Kindergarten Phonological Awareness and Rapid Serial Naming as Predictors of Grade 2 Reading and Spelling

Abstract

While phonemic awareness and rapid serial naming are both considered forms of phonemic processing, each has been found to account for independent variance in reading, but the underlying processes utilized by rapid serial naming are not clear. These processes have been conceptualized as a form of phonological processing, as speed of processing orthographic units, and as sensitivity to arbitrary associations between phonology and orthography. This study looks at these models longitudinally with 86 children across grades K-2 using spellings of the -ed suffix in past tense verbs as a measure of orthographic conventions learned while scanning text during reading. Regression analysis results indicated that both phonological awareness and rapid serial in kindergarten made unique contributions to Grade 2 reading and spelling measures. Controlling for early word reading and vocabulary, these contributions were strongest for pseudo word accuracy in the case of phonological awareness, and to spelling of arbitrary orthographic conventions in the case of rapid serial naming, but both kindergarten measures made unique contributions to late word-reading rate.