Evidence for Common Etiological Influences on Early Literacy Skills in Kindergarten

Understanding how the etiology of print awareness and phonological awareness are related to the etiology of decoding can provide insights into the development of word reading. To address this issue, we examined the degree of overlap among etiological influences of prereading skills in 1,252 twin pairs in kindergarten. Genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental factors were significant for all three literacy phenotypes. The majority of genetic and shared environmental influence on decoding was due to common factors that included print awareness and phonological awareness. Notably, only a single genetic factor contributed to all three literacy phenotypes, but there was additional shared environmental influence common to phonological awareness and decoding. Findings suggest commonalities in the etiology of prereading literacy skills that could inform work on the development of reading skill.     

Examining the effects of home literacy and numeracy environment on early reading and math acquisition

The present study examined how the home literacy and numeracy environment in kindergarten influences reading and math acquisition in grade 1. Eighty-two Greek children from mainly middle socioeconomic backgrounds were followed from kindergarten to grade 1 and were assessed on measures of nonverbal intelligence, emergent literacy skills, early math concepts, verbal counting, reading, and math fluency. The parents of the children also responded to a questionnaire regarding the frequency of home literacy and numeracy activities. The results of path analyses indicated that parents’ teaching of literacy skills predicted reading fluency through the effects of letter knowledge and phonological awareness. Storybook exposure predicted reading fluency through the effects of vocabulary on phonological awareness. Finally, parents’ teaching of numeracy skills predicted math fluency through the effects of verbal counting. These findings suggest that both the home literacy and the home numeracy environments are important for early reading and math acquisition, but their effects are mediated by emergent literacy and numeracy skills.     

Literacy ability and phonological processing skills amongst dyslexic and non-dyslexic speakers of Arabic

This paper investigates the relationship between phonological processing and reading ability amongst grade 4 and grade 5 Arabic speaking children in Egypt. In addition to measuring reading level, the study assessed the children’s ability to identify rhymes, delete individual phonemes from words, retain and manipulate sequences of digit names and rapidly access verbal labels. Further literacy and literacy-related tasks required children to decode novel letter strings, to distinguish similar words, to identify words within letter chains and to correctly spell dictated text. A non-verbal ability measure was also included to allow comparisons to be made between a group of poor readers with good non-verbal skills (dyslexics) with a control group of chronological-age-matched normal readers with equivalent average scores on the non-verbal task. Results indicated relationships between literacy ability, decoding and phonological processing within this cohort, as well as identifying differences between dyslexic and control groups that suggest Arabic dyslexics show signs of poor phonological skills. The study supports the view that Arabic dyslexic children have impairments in the phonological processing domain.     

Literacy skills in children with cochlear implants: the importance of early oral language and joint storybook reading

The goal of this study was to longitudinally examine relationships between early factors (child and mother) that may influence children's phonological awareness and reading skills 3 years later in a group of young children with cochlear implants (N = 16). Mothers and children were videotaped during two storybook interactions, and children's oral language skills were assessed using the "Reynell Developmental Language Scales, third edition." Three years later, phonological awareness, reading skills, and language skills were assessed using the "Phonological Awareness Test," the "Woodcock-Johnson-III Diagnostic Reading Battery," and the "Oral Written Language Scales." Variables included in the data analyses were child (age, age at implant, and language skills) and mother factors (facilitative language techniques) and children's phonological awareness and reading standard scores. Results indicate that children's early expressive oral language skills and mothers' use of a higher level facilitative language technique (open-ended question) during storybook reading, although related, each contributed uniquely to children's literacy skills. Individual analyses revealed that the children with expressive standard scores below 70 at Time 1 also performed below average (<85) on phonological awareness and total reading tasks 3 years later. Guidelines for professionals are provided to support literacy skills in young children with cochlear implants.     

Phonological processing and early literacy

Phonological awareness and phonological memory have been cited separately as two cognitive skills thought to underpin literacy. Few studies, however, have investigated the relationship between these two skills and their relative contribution to early reading and spelling. The aims of this longitudinal study were to evaluate the developmental relationship between these two phonological processing skills and to consider their relative contributions to early literacy. This paper reports results from the first 12 months of the study, which monitored 80 preliterate children during their first year of formal schooling. The findings discussed here suggest that phonological awareness and phonological memory both make significant yet distinctive contributions to early literacy: while early phonological awareness may predict subsequent single‐word reading, early phonological memory appears to play an important part in the development of the decoding strategies needed for later reading. Evidence that a qualitative change in phonological memory takes place during the first year of formal schooling confirms earlier claims that a phonological strategy for spelling may develop before a similar strategy for reading (Frith, 1985; Huxford, 1993).     

Investigating morphological awareness and the processing of transparent and opaque words in adults with low literacy skills and in skilled readers

For adults with low literacy skills, the role of phonology in reading has been fairly well researched, but less is known about the role of morphology in reading. We investigated the contribution of morphological awareness to word reading and reading comprehension and found that for adults with low literacy skills and skilled readers, morphological awareness explained unique variance in word reading and reading comprehension. In addition, we investigated the effects of orthographic and phonological opacity in morphological processing. Results indicated that adults with low literacy skills were more impaired than skilled readers on items containing phonological changes but were spared on items involving orthographic changes. These results are consistent with previous findings of adults with low literacy skills reliance on orthographic codes. Educational implications are discussed.     

The Home Literacy Environment Is a Correlate,but Perhaps Not a Cause,of Variations in Children’s Language and Literacy Development

The home literacy environment is a well-established predictor of children’s language and literacy development. We investigated whether formal, informal, and indirect measures of the home literacy environment predict children’s reading and language skills once maternal language abilities are taken into account. Data come from a longitudinal study of children at high risk of dyslexia (N = 251) followed from preschool years. Latent factors describing maternal language were significant predictors of storybook exposure but not of direct literacy instruction. Maternal language and phonological skills respectively predicted children’s language and reading/spelling skills. However, after accounting for variations in maternal language, storybook exposure was not a significant predictor of children’s outcomes. In contrast, direct literacy instruction remained a predictor of children’s reading/spelling skills. We argue that the relationship between early informal home literacy activities and children’s language and reading skills is largely accounted for by maternal skills and may reflect genetic influences.     

Beyond phonological skills: broader language skills contribute to the development of reading

This paper reports a study that followed the development of reading skills in 72 children from the age of 8.5 to 13 years. Each child was administered tests of reading, oral language, phonological skills and nonverbal ability at time 1 and their performance on tests of reading comprehension, word recognition, nonword decoding and exception word reading was assessed at time 2. In addition to phonological skills, three measures of non‐phonological oral language tapping vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension were unique concurrent predictors of both reading comprehension and word recognition at time 1. Importantly, all three measures of oral language skill also contributed unique variance to individual differences in reading comprehension, word recognition and exception word reading four and a half years later, even when the autoregressive effects of early reading skill were controlled. Moreover, the extent to which a child's word recognition departed from the level predicted from their decoding ability correlated with their oral language skills. These findings suggest that children's oral language proficiency, as well as their phonological skills, influences the course of reading development.     

The importance of phonological processing skills for older low‐progress readers

The important role of phonological awareness in learning to read has become widely accepted. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of phonological processing skills when attempting to assist older low‐progress readers to develop literacy skills. While researchers generally agree that the key variables in reading acquisition (letter sound knowledge and phonological awareness) influence a student’s ability to understand and implement the alphabetic principle, it is still unresolved, however, whether or not the absence of these variables is sufficient to categorise a student as dyslexic. Furthermore it is unclear as to whether or not the research on beginning reading practices should inform the development of instructional programs for older low‐progress readers. Despite a move away from traditional discrepancy criteria towards a more phonologically based definition of reading disability, the current researchers conclude that the adoption of a non‐categorical approach to reading disability is the most helpful for remediation practices for older low‐progress readers. This contrasts with the current pursuit of some researchers to diagnose a set of underlying causes through the development of phonological testing batteries. It is concluded that reading disability is best understood by a continuum model, where the difficulties in reading are influenced by two major causal factors; phonological ability and quality of literacy learning environment.     

Early cognitive and home environmental predictors of reading fluency and reading comprehension in Turkish-speaking children

In this study, we aimed to determine the early cognitive and home environmental predictors of reading in Turkish-speaking children. A total of 362 children participated in the study. We monitored the children for 3 years and assessed the home environmental variables and cognitive skills in kindergarten, reading fluency at the end of the first grade, and reading comprehension at the end of the second grade. We found that home literacy environment and socioeconomic status predicted early literacy skills in kindergarten as they also predicted reading fluency and reading comprehension through early literacy in later years. In addition, we found that phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid naming predicted reading fluency, while language and verbal working memory predicted reading comprehension. The results of the study showed us that it is important to consider reading and reading comprehension in Turkish-speaking children holistically, together with cognitive skills and home environmental variables.     

The effect of Braille orthography on blind children’s phonological awareness

Little is known about the phonological awareness and literacy skills of children who are blind. Fifteen 7–12 year old blind children were assessed on standardised measures of intelligence, spelling and reading. They performed poorer when reading than their chronological age would predict. Their phonological awareness skills were compared with a sighted group matched for chronological age (CA). The blind children performed poorer than the CA matched group. In a second experiment, the effect of Braille orthography on phonological awareness was investigated by comparing blind and CA matched children’s ability to segment heard words, which are written in Braille with and without contractions. Words with Braille contractions were less well segmented by the blind children. The results suggest that the nature of the orthography learned affects phonological awareness.     

Examining an Extended Home Literacy Model: The Mediating Roles of Emergent Literacy Skills and Reading Fluency

We examined the developmental relationships between home literacy environment (parent teaching, shared book reading) and emergent literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, rapid naming speed) in kindergarten, reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, and reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3 in a sample of Canadian children learning to read English (N = 214). Results from a latent variable model showed that parent teaching predicted letter knowledge and phonological awareness, and shared book reading predicted vocabulary and rapid naming speed after controlling for family socioeconomic status. Moreover, both parent teaching and shared book reading contributed indirectly to reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, which then mediated the effects of home literacy environment on reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3. The results suggest that the effects of home literacy environment on later reading development are distributed via more pathways than previously thought.     

The relationship between home literacy practices and developmental trajectories of emergent literacy and conventional literacy skills for Korean children

Previous studies with English-speaking families in the North American context demonstrated that home literacy practices have positive influences on children’s literacy acquisition. The present study expands previous studies by examining how home literacy practices are related to growth trajectories of emergent literacy skills (i.e., vocabulary, letter-name knowledge, and phonological awareness) and conventional literacy skills (i.e., word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling), and by using data from Korean children and families (N = 192). The study revealed two dimensions of home literacy practices, home reading and parent teaching. Frequent reading at home was positively associated with children’s emergent literacy skills as well as conventional literacy skills in Korean. However, children whose parents reported more frequent teaching tended to have low scores in their phonological awareness, vocabulary, word reading and pseudoword reading after accounting for home reading. These results suggest a bidirectional relationship between home literacy practices, parent teaching in particular, and children’s literacy skills such that parents adjust their teaching in response to their child’s literacy acquisition. Furthermore, cultural variation in views on parent teaching may explain these results.

Relations of emergent literacy skill development with conventional literacy skill development in Korean

The present study investigated relative contributions of initial status and growth rates of emergent literacy skills (i.e., phonological awareness, letter-name knowledge, vocabulary, and rapid serial naming) to initial status and growth rates of conventional literacy skills (i.e., word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling) for young Korean children. A total of 215 four-year-old children were followed for approximately 15 months. Results showed (1) consistent effects of letter-name knowledge, phonological awareness, and rapid serial naming on conventional literacy skills, and (2) the importance of children’s initial level in the emergent literacy skills for achieving conventional literacy skills. These results are discussed in light of characteristics of the Korean language and writing system.     

The foundation of literacy skills in Korean: the relationship between letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness and their relative contribution to literacy skills

This study examined the relative contribution of letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness to literacy skills and the relationship between letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness, using data from Korean-speaking preschoolers. The results revealed that although both letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness made unique contributions to literacy skills (i.e., word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling), letter-name knowledge played a more important role than phonological awareness in literacy acquisition in Korean. Letter-name knowledge explained appreciably greater amount of variance and had larger effect sizes in literacy skills. Furthermore, children with greater syllable, body (e.g., segmenting cat into ca-t), and phoneme awareness had higher levels of letter-name knowledge. In particular, children’s syllable awareness and body awareness were positively associated with their letter-name knowledge, even after controlling for children’s phoneme awareness. These results suggest that Korean children’s awareness of larger phonological units (i.e., syllable and body) in addition to phoneme awareness may mediate the relationship between letter-name knowledge and literacy acquisition in Korean, in contrast with previous findings in English that have demonstrated a positive relationship only between phoneme awareness and letter-name knowledge, and the hypothesis that phoneme awareness mediates the relationship between letter-name knowledge and literacy acquisition.     

Word reading and word spelling in French adult literacy students: the relationship with oral language skills

We analysed word reading and spelling in French adults with low levels of literacy (A‐IL). As well as examining phonological and lexical processes, we explored the relationship between literacy and oral language skills. Fifty‐two adult literacy students were compared with reading level‐matched pupils in Years 1–3 of primary school on reading tasks (pseudoword reading, word reading, text comprehension), spelling tasks (pseudoword spelling, text dictation) and oral language tasks. A‐IL scored the same as children on word reading and spelling but less well on pseudoword reading and spelling. They also produced fewer phonologically acceptable errors in the dictation. Regarding oral language skills, as a group A‐IL encountered greater difficulty in phonology than in morphosyntax and semantics, and correlations revealed strong relationships between literacy levels and oral skills, particularly in the domain of phonology. Within their group, however, A‐IL displayed several distinct language profiles. These could reflect different risk factors leading to functional illiteracy and are discussed regarding the cognitive and environmental causes of impaired reading acquisition.     

Predictors of Chinese reading and literacy skills among Chinese school children: a 3-year longitudinal study

Abstract

This study aims to identify the predictors of Chinese reading and literacy skills among Chinese school children in Taiwan. Participants recruited in the study were 182 Grade 1 elementary school students. First, data were collected on these students’ literacy skills, which comprised morphological awareness, orthography processing, visual perception skills, phonological awareness, and rapid automatised naming. In Grade 2, data were collected from these students on their word decoding skills, which comprised character recognition and reading fluency. Finally, in Grade 3, data were collected on the Chinese comprehension skills of the same students. A structural equation model examined the direct and indirect effects of students’ literacy skills at Grade 1 on their reading comprehension at Grade 3, with students’ word decoding at Grade 2 acting as a mediator. Results showed that reading comprehension of students at Grade 3 was predicted by their literacy skills at Grade 1.     

Phonological Analysis Skills, Verbal Working Memory, and Reading Ability in Second-Grade Children

This study tested the hypothesis that phonological analysis skills make a unique contribution to reading ability against the hypothesis that one latent phonological factor underlies the assocations among analysis skills, verbal working memory skills, and reading achievement. Hierachical multiple regression analyses examined the unique contributions of phonological analysis and verbal working memory measures to the prediction of 3 measures of concurrent reading ability in 68 second-grade children (mean age 7 years 4 months). Phonological analysis and verbal working memory measures each accounted for unique variation in each of the 3 reading measures. In addition, phonological analysis measures, but not verbal working memory measures, were particularly strong predictors of pseudoword reading skills. These results suggest that, although phonological analysis and verbal working memory skills share a substantial amount of common variance, phonological analysis and verbal working memory tasks do tap somewhat different reading-related skills.     

Predictors of word‐reading ability in 7‐year‐olds: analysis of data from a U.K. cohort study

Previous U.K. population‐based studies have found associations amongst early speech and language difficulties, socioeconomic disadvantage and children's word‐reading ability later on. We examine the strength of these associations in a recent U.K. population‐based birth cohort. Analyses were based on 13,680 participants. Linear regression models were fitted to identify factors that were associated with word‐reading score at the age of 7 years. Path analysis models were fitted to examine phonological skills as a mediator of the relationships. We found that male gender, preterm birth, naming vocabulary at age five, concerns about speech and language, maternal education, type of housing tenure, lone parenting, parent attachment and frequency of reading to the child were all independently associated with word reading. For each of these predictors, there was evidence suggesting that a substantial proportion of the effect may be mediated by phonological skills (ranging from 52 to 89%). Despite policy intervention, many of the same risk factors identified in previous studies still predict children's word‐reading ability in the United Kingdom. Results support the phonological model, with phonological skills on the pathway to word reading.

What is already known about this topic?

• A range of studies has implicated poor socioeconomic background and disadvantaged family circumstances as risks for children's poor word reading.
• Good early development of language skills is firmly established as a pathway to promoting reading ability.
• Not all poor readers show deficits in phonological skills, although such deficits correlate highly with reading difficulties.

What this paper adds

• This is an original analysis of factors in a recent cohort of U.K. children, using stratified sampling to be representative of the U.K. population as a whole.
• A range of child‐specific, family socioeconomic and family relationship factors were independently associated with word‐reading ability when children were age seven.
• For each of the predictors, there was evidence suggesting that a substantial proportion of the effect, if causal, may be mediated by phonological skills (ranging from 52 to 89%).

Implications for theory, policy or practice

• Despite policy intervention, many of the same risk factors identified in older studies still predict children's word‐reading ability in the United Kingdom.
• Results lend weight to the phonological model, where deficits in phonological skills are on the pathway to word reading.

     

The relationship between musical ability and literacy skills

Research has shown that a relationship exists between phonological awareness and literary skills. It has been suggested that a structured programme of musical activities can be used to help children develop a multi-sensory awareness and response to sounds. The relationship between musical ability and literacy skills was examined in a study that showed an association between rhythmic ability and reading. A further pilot intervention study showed that training in musical skills is a valuable additional strategy for assisting children with reading difficulties.