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A Validation of the Role of Preschool Phonological and Orthographic Skills in the Prediction of Reading

Two cohorts of children were followed to determine whether tests of phonological awareness (Syllable Tapping), orthographic processing (Visual Matching), and serial naming speed (RAN Objects), added to a preschool battery, would improve prediction of reading. The major predictors of first-grade reading and spelling were preschool letter naming and sentence memory for both cohorts, but the orthographic and serial naming tasks added a small amount of additional variance. Sentence memory accounted for the most variance in second-grade reading for both cohorts, and Visual Matching made contributions to reading and spelling for each cohort. Sentence memory, Visual Matching, and color naming together yielded an 87% to 90% hit rate in predicting which individual children would be good or poor readers. The orthographic and serial naming speed tasks are useful additions to a preschool predictive battery, but recommendations are that alternative preschool phonological tasks, not based on syllable recognition, should be used to predict reading.