PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AS PREDICTOR FOR R EADING AND SPELLING ABILITIES AFTER 2, 3 AND 4 YEARS OF READING-INSTRUCTION

Children's reading and spelling abilities were assessed at the end of grades two, three and four. It was found that phoneme substitution con tinued to predict differences in reading and spelling abilities in gra des two and three and partly in grade four. Furthermore, rhyme oddity detection was a substantial predictor for reading and spelling abiliti es in grades two and three. Phonological awareness is not only relevan t for the acquisition of an indirect reading and spelling strategy, bu t also for the development of an orthographic lexicon on which fast, d irect reading and orthographically correct spelling are based. Of spec ial interest is the difference in prediction between phoneme substitut ion and rhyme oddity detection. While differences in phoneme substitut ion predicted differences both in indirect and direct reading, rhyme o ddity detection was only predictive for direct reading. Raven-IQ, onse t oddity detection, nonword repetition and two visual tasks did not sh ow substantial relationships with reading and spelling.