The Foundations of Literacy Development in Children at Familial Risk of Dyslexia

The development of reading skills is underpinned by oral language abilities: Phonological skills appear to have a causal influence on the development of early word-level literacy skills, and reading-comprehension ability depends, in addition to word-level literacy skills, on broader (semantic and sy...

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Published inPsychological science Vol. 26; no. 12; pp. 1877 - 1886
Main Authors Hulme, Charles, Nash, Hannah M., Gooch, Debbie, Lervåg, Arne, Snowling, Margaret J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2015
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Child
Child, Preschool
Children & youth
Comprehension
Dyslexia
Dyslexia - psychology
Familial factors
Female
Humans
Language
Language proficiency
Language Tests
Literacy
Literacy - standards
Literacy skills
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Phonetics
Preschool children
Prospective Studies
Reading
Reading comprehension
Risk Factors
Semantics
United Kingdom
reading development
reading comprehension
language impairment
language skills
phonological skills
familial risk
dyslexia
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Summary:The development of reading skills is underpinned by oral language abilities: Phonological skills appear to have a causal influence on the development of early word-level literacy skills, and reading-comprehension ability depends, in addition to word-level literacy skills, on broader (semantic and syntactic) language skills. Here, we report a longitudinal study of children at familial risk of dyslexia, children with preschool language difficulties, and typically developing control children. Preschool measures of oral language predicted phoneme awareness and grapheme-phoneme knowledge just before school entry, which in turn predicted word-level literacy skills shortly after school entry. Reading comprehension at 8½ years was predicted by word-level literacy skills at 5½ years and by language skills at 3½ years. These patterns of predictive relationships were similar in both typically developing children and those at risk of literacy difficulties. Our findings underline the importance of oral language skills for the development of both word-level literacy and reading comprehension.
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Author Contributions: M. J. Snowling and C. Hulme developed the study concept. H. M. Nash and D. Gooch developed tasks and oversaw data collection. A. Lervåg and C. Hulme performed the data analysis and modeling. M. J. Snowling, C. Hulme, and A. Lervåg drafted the manuscript. C. Hulme provided critical revisions to the overall manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797615603702