Predicting Reading and Spelling Disorders: A 4-Year Prospective Cohort Study

Abstract

In this 4-year prospective cohort study, children with a reading and spelling disorder, children with a spelling impairment, and children without a reading and/or spelling disorder (control group) in a transparent orthography were identified in third grade, and their emergent literacy performances in kindergarten compared retrospectively. Six hundred and forty-two Italian children participated. This cohort was followed from the last year of kindergarten to third grade. In kindergarten, the children were assessed in phonological awareness, conceptual knowledge of writing systems and textual competence. In third grade, 18 children with a reading and spelling impairment and 13 children with a spelling impairment were identified. Overall, conceptual knowledge of the writing system was the only statistically significant predictor of the clinical samples. No differences were found between the two clinical samples.

Improving Conceptual Knowledge of the Italian Writing System in Kindergarten: A Cluster Randomized Trial

“…More specifically, PASSI was effective in improving both, conceptual knowledge of the writing system (as assessed by the invented spelling of words task), and literacy-related skills (i.e., knowledge of the alphabet and orthographic awareness). This result has practical implications due to the relevance of children's conceptual knowledge of the writing system for the acquisition of reading and spelling (Ouellette and Sénéchal, 2017 ) and for the prediction of related disorders (Bigozzi et al, 2016a ). PASSI aims at triggering children's metalinguistic reflection on the writing system by giving them an insight into its structure (Treiman, 1998 ), also granting to teachers insight into children's conceptual knowledge of the writing system.…”

“…Thus, letter writing is an important antecedent of spelling, but this knowledge is supported by several other emergent writing skills, confirming the multi-componential nature of children's conceptual knowledge of the writing system. Conceptual knowledge of the writing system was found to be related to literacy acquisition in both transparent (e.g., Italian, Bigozzi et al, 2016a , b ) and opaque languages (e.g., English, Ouellette and Sénéchal, 2008 ).…”

“…This study assessed the efficacy of an intervention to improve children's conceptual knowledge of the Italian writing system in kindergarten. Past studies have shown that children's early competence in this construct are predictive of future reading fluency scores (Bigozzi et al, 2016b ) and reading and spelling disorders (Bigozzi et al, 2016a ). Children's conceptual knowledge of the writing system are generally assessed through an invented spelling task, in which children create letter-speech sound integrations that correspond to their level of knowledge of the writing system.…”

“…Typically, mastery in the sublexical procedure is achieved at the end of first grade (Notarnicola et al, 2012 ), reaching a ceiling effect at the end of second grade (Cossu et al, 1995 ). It should be noted that in Italian the regularity of the orthographic system is higher in reading (forward regularity) than it is in spelling (backwards regularity) (Notarnicola et al, 2012 ; Bigozzi et al, 2016a ). When spelling, some phonemes might correspond to one or more graphemes, and correct spelling can be identified only through the context.…”

Attentional Factors Involved in Learning in the First Grade

“…The specific dictation is titled "La bicicletta del papà". Spelling competence was calculated based on the number of phonological and non-phonological errors per total number of written words [63,64,65]. Children may misspell by writing graphemes representing the wrong phonemes or in the wrong order, or by leaving some out.…”