The prediction of syllable awareness, character reading ability, and rapid automatized naming on phoneme awareness: Evidence from a longitudinal Cross-lagged model

Abstract

Background

Phonological awareness is a crucial factor for the development of reading ability. Yet, a comprehensive understanding of the impact factors of phonological awareness in early age is still a challenge.

Method

A total of 127 young Chinese children were tracked two times. The dynamic phoneme deletion task, syllable deletion task, character recognition task, and rapid automatized object naming task were used to measure phoneme awareness (PA), syllable awareness (SA), character reading (CR), and rapid automatized naming (RAN), respectively. Cross-lagged panel model was used to examine the longitudinal and bidirectional relationship among these four reading skills.

Results

Children’s performance improved on all four tasks across the two points. Both of CR and RAN had low to moderate correlations with phonological awareness at both time points. Cross-lagged panel model results showed that: 1) SA, CR, and RAN at T1 significantly predicted PA at T2, but PA at T1 did not predict other reading-related skills at T2; 2) CR at T1 positively predicted SA at T2.

Conclusions

SA, CR and RAN at earlier time are important predicting factors of the development of PA. Larger phonological awareness units (syllable) not only precede but also impact the development of smaller units (phoneme). CR can enhance phonological awareness at both larger (syllable) and smaller (phoneme) units.