Children's ability to correctly name letters is a key predictor of later reading abilities and skills, but research on letter naming from Scandinavian orthographies is scarce. The aim of this study is to explore how child- and letter-related factors (i.e., gender, child name, phonemic awareness, letter position in the alphabet and frequency, and…

Background: Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children may experience difficulties in word decoding development. Aims: We aimed to compare and predict the incremental word decoding development in first grade in Dutch DHH and hearing children, as a function of kindergarten reading precursors. Methods and procedures: In this study, 25 DHH, and 41…

Background: Rapid automatised naming (RAN) has been found to predict children's reading and arithmetic abilities. However, the underlying mechanisms for its involvement in the two abilities are not clear. This study examines how RAN shared variances with domain-general and domain-specific abilities in predicting reading and arithmetic in Chinese…

We examined the cognitive, language, and instructional factors associated with reading ability in Williams syndrome (WS). Seventy 9-year-olds with WS completed standardized measures of real-word reading, pseudoword decoding, reading comprehension, phonological skills, listening comprehension, nonverbal reasoning, visual-spatial ability, verbal…

This study examined cognitive precursors of hierarchical mathematical development. Six-year-old children (n = 258) were assessed on number skills, cognitive skills, and arithmetic 1 year prior to school entry. Skills in advanced arithmetic and advanced mathematics were assessed in Grades 3 and 6, respectively. Path analyses were computed and…

Children from families whose members have reading impairments are found to be poorer performers, take less advantage of instruction, and require more time to reach the reading level of children whose relatives are good readers. As a family's reading history may not be available, a self-report of reading abilities is used to identify children's…

Naming speed (NS) refers to how quickly and accurately participants name a set of familiar stimuli (e.g., letters). NS is an established predictor of reading ability, but controversy remains over why it is related to reading. We used three techniques (stimulus manipulations to emphasize phonological and/or visual aspects, decomposition of NS times…

The purpose of this study was to contrast three models of the RAN-reading relationship derived from the most prominent theoretical accounts of how RAN is related to reading: the phonological processing, the orthographic processing and the speed of processing accounts. Grade 4 Greek-speaking children (n = 208; 114 girls, 94 boys; mean…

Deficits in rapid automatized naming (RAN) have been found to be a sensitive cognitive marker for children with dyslexia. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding the construct validity and theoretical neuro-cognitive processes involved in RAN. Additionally, most studies investigating RAN include a narrow range of cognitive measures. The…

Background: Few investigations have examined the relationship between a comprehensive range of executive functioning (EF) abilities and reading. Aims: Our investigation identified components of EF that independently predicted single word reading, and determined whether their predictive role remained when additional variables were included in the…

Cognitive processes underlying a behavioural outcome (like reading ability) and the impact of familial risk (e.g., for dyslexia) have been studied in isolation. We present a novel design, linking the two avenues. How do familial influences impact on children's cognitive skills, which subsequently underlie reading development? Participants from the…

Although phonemic awareness is a well-known factor predicting early reading development, there is also evidence that Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is an independent factor that contributes to early reading. The aim of this study is to examine phonemic awareness and RAN as predictors of reading speed, reading comprehension and spelling for…

This study examined whether counting and rapid automatized naming (RAN) could operate as significant predictors of both later arithmetic calculation and reading fluency. The authors also took an important step to clarify the cognitive mechanisms underlying these predictive relationships by controlling for the effect of phonological awareness and…

The present study explored whether different executive control and speed measures (working memory, inhibition, processing speed, and naming speed) independently predict individual differences in word reading and reading comprehension. Although previous studies suggest these cognitive constructs are important for reading, the authors analyze the…

In this study word reading (WR) fluency was used to dichotomously classify 1,598 Dutch children at different cutoffs, indicating (very) poor or (very) good reading performance. Analysis of variance and receiver operating characteristics were used to investigate the effects of rapid automatized naming (RAN) and phonemic awareness (PA) in predicting…