WORKING-MEMORY SPAN AND PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS TASKS AS PREDICTORS OFEARLY READING-ABILITY

Relationships between complex memory span, simple memory span, phonolo gical awareness tasks, and beginning reading were investigated. Seven- year-olds were administered two complex span tasks, two simple span ta sks, and four phonological awareness tasks. Relationships between the tasks were assessed, as well as their predictive importance with regar d to reading accuracy, reading comprehension, and arithmetic. Correlat ions revealed that three of the four phonological awareness tasks were highly correlated with one another and with both of the complex span tasks. Regression analyses showed that the phonological awareness and reading-related complex span scores accounted for unique and shared po rtions of the variance in all three cognitive abilities, while the ari thmetic-related complex span scores only made a significant unique con tribution to the variance in arithmetic. Finally, simple memory span s cores only explained significant portions of the variance in any of th e cognitive abilities when entered first into the regression equations . The results suggested that phonological awareness and complex span t asks make a shared and a unique contribution to the variance in all th ree cognitive abilities, questioning Daneman and Carpenter's (1980, 19 83) domain-specific hypothesis. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.