Prosodic Skills and Reading Acquisition in Spanish Primary School Children: Analysis Using the PEPS-C Test.

Abstract

BACKGROUND Although previous studies have considered the relationship between prosody skills and the acquisition of reading skills, few have performed comprehensive, simultaneous assessments of different oral language prosody skills and, to our knowledge, none have been carried out in Spanish. Our study analyses the relationship between prosody and reading skills. METHOD Sixty-one second-grade Spanish schoolchildren participated in this study. Prosodic skills were assessed using the Spanish version of the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication battery, available in different languages. Reading comprehension, word/non-word reading skills, phonological awareness and vocabulary were also evaluated. RESULTS The results show that prosody was significantly related to word and non-word reading, but phonological awareness was the only significant predictor of these reading outcomes. Prosodic skills contribute to explaining reading comprehension even after controlling for the effect of vocabulary and phonological awareness. CONCLUSIONS The results highlight the role of prosodic skills in reading acquisition in Spanish. Comparison with previous studies in English-language populations demonstrates the existence of cross-linguistic differences.