading accuracy. Cross-linguistic prediction revealed that speeded word reading predicted its counterpart from L1 to L2 and vice versa. Serial rapid naming explained additional variance in the prediction of L2 from L1. After exclusion of the reading predictor from the model, serial rapid naming was the most consistent cross-linguistic predictor, while L2 orthographic knowledge explained a small amount of unique variance in L1 speeded word reading.     

Linguistic profiles of dyslexic and good readers

Linguistic profiles of 60 boys with average intelligence were examined at kindergarten, grade 2, and grade 4. The subjects were 7 dyslexic, 7 mildly dyslexic, 30 average, and 16 good readers, defined in terms of the discrepancy between standardized reading and intelligence scores. Across the three ages, reader groups did not differ in language comprehension, but did differ in confrontation and rapid automatized naming (RAN), three syntactic measures, and verbal memory. Group strengths and weaknesses were, with few exceptions apparent in kindergarten and maintained throughout. The kindergarten tasks which most effectively predicted reading group membership at grade 4 were giving letter sounds, and rapid naming; these predicted 4th grade reading group at close to 100 percent accuracy. The study, together with a further comparison of average and high IQ good readers, provides an interesting contrast between the role of RAN and Confrontation naming in reading. This work was supported in part by NIHCD grants RO1HD18761 to F. H. Duffy, RO1HD18654 to H. Als, and the Mental Retardation Grant P30HD18655 to C. F. Barlow.     

Spelling predictors; investigating the role of phonological ability and rapid naming in a large cross-sectional British study

This study aimed to identify predictors of single word spelling performance in children using a novel test containing regular words, irregular words and pseudowords. We assessed reading ability, letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatised naming (RAN) in children aged 4–12 years (N = 641). Mixed model analyses with hierarchical nested data were conducted with Year_group (Yr R to Yr 6) included as a factor, PA and RAN as predictors, and reading and letter-sound knowledge as covariates. For irregular word spelling, PA and RAN were significant predictors, but the associations were dependent upon the year the children attended. Interestingly, for regular words and pseudowords PA was not significantly related. For pseudowords, only RAN was a significant predictor and only in Yr 2. We argue that a better understanding of spelling development can be achieved using tools that distinguish between regular and irregular words and pseudowords, as different processes seem to be associated with the different types of letter string across the variable levels of spelling experience.     

The effect of orthographic depth on letter string processing: the case of visual attention span and rapid automatized naming

The present study investigated whether orthographic depth can increase the bias towards multi-letter processing in two reading-related skills: visual attention span (VAS) and rapid automatized naming (RAN). VAS (i.e., the number of visual elements that can be processed at once in a multi-element array) was tested with a visual 1-back task and RAN was measured in a serial letter naming task that introduced a novel manipulation (some letter sequences formed frequent words). Spanish-Basque and French-Basque bilingual children were tested at early (30 children in 1st and 2nd grade), and more advanced (24 children in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade) stages of reading acquisition to investigate whether they would be differently biased towards multi-letter processing due to reading in two shallow (Spanish, Basque), or a deep and a shallow (French, Basque) orthography. The French-Basque bilinguals, who read in a deep orthography, were expected to rely on larger orthographic units in reading and thus to be more biased towards multi-letter processing in both tasks. This was expected to be reflected by: (a) a uniform distribution of attention across letter strings in the VAS task, and (b) a greater interference of the embedded words on letter-by-letter naming in RAN, leading to longer naming times. The expected group differences were observed in the more advanced readers, with French-Basque bilinguals showing a wider distribution of VAS across letter strings and longer naming times in RAN.     

The contribution of executive functions to naming digits,objects, and words

Although it is established that reading fluency is more strongly related to serial naming of symbols than to naming of isolated items (serial superiority effect), the reason for the difference remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of executive functions in explaining the serial superiority effect. One hundred seven Grade 6 Greek children were assessed on serial and discrete naming (digits, objects, and words), executive (inhibition, shifting, and updating) and non-executive tasks (simple choice reaction), and on a serial Rapid Alternating Stimuli task. Reading fluency correlated more strongly with serial naming than with discrete naming, consistent with the serial superiority effect. In hierarchical regression analyses, executive measures failed to account for variance shared between serial naming and reading fluency. In confirmatory factor analyses, including a discrete and a serial factor for the naming tasks, variance in the executive tasks not shared with simple choice reaction was not associated with the serial factor. Thus, the executive tasks failed to account for the serial superiority effect. The high correlation between the simple choice factor and the discrete naming factor suggests that method variance partially underlies the observed relationship between executive function tasks and word reading. We argue that the distinction between serial and discrete dimensions indicates that internally regulated cognitive control is crucial for the serial superiority in naming symbols and words.     

The role of letter knowledge acquisition ability on children's decoding and word identification: Evidence from an artificial orthography

Background

Letter knowledge is crucial in the first stages of reading development. It supports learning letter-sound mappings and the identification of the letters that make up words. Previous studies have investigated the longitudinal impact of early letter knowledge on children's further word reading abilities. This study employed an artificial orthography learning paradigm to explore whether the rate of letter learning modulates children's reading and word identification skills.

Methods

In an initial training phase, 8-year-old Spanish children (N = 30) learned nine artificial letters and their corresponding sounds (two vowels and six consonants). The letter learning rate was set according to the number of attempts needed to name at least seven letters (i.e., 80% correct). These ranged from 1 to 4. In a second training phase, children visualized words made up of the trained letters while listening to their pronunciations. Some words included a context-dependent syllable (i.e., leading to grapheme-to-phoneme inconsistency), and others had an inconsistent syllable (i.e., phoneme-to-grapheme inconsistency). The post-test consisted of a reading aloud task and an orthographic-choice task in which the target word was presented with a distractor equal to the target except for the substitution of a letter.

Results

Children showed a high accuracy rate in the post-test tasks, regardless of whether words contained context-dependent or inconsistent syllables. Critically, the letter learning rate predicted both reading aloud and identification accuracy of words in the artificial orthography.

Conclusions

We provide evidence for the vital role of letter knowledge acquisition ability in children's decoding and word identification skills. Training children on this ability facilitates serial letter-sound mapping and word identification skills. Artificial orthography paradigms are optimal for exploring children's potential to achieve specific literacy skills.

     

Rapid serial naming and reading ability: the role of lexical access

Rapid serial naming tasks are frequently used to explain variance in reading skill. However, the construct being measured by rapid naming is yet undetermined. The Phonological Processing theory suggests that rapid naming relates to reading because of similar demands of access to long-term stored phonological representations of visual stimuli. Some researchers have argued that isolated or discrete-trial naming is a more precise measure of lexical access than serial naming, thus it is likely that any shared variance between these two formats can be attributed to similar lexical access demands. The present study examined whether there remained any variance in reading ability that could be uniquely explained by the rapid naming task while controlling for isolated naming. Structural equation modeling was used to examine these relations within the context of the phonological processing model. Results indicated that serial naming uniquely predicted reading, and the relation was stronger with isolated naming controlled for, suggesting that isolated naming functioned as a suppressor variable in the relation of serial naming with reading.     

Component processes in reading: shared and unique variance in serial and isolated naming speed

Reading ability is comprised of several component processes. In particular, the connection between the visual and verbal systems has been demonstrated to play an important role in the reading process. The present study provides a review of the existing literature on the visual verbal connection as measured by two tasks, rapid serial naming and isolated (or discrete-trial) naming speed, as they relate to reading ability. For each identified study, a secondary data analysis was conducted using the provided correlations between serial naming, isolated naming, and reading. The same analysis was repeated for average population-level correlations among these constructs using meta-analytic weighting techniques. Results suggested that isolated naming acts as a suppressor variable in the relation of serial naming with reading, indicating that there exists at least one cognitive component of the serial naming task that is predictive of reading but is not shared with isolated naming speed. The effect has several implications for understanding the underlying cognitive components reading ability, which are discussed.     

Phoneme segmentation training: Effect on reading readiness

Recent evidence suggests that the ability to segment words into phonemes is significantly related to reading success, and that training in phoneme segmentation appears to have a positive influence on beginning reading. In this study, we evaluated the effect on reading readiness of phoneme segmentation training in kindergarten. Ninety nonreaders with PPVT-R standard scores of 78 or higher were randomly selected from six kindergarten classrooms and assigned to one of three treatment conditions: a) phoneme segmentation group; b) language activities group (control group I); and c) no intervention (control group II). The phoneme segmentation group received seven weeks of instruction in segmentation and in letter names and sounds. Also for seven weeks, the language activities group received the identical instruction in letter names and sounds and additional language activities. Prior to the intervention, the three groups did not differ in age, sex, race, PPVT-R phoneme segmentation, letter name and letter sound knowledge, or reading ability. After the intervention, the phoneme segmentation group outperformed both control groups on phoneme segmentation and reading measures. This study provides additional strong support for including phoneme segmentation training in the kindergarten curriculum. Clinical suggestions for teachers are included. This project was supported in part by USDE grant # G008630421 and a Syracuse University Senate Research Grant.     

Revisiting the home literacy model of reading development in an orthographically consistent language

We examined the applicability of the Home Literacy Model in an orthographically transparent language (Greek). Seventy Greek children were followed from kindergarten until grade 4. In kindergarten they were tested in non-verbal intelligence, vocabulary, phonological sensitivity, rapid naming, and letter knowledge. The parents of the children also responded on a questionnaire regarding the frequency of storybook reading, the number of books at home, and the frequency of teaching letter names, sounds, and words. Reading fluency and comprehension were measured in grade 4. The results indicated that the early home literacy experience variables were related to the emergent literacy skills but did not directly predict future reading skills. Thus, the Home Literacy Model applies to consistent orthographies before any formal reading instruction takes place.     

Latent profile analysis of students’ reading development and the relation of cognitive variables to reading profiles

Previous studies have showed that early problems with word decoding can lead to poor performance in text reading and comprehension and suggest that poor readers often struggle with reading deficits throughout their school years. Therefore, early detection of those children who are at risk for slow reading development and/or who belong to the lowest reading profiles is essential in order to organize proper support. The present study explores the heterogeneity and prevalence of latent reading profiles among 769 Finnish- and German-reading students during their first and second school years in three countries (Finland, Germany, and Italy) using latent profile analysis. The results identified three latent profiles among Finnish readers, one of which (sentence-level reading) was identified as developing slowly. Among German-reading students, four latent profiles were discovered, two of which were identified as developing slowly. The results of ordinal logistic regression modeling show that rapid automatic naming (RAN) was significantly related to poorer reading profiles among Finnish- and German-reading students, and that the poorer results in letter-sound connection testing among the German-reading group was also significantly related to poorer reading profiles. Although the educational systems have some differences between Germany and German-speaking areas of Italy, no significant country effect was detected. In addition, a child’s age and spoken language did not significantly affect the student’s reading profile.     

Understanding the relations between RAN letter subtest components and word reading in first-grade students

First-grade students (N = 221) were individually tested on a battery of cognitive and achievement measures of verbal fluency, visual attention, phonological awareness, orthographic recognition, rapid automatized naming (RAN) of letters and objects, and reading. All tests were subjected to postacquisition scoring, and all RAN measures were segregated into measures of articulation time, pause time, and consistency of the pause time. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that word reading was directly and significantly predicted by RAN letter naming and general RAN cognitive processing time of objects. Moreover, RAN letter reading constructs were significantly and directly predicted by the latent variables of phonological awareness, orthographic recognition, and general RAN object articulation and cognitive processing times. RAN letter naming constructs were also significantly and indirectly predicted by visual attention. The reading model was found to be consistent with a total mediation of the relation of phonological awareness and reading through RAN letter naming and supported the validity of the RAN letter naming subtest as a basic letter reading test. These findings supported the double-deficit hypothesis for letter reading. We suggest that phonological memory is a basic factor underlying general RAN cognitive processing time of objects and domain-specific information associated with phonemes and their graphic representations.     

Cognitive and language correlates of hyperlexia: evidence from children with autism spectrum disorders

Two studies were conducted to investigate the correlates of hyperlexia in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children with the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Study 1 involved 3 groups of school age children individually matched for word reading ability: 6 ASD hyperlexic children, 6 ASD non-hyperlexic children, and 6 typically developing children. Study 2 involved 2 ASD preschool hyperlexic boys, and a group of 21 typical children of similar word reading ability. In both studies, participants were administered several reading measures as well as measures of cognitive and linguistic abilities that have been associated with variations in typical and dyslexic reading, namely, vocabulary, phonological processes, and rapid naming. Results suggest that ASD hyperlexic reading differs from both typical and ASD non-hyperlexic reading. In particular, they suggest that hyperlexics learn to compute letter-sound relations implicitly, on the basis of statistical learning. Although the hyperlexic children could read nonwords as well as the typical and the ASD non-hyperlexic children, they performed significantly worse than these groups of children on a letter-sound knowledge task. They also performed relatively poorly on a phonological awareness task. It is suggested that hyperlexics’ indifference to language as a meaningful, communicative device may be the key to their exceptionally good and precocious development of word reading ability.