Predictors of reading development in at-risk kindergarten children

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether phonological and cognitive tasks predict reading acquisition in a group of at-risk kindergarten children. Planning, attention, simultaneous processing, successive processing and phonological coding tasks were administered to 90 kindergarten children identified by their teachers as being at risk for early reading problems. Two reading tasks were administered a year later in grade 1. Results showed that three 'systems' - phonological, successive, and simultaneous - together distinguished between those children who were diagnosed as nonreaders or poor readers and those who were not. The risk of remaining a nonreader, in turn, was predicted by an extremely poor level of performance on two successive and two phonological tasks. Ramifications of the results for both early diagnosis and intervention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)