Phonological awareness and literacy acquisition in Japanese: II. Prediction of reading ability in early school ages from preschool phonological awareness
2Teaching Japanese as a Second Language Program, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Japan
3Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Prediction of reading ability in school ages is essential for early identification and intervention of developmental dyslexia. Previous studies have successfully predicted school-age reading accuracy based on phonological awareness (PA) during preschool years, However, little is known about the link between school-age reading speed and preschool PA. As the second of the present study, we aimed to examine this issue in a large cohort of Japanese children. 599 first graders (G1, 297 boys, mean 80.7±3.5 months) and 501 second graders (G2, 257 boys, mean 92.7±3.5 months) completed PA and letter knowledge (LK) tasks in their preschool years (mean 68.7±4.6 months), and a standardized test of oral reading fluency in Hiragana at G1/G2. The preschool PA task consist of 3-mora segmentation, final- and medial-mora isolation, and the preschool LK was indexed by the number of hiragana they could have read. As a result, preschool PA was a significant predictor of oral reading speed in both first and second graders (G1 beta = 0.78, G2 beta = 0.80, both ps < .002 in binomial logistic regression). In addition, prediction models with preschool PA and LK showed better fit compared to models with PA or LK alone (ps < .001 in likelihood ratio tests), and correct prediction rates were 70.8% (G1) and 76.1% (G2) with respect to deficient or normal reading speed. The significant contribution of preschool PA in predicting school-age reading speed is in contrast with previous findings that showed reduced role of PA in early stages of Japanese reading acquisition compared to English (Wydell, 2023). PA may be associated with reading speed more strongly compared to reading accuracy in Japanese. Highly transparent nature of Japanese Hiragana script may require rapid phonological processing along with fluent reading, and it is possible that the preschool PA serves as its critical foundation.
Wydell, T.N. (2023). Are phonological skills as crucial for literacy acquisition in Japanese as in English as well as in accounting for developmental dyslexia in English and in Japanese?. Journal of Cultural and Cognitive Science, 7, 175-196.