Richard K. Wagner

The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills.

Three bodies of research that have developed in relative isolation center on each of three kinds of phonological processing: phonological awareness, awareness of the sound structure of language; phonological receding in lexical access, receding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to get from the written word to its lexical referent; and phonetic receding in working memory, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to maintain them efficiently in working memory. In this review we integrate these bodies of research and address the interdependent issues of the nature of phonological abilities and their causal roles in the acquisition of reading skills. Phonological ability seems to be general across tasks that purport to measure the three kinds of phonological processing, and this generality apparently is independent of general cognitive ability. However, the generality of phonological ability is not complete, and there is an empirical basis for distinguishing phonological awareness and phonetic recoding in working memory. Our review supports a causal role for phonological awareness in learning to read, and suggests the possibility of similar causal roles for phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic recoding in working memory. Most researchers have neglected the probable causal role of learning to read in the development of phonological skills. It is no longer enough to ask whether phonological skills play a causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. The question now is which aspects of phonological processing (e.g., awareness, recoding in lexical access, recoding in working memory) are causally related to which aspects of reading (e.g., word recognition, word analysis, sentence comprehension), at which point in their codevelopment, and what are the directions of these causal relations?

Development of Reading-Related Phonological Processing Abilities: New Evidence of Bidirectional Causality from a Latent Variable Longitudinal Study.

Results from a longitudinal correlational study of 244 children from kindergarten through 2nd grade indicate that young childrens phonological processing abilities are well-described by 5 correlated latent abilities: phonological analysis, phonological synthesis, phonological coding in working memory, isolated naming, and serial naming. These abilities are characterized by different developmental rates and remarkably stable individual differences. Decoding did not exert a causal influence on subsequent phonological processing abilities, but letter-name knowledge did. Causal relations between phonological processing abilities and reading-related knowledge are bidirectional: Phonological processing abilities exert strong causal influences on word decoding; letter-name knowledge exerts a more modest causal influence on subsequent phonological processing abilities. In the context of beginning reading, phonological processing refers to making use of the phonological or sound structure of oral language when learning how to decode written language (see Adams, 1990; Brady & Shankweiler, 1991; Crowder &

Changing Relations Between Phonological Processing Abilities and Word-Level Reading as Children Develop From Beginning to Skilled Readers: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study

Relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading skills were examined in a longitudinal correlational study of 216 children. Phonological processing abilities, word-level reading skills, and vocabulary were assessed annually from kindergarten through 4th grade, as the children developed from beginning to skilled readers. Individual differences in phonological awareness were related to subsequent individual differences in word-level reading for every time period examined. Individual differences in serial naming and vocabulary were related to subsequent individual differences in word-level reading initially, but these relations faded with development. Individual differences in letter-name knowledge were related to subsequent individual differences in phonological awareness and serial naming, but there were no relations between individual differences in word-level reading and any subsequent phonological processing ability.

Intensive Remedial Instruction for Children with Severe Reading Disabilities: Immediate and Long-term Outcomes From Two Instructional Approaches

Sixty children with severe reading disabilities were randomly assigned to two instructional programs that incorporated principles of effective instruction but differed in depth and extent of instruction in phonemic awareness and phonemic decoding skills. All children received 67.5 hours of one-to-one instruction in two 50-minute sessions per day for 8 weeks. Both instructional programs produced very large improvements in generalized reading skills that were stable over a 2-year follow-up period. When compared to the growth in broad reading ability that the participants made during their previous 16 months in learning disabilities resource rooms, their growth during the intervention produced effect sizes of 4.4 for one of the interventions and 3.9 for the other. Although the childrens average scores on reading accuracy and comprehension were in the average range at the end of the follow-up period, measures of reading rate showed continued severe impairment for most of the children. Within 1 year following the intervention, 40% of the children were found to be no longer in need of special education services. The two methods of instruction were not differentially effective for children who entered the study with different levels of phonological ability, and the best overall predictors of long-term growth were resource room teacher ratings of attention/behavior, general verbal ability, and prior levels of component reading skills.

Longitudinal Studies of Phonological Processing and Reading

O ne of the most exciting developments in research on reading over the last two decades is the emerging consensus about the importance of phonological processing abilities in the acquisition of early reading skills (Shankweiler & Liberman, 1989; Stanovich, 1988; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). As the term is used by those who study early reading development, phonological processing refers to an individuals mental operations that make use of the phonological or sound structure of oral language when he or she is learning how to decode written language. The last 20 years of research have produced a broad variety of converging evidence that at least three kinds of phonological processing skills are positively related to individual differences in the rate at which beginning reading skills are acquired (see Adams, 1990; Brady & Shankweiler, 1991; Crowder & Wagner, 1991; and Torgesen, 1993, for recent reviews of this work). The kinds of phonological processing skills and knowledge that have been most frequently studied include phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rate of access for phonological information. Types of Reading-Related Phonological Skill

Preventing reading failure in young children with phonological processing disabilities : Group and individual responses to instruction

The relative effectiveness of 3 instructional approaches for the prevention of reading disabilities in young children with weak phonological skills was examined. Two programs varying in the intensity of instruction in phonemic decoding were contrasted with each other and with a 3rd approach that supported the childrens regular classroom reading program. The children were provided with 88 hr of one-to-one instruction beginning the second semester of kindergarten and extending through 2nd grade. The most phonemically explicit condition produced the strongest growth in word level reading skills, but there were no differences between groups in reading comprehension. Word level skills of children in the strongest group were in the middle of the average range. Growth curve analyses showed that beginning phonological skills, home background, and ratings of classroom behavior all predicted unique variance in growth of word level skills.

Practical intelligence in real-world pursuits: The role of tacit knowledge.

We carried out three experiments to examine the role of tacit knowledge (knowledge that usually is not openly expressed or taught) in intellectual competence in real-world pursuits. In Experiment 1, subjects were divided into three groups, whose 187 members differed in amounts of experience and formal training in academic psychology. Differences in tacit knowledge useful for managing oneself, others, and ones career were related to criterion measures of performance for both academic psychologists and psychology graduate students. In Experiment 2, the subjects were 127 individuals differing in amounts of experience and formal training in business management. Differences in tacit knowledge were related to criterion measures of performance for business managers. In Experiment 3, the results of the second experiment were cross-validated on a group of 29 bank managers for whom detailed performance evaluation information was available. Again, tacit knowledge differences were related to criterion measures of job performance. Tacit knowledge was not related to verbal intelligence as measured by a standard verbal reasoning test. We conclude that a comprehensive theory of practical intelligence in real-world pursuits will encompass general aptitudes, formal knowledge, and tacit knowledge that is used in managing oneself, others, and ones career. Consider two observations. First, with surprising frequency, individuals with histories of distinguished performance in formal schooling are only moderately successful in their occupations, and conversely, individuals who are highly successful in their occupations have unremarkable academic records. Second, many professionals report that much, if not most, of the learning that matters to their careers took place after completion of their formal training. Comparing the relations between performance on IQ tests, on the one hand, and performance in schooling and in real-world pursuits, on the other, suggests there may be more than a hint of truth in these observations. Whereas IQ test scores are moderately correlated (.4-.7) with various measures of

Morphological Awareness Uniquely Predicts Young Children's Chinese Character Recognition

Two unique measures of morphological awareness, along with other reading-related tasks, were orally administered to 100 kindergarten and 100 2nd-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. These morphological awareness tasks were developed on the basis of 2 special properties of Chinese: (a) the relatively large number of homophones requires speakers to distinguish unique meanings in syllables with identical sounds, and (b) complex vocabulary words are often built from 2 or more previously learned morphemes. Both tasks of morphological awareness predicted unique variance in Chinese character recognition in these children, after controlling for age, phonological awareness, speeded naming, speed of processing, and vocabulary. Developmentally, both tasks of morphological awareness improved with age. Results demonstrate that morphological awareness is uniquely important for early Chinese character recognition.

Relationships Between Word Knowledge and Reading Comprehension in Third-Grade Children

The relationship between word knowledge and reading comprehension has been well documented in research; however, the nature of this relationship remains unclear. Researchers usually distinguish between 2 aspects of an individuals word knowledge: breadth and depth. In addition to these 2 factors, it may be important to also consider fluency in the study of word knowledge. Two hundred and three 3rd-grade students took part in a study that examined the relationships between 3 dimensions of word knowledge and reading comprehension. Confirmatory factor analyses, structural equation modeling, and hierarchical regression analyses show that a 2-factor model of breadth and depth/fluency provides the best fit to the data. Breadth has a stronger relationship to reading comprehension than does depth/fluency; however, the 2 dimensions of word knowledge have significant overlapping variance that contributes to the prediction of reading comprehension.

The role of morphological awareness in children's vocabulary acquisition in English

Tasks of speeded naming, phonological awareness, word identification, nonsense word repetition, and vocabulary, along with two measures of morphological awareness (morphological structure awareness and morpheme identification), were administered to 115 kindergartners and 105 second graders. In the combined sample, 48% of the variance in vocabulary knowledge was predicted by the phonological processing and reading variables. Morphological structure awareness and morpheme identification together predicted an additional unique 10% of variance in vocabulary knowledge, for a total of 58% of the variance explained; both measures of morphological awareness were uniquely associated with vocabulary knowledge. Results underscore the potential importance of different facets of morphological awareness, as distinct from phonological processing skills, for understanding variability in early vocabulary acquisition.