The contribution of phonological awareness and visual attention in early reading and spelling

Abstract We examined the development of phonological processing, naming speed, and visual attention in kindergarten and addressed the question of their contribution to reading and spelling in grade 1. Seventy five French‐speaking children were administered seven tasks at the two phases of the study, and reading and spelling were assessed in grade 1. The major findings revealed that syllable awareness and visual attention were the most important predictors of early reading and spelling, and confirm the influence of naming speed and phoneme awareness on specific skills. These observations strongly suggest that written language acquisition relies on linguistic, perceptual and cognitive cross‐modal skills and highlight the need for diversifying written language measures and analyzing their specific predictors. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.