DISTINCTIVE PATTERNS OF RELATIONSHIP OF PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AND WORKING-MEMORY WITH READING DEVELOPMENT

The purpose of this study was to assess the contributions of specific components of verbal and nonverbal working memory and of phonological awareness to the prediction of reading achievement. One hundred and th ree children from grades 1, 2, and 3 were administered a measure of ph onological awareness, four measures of working memory, four measures o f academic achievement, and a measure of verbal intelligence. Separate multiple regression analyses controlling for the effects of age, sex and verbal intelligence showed that tests of verbal memory and of dire ct recall significantly predicted reading and spelling achievement whe reas tests of backward recall significantly predicted only pseudoword identification. Phonological awareness was also found to relate signif icantly to reading and spelling achievement even when working memory w as partialled out. Thus, phonological awareness and measures of workin g memory predicted specific and significant amounts of variance in rea ding and spelling achievement. Further, none of these measures were sp ecifically related to arithmetic achievement. The specific roles of ph onological awareness and working memory in reading development are exa mined in the discussion.