Precursors of Reading Performance and Double- and Triple-Deficit Risks in Spanish

Abstract

Early literacy skills serve as the best precursors of reading success and risk indicators of the double deficit and triple deficit hypotheses according to the spelling consistency of languages. Our study analyzes the predictive value of phonological awareness, naming speed, and orthographic skills for early reading in Spanish. Participants included 362 Spanish children aged 4 to 5 years. We used data analysis to examine the relationships between these precursors and fluency through a structural equation model and investigated the risk indicators of poor reading performance according to the double deficit and triple deficit hypotheses using binary logistic analysis. Our research delimits a model for the Spanish language that emphasizes the predictive value of phonological awareness, letter-naming fluency, and knowledge of graphemes in early reading. Letter-naming fluency is the best precursor to early reading experiences, and poor early reading performance in children is explained by deficits in phonological awareness, naming speed, and visual orientation. Our findings confirm the risk indicators of the triple deficit hypothesis in the early learning of reading in Spanish.

Vocabulary depth as preliteracy skill

“…Similarly, as might be expected, an interesting contribution of phonological awareness is observed (measured through two tasks, one of phoneme identification in initial and final position and the other of phoneme counting) to the explanation of reading and writing development, in line with other studies (Clayton et al, 2020;De la Calle et al, 2021;Hulme & Snowling, 2013). Moreover, this study also shows that phonemic awareness, measured through the phoneme identification task, is related to the reading performance of schoolchildren.…”

“…There is abundant evidence in the scientific literature which points to metalinguistic skills, and specifically phonological awareness, as the most powerful predictor of reading acquisition (Caravolas et al, 2012;Defior & Serrano, 2011;De la Calle et al, 2016;Kim y Pallante, 2012: Landerl et al, 2019Melby-Lervåg et al, 2012;Porta et al, 2021;Snowling & Melby-Lervåg, 2016;Suárez-Coalla et al, 2013). These skills come along with the ability to identify the name and sound of the different letters (Bravo-Valdivieso et al, 2001;Clayton et al, 2020;De la Calle et al, 2021;Ferroni et al, 2016;González et al, 2013;Jiménez et al, 2010;López-Escribano & Beltrán, 2009;Muter et al, 2004;Vellutino & Scanlon, 2002), all this contributing to a better acquisition and development of the alphabetic code, which is beneficial for reading and writing learning. In the same vein, the speed of lexical access (hereinafter RAN) is another highly predictive variable of reading and writing acquisition both in transparent and opaque orthographies (Araújo et al, 2015;Defior & Serrano, 2011;González et al, 2015;Jiménez, 2019;Martínez et al, 2021;Ramos-Tresguerres et al, 2021;Suárez-Coalla et al, 2013).…”

The triple-deficit hypothesis in Arabic: Evidence from children with and without dyslexia

“…In fact, regarding the nature of the Arabic orthography, the subtle differences between many letters (e.g., ‫ﺕ‬ /t/, ‫ﺙ‬ /θ/) and the changing forms of some of the letters according to their positions in the words, in addition to the diacritic marks, may mean that Arabic readers need to represent fine-grained letter features that could be ignored in other languages (Al Ghanem & Kearns, 2015). Basic visualorthographic skills, such as recognizing the orientation of a letter, are relevant for reading due to the importance of orthographic memory in the orientation of graphemes (De la Calle et al, 2021). At the sublexical level, readers may use orthographic skill when they are required to identify the individual letters.…”

Reading Strategies for Children with Developmental Language Disorder

“…Developmental language disorder is considered a severe and persistent disorder, not associated with a biomedical condition, that heterogeneously compromises oral language acquisition and development and affects social development and learning throughout life [ 1 ]. In this regard, the possible impacts of long-term developmental language disorder (DLD) on communication and learning have guided the focus of research to establish an “academic prognosis”, that is, how oral language difficulties influence the literacy development process and/or in determining which difficulties in this process predict future reading difficulties [ 2 , 3 ].…”