The effects of 2 preschool-based shared-reading interventions were evaluated with 95 children, ages 2- to 5-years, from low-income families. Language skills of the children were below age-level as measured by standardized tests. Children were pretested and randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: (a) no-treatment control, (b) typical shared-reading condition, and (c) dialogic (interactive) shared-reading condition. For both intervention conditions, undergraduate volunteers read to children in small groups. Following the 6-week intervention, children were posttested on measures of oral language, listening comprehension, and phonological sensitivity. Both interventions produced positive effects. Results favoring dialogic reading were found on a measure of descriptive use of language, whereas results favoring typical shared-reading were found on measures of listening comprehension and alliteration detection.

We compared three phonological processing components (phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and phonological memory), verbal working memory, and attention control in terms of how well they predict the various aspects of reading: word recognition, pseudoword decoding, fluency and comprehension, in a mixed sample of 182 children ages 8–12 years. Participants displayed a wide range of reading ability and attention control. Multiple regression was used to determine how well the phonological processing components, verbal working memory, and attention control predict reading performance. All equations were highly significant. Phonological memory predicted word identification and decoding. In addition, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming predicted every aspect of reading assessed, supporting the notion that phonological processing is a core contributor to reading ability. Nonetheless, phonological processing was not the only predictor of reading performance. Verbal working memory predicted fluency, decoding and comprehension, and attention control predicted fluency. Based upon our results, when using Baddeley’s model of working memory it appears that the phonological loop contributes to basic reading ability, whereas the central executive contributes to fluency and comprehension, along with decoding. Attention control was of interest as some children with ADHD have poor reading ability even if it is not sufficiently impaired to warrant diagnosis. Our finding that attention control predicts reading fluency is consistent with prior research which showed sustained attention plays a role in fluency. Taken together, our results suggest that reading is a highly complex skill that entails more than phonological processing to perform well.

Whether visual processing deficits are common in reading disorders (RD), and related to reading ability in general, has been debated for decades. The type of visual processing affected also is debated, although visual discrimination and short-term memory (STM) may be more commonly related to reading ability. Reading disorders are frequently comorbid with ADHD, and children with ADHD often have subclinical reading problems. Hence, children with ADHD were used as a comparison group in this study. ADHD and RD may be dissociated in terms of visual processing. Whereas RD may be associated with deficits in visual discrimination and STM for order, ADHD is associated with deficits in visual-spatial processing. Thus, we hypothesized that children with RD would perform worse than controls and children with ADHD only on a measure of visual discrimination and a measure of visual STM that requires memory for order. We expected all groups would perform comparably on the measure of visual STM that does not require sequential processing. We found children with RD or ADHD were commensurate to controls on measures of visual discrimination and visual STM that do not require sequential processing. In contrast, both RD groups (RD, RD/ADHD) performed worse than controls on the measure of visual STM that requires memory for order, and children with comorbid RD/ADHD performed worse than those with ADHD. In addition, of the three visual measures, only sequential visual STM predicted reading ability. Hence, our findings suggest there is a deficit in visual sequential STM that is specific to RD and is related to basic reading ability. The source of this deficit is worthy of further research, but it may include both reduced memory for order and poorer verbal mediation.

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