The Contribution of RAN Pause Time and Articulation Time to Reading Across Languages: Evidence From a More Representative Sample of Children

We examined the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) components—articulation time and pause time—and reading fluency across languages varying in orthographic consistency. Three hundred forty-seven Grade 4 children (82 Chinese-speaking Taiwanese children, 90 English-speaking Canadian children, 90 Greek-speaking Cypriot children, and 85 Finnish-speaking children) were assessed on RAN (colors and digits) and reading fluency (word reading efficiency and text reading speed). The results showed that articulation time accounted for more unique variance in reading in the alphabetic orthographies than in Chinese, and pause time for more unique variance in reading in Chinese than in alphabetic orthographies. If automaticity in RAN is manifested with a higher contribution of articulation time to reading fluency than pause time and with a strong relationship between articulation time and pause time, then our findings suggest that automaticity in RAN is reached earlier in alphabetic orthographies than in Chinese.     

Different RAN components relate to reading at different points in time

The present 10-year longitudinal study examined how rapid automatized naming (RAN) components—articulation time and pause time—relate to reading fluency. Seventy-five Greek-speaking children were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 10 and were assessed five times (in Grades 1, 2, 4, 6, and 10) on RAN (digits and objects) and reading fluency (word reading efficiency, phonemic decoding efficiency, and text reading fluency). The results indicated first that a substantial amount of variance in reading fluency was accounted for by what articulation time and pause time shared. In addition, the unique contribution of pause time to reading fluency decreased across time and the unique contribution of articulation time increased across time. Viewed in conjunction with the developmental changes in the RAN components, our findings suggest that the RAN tasks are processed and executed in different ways across time.