PREDICTING READING-ABILITY OVER THE LONG-TERM - THE CHANGING ROLES OFLETTER NAMING, PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AND ORTHOGRAPHIC PROCESSING

A cohort of 92 children was followed through sixth grade to investigat e the relationship of preschool skills and first grade phonological aw areness to reading and spelling. In particular, the focus was on the c hanging roles of letter naming, orthographic awareness, and phonologic al processing in prediction, as reading experience increased. Preschoo l letter naming was a consistently significant predictor of reading vo cabulary, reading comprehension, and spelling at each grade level, but the preschool orthographic task contributed most to reading comprehen sion and spelling at the higher grades. Conversely, the contribution o f the first grade phonemic awareness measures to reading skills droppe d sharply after third grade, although they continued to contribute to spelling prediction. When preschool precursors of phonological process ing were examined, letter naming was found to be a predictor of first and third grade phonemic awareness. Findings confirm the importance of letter naming as a predictor and of the role of phonemic awareness in early reading acquisition, but also highlight the contribution of ort hographic processing skills to later reading.