Eighty-one Korean children were tested once a year across Grades 4, 5, and 6 on Korean phonological and morphological awareness, speeded-naming, Hangul word recognition, Hangul spelling, and English word reading. With age, gender, and Korean vocabulary knowledge statistically controlled, both phonological awareness and speeded-naming were uniquely…

Family characteristics' links to literacy learning and their differences across macrosystems (economic and cultural contexts) were explored in multilevel analyses of the reading tests and questionnaire responses of 193,841 fifteen-year-olds across 41 countries. Students who had two parents, had higher family socioeconomic status (SES), were native…

This 1-year longitudinal study examined the extent to which morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and phonological awareness, along with speeded naming, uniquely explained word recognition, dictation (i.e., spelling), and reading comprehension among 171 young Hong Kong Chinese children. With age and vocabulary knowledge statistically…

Tasks of word reading in Chinese and English; nonverbal IQ; speeded naming; and units of syllable onset (a phoneme measure), syllable, and tone detection awareness were administered to 211 Hong Kong Chinese children ages 4 and 5. In separate regression equations, syllable awareness was equally associated with Chinese and English word recognition.…

In 43 countries, 199,097 fifteen-year-olds completed a reading comprehension test and a questionnaire. We analyzed the data using multilevel regressions of Rasch-estimated test scores to test the associations of gender and context on reading achievement among adolescents. In every country, girls outscored boys. Reading enjoyment mediated 42% of…

In two separate studies, 100 South Korean kindergartners and 100 second graders were administered tests of speed of processing and phonological-processing skills as well as a Korean Hangul reading test. Speed of processing tasks were significantly correlated with most of the reading-related tasks but not with Hangul reading itself. Across studies,…

Ninety Chinese children were tested once at age 4 and again 22 months later on phonological-processing and other reading skills. Chinese phonological-processing skills alone modestly predicted Chinese character recognition, and English letter-name knowledge uniquely predicted reading of both Chinese and English 2 years later. Furthermore,…