Why Does Rapid Naming Predict Chinese Word Reading?

Abstract

We are grateful to the children and parents for their participation and school staff for their support. This research was supported by funding from the University of Hong Kong (awarded to Au). We sincerely thank several cohorts of research assistants and interns for their help in this project. AbstractRapid automatized naming (RAN) robustly predicts early reading abilities across languages, but its underlying mechanism remains unclear. This study found that RAN associated significantly with processing speed but not with phonological awareness or orthographic knowledge in 89 Hong Kong Chinese second-graders. RAN overlaps more with processing speed (18% of individual variation) in predicting word reading fluency, than with phonological (4%) or orthographic awareness(3%), suggesting that processing speed contributed more strongly to the RAN-reading fluency relation in Chinese. Nonetheless, RAN remained significant in predicting Chinese word-level reading fluency when all other cognitive tasks were taken into account, suggesting that no single construct can fully explain RAN's relation to reading, but that multiple components influence this relation. Moreover, when reading abilities in second language English were considered, the association between RAN and word reading fluency was marginally stronger in Chinese than in English.Implications for mechanisms underlying the RAN-reading relation are discussed.Despite the plethora of evidence supporting the robust relation between naming speed and reading, why RAN predicts reading fluency remains unresolved. This question has theoretical as well as practical significance because a better understanding of naming speed, and consequently its deficits, can have important educational implications. Due to the strong predictive power of RAN in reading development, remediation efforts have been targeted at improving RAN, in hopes of enhancing reading performance. Nevertheless, the question as to whether RAN can be improved through training remains controversial. The trainability of RAN and the possibility of knock-on effects on reading directly hinge on the nature of the relation between RAN and reading. Three major hypotheses have been proposed to explain this relation: 1) the phonological processing theory; 2) the orthographic processing theory; and 3) the speed of processing theory. Hypotheses on the RAN-Reading RelationThe phonological processing theory posits that both RAN and reading tap the rate of lexical-or mental vocabulary-access and retrieval of phonological representations from long-term memory (Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Hence, RAN is just part of phonological processing, along with phonological awareness and phonological memory. Indeed, confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fit with empirical data for a model with phonological awareness, phonological memory, and phonological lexical access (measured by RAN) as three distinct but significantly correlated factors (Wagner, Torgesen, Laughon, Simmons, & Rashotte, 1993). Meta-analyses have revealed that rapid namin...

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