In Denmark there is an ongoing trend towards a more ambitious literacy instruction in the first school year (Kindergarten). This calls for a clarification of present-day reading levels, and for a profile of the students who become readers while attending the semi-formal literacy program. The present study examined the extent to which a group of…

We examined the contribution of rapid automatized naming (RAN) components (articulation time, pause time, and pause time consistency) to reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling in a sample of 257 German children (139 boys, 118 girls; M[subscript age] = 5.60 years, SD = 0.31) followed from kindergarten to Grade 1. In kindergarten,…

The present study aimed to investigate early interrelationships between temperament, short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM), while also relating them to incipient anxious traits in a sample of 4-7-year-olds. Preschoolers were evaluated using verbal and visuospatial STM and WM tasks, while parental reports were used to assess children's…

The present longitudinal study aimed to investigate the development of word decoding skills during incremental phonics instruction in Dutch as a transparent orthography. A representative sample of 973 Dutch children in the first grade (M[subscript age] = 6;1, SD = 0;5) was exposed to incremental subsets of Dutch grapheme-phoneme correspondences…

We investigated the sustained effects of explicit versus implicit instruction on the breadth and depth of children's vocabularies, while taking their general vocabulary and verbal short-term memory into account. Two experimental groups with 12 and 15 kindergarten children respectively learned two sets of 17 words counterbalanced to be taught first…

We examined the relations of short-term memory (STM), metalinguistic awareness (phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness), and rapid automatized naming (RAN) to word reading in Korean, a language with a relatively transparent orthography. STM, metalinguistic awareness, and RAN have been shown to be important to word reading, but the…

Drawing on Geary's (1995) evolution-based model of cognitive and academic development, this study investigated the relation between biologically primary skills (vocabulary, executive functions, and visual-spatial processing) and subsequent word reading and calculation. It also examined the extent to which these relations were mediated by…

The effects of learning to sing with and without Curwen hand signs on singing accuracy in kindergarten-age children were compared. Participants comprised an experimental group (Curwen signs) and a control group (without signs), each containing 33 children aged 5 to 6 years. All participants took 30 music lessons centered on learning songs. The…

Research suggests that early identification of developmental dyslexia is important for mitigating the negative effects of dyslexia, including reduced educational attainment and increased socioemotional difficulties. The strongest pre-literacy predictors of dyslexia are rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness (PA), letter knowledge,…

The relationships between phonological awareness, rapid naming, short term verbal memory, letter knowledge, visual skills and word reading in kindergarten, and the predictive patterns from kindergarten to first grade were examined in 41 Chinese-Dutch bilingual children living in the Netherlands in both their first language (Chinese) and second…

This study investigated the unique contribution of orthographic awareness, letter knowledge, and patterning skills to early literacy and arithmetic competence. A total of 145 third-year kindergarten (K3) children (M[subscript age]: 73.43 months, SD = 5.36; 70 boys, 48%) from Hong Kong participated in this study. Children were assessed on their…

False memories are well established episodic memory phenomena. Recent research in young adults has shown that semantically related associates can be falsely remembered as studied items in working memory (WM) tasks for lists of only a few items when a short 4-second interval was given between study and test. The present study reported two…

Background: Word reading and linguistic comprehension skills are two crucial components in reading comprehension, according to the Simple View of Reading (SVR). Some researchers have posited that a third component should be involved in reading and understanding texts, namely executive function (EF) skills. Aim: This study was novel in two ways.…

Although rapid automatized naming (RAN) is one of the best predictors of reading across languages, its nature remains elusive. In the present study, we aim to elucidate the nature of RAN by examining the cognitive and environmental correlates of RAN. One hundred forty-one second-year kindergarten Chinese children (71 girls, 70 boys; mean age =…

This study investigated the relations of early working-memory abilities (phonological and visual-spatial short-term memory [STM] and complex memory and episodic buffer memory) and later developing reading skills. Sixty Hebrew-speaking children were followed from kindergarten through Grade 5. Working memory was tested in kindergarten and reading in…