A longitudinal research study found that letter-sound knowledge, phoneme awareness, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) are important predictors of variations in reading development over letter-sound integration.
A study by Clayton et. al., (2019) sampled 191 students in Greater London in their first year of school to examine the predictive relationship between various phonological language skills and the early development of reading. Additionally, the study investigated the theory that a failure to understand automatic associations between letters and speech sounds is a causal factor in difficulties in learning how to read. To test these theories, the participants completed an experimental task that measured automatic letter-sound integration as well as a range of measures assessing early language and reading skills. The study’s results show that automatic letter-sound associations are established early but do not demonstrate predictions in the development of reading skills. However, the results indicate that phoneme awareness, RAN, and letter-sound knowledge were strong predictive factors in reading development. Additionally, the findings show that the growth of reading skills predicted improvement in phoneme awareness and RAN skills. Overall, the study suggests a relationship between different phonological processing skills and the development of early reading skills.
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