BIDIRECTIONAL RELATIONS OF PHONOLOGICAL SENSITIVITY AND PREREADING ABILITIES - EVIDENCE FROM A PRESCHOOL SAMPLE

Children's phonological sensitivity is a strong predictor of the devel opment of reading skills. Recent evidence indicates that phonological sensitivity and reading are reciprocally related. That is, phonologica l sensitivity facilitates the development of early reading and early r eading facilitates the development of phonological sensitivity. Wherea s evidence for this reciprocal relation has come from studies with sch ool-age children, this study examined the relation between phonologica l sensitivity and letter knowledge in 97 middle-income 4- and 5-year-o ld children in a I-year longitudinal study. Multiple regression analys es revealed that phonological sensitivity predicted growth in letter k nowledge, and letter knowledge predicted growth in phonological sensit ivity when controlling for children's age and oral language abilities. These results indicate that the reciprocal relation between reading a nd phonological sensitivity is present relatively early in the develop ment of literacy skills, prior to the onset of formal reading instruct ion, (C) 1998 Academic Press.