P. Cormier et S. Dea, DISTINCTIVE PATTERNS OF RELATIONSHIP OF PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AND WORKING-MEMORY WITH READING DEVELOPMENT, Reading & writing, 9(3), 1997, pp. 193-206
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.