Executive function and early reading skills

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how executive function skills in verbal and nonverbal auditory tasks are related to early reading skills in beginning readers. Kindergarteners (N = 41, aged 5 years) completed verbal (phonemes) and nonverbal (environmental sounds) Continuous Performance tasks yielding measures of executive function (misses, false alarms, and shift) as well as reaction time and D-Prime (sensitivity). Year-end measures of early reading skill included tests of phoneme awareness, letter knowledge, as well as reading (words and nonwords). The children made more errors on the verbal than the nonverbal tasks, suggesting that executive function abilities may differ by task. Adding to the literature on the role of inhibitory skills in reading, verbal inhibitory executive function skills were tied more closely to early reading than other verbal or nonverbal skills when age, short-term memory, and vocabulary were controlled.