Naming Speed, Phonological Awareness, and Orthographic Knowledge in Second Graders

TLDR

The study explored concurrent relationships among naming speed, phonological awareness, orthographic skill, and other reading subskills in second graders. The authors examined these relationships using a representative sample of second graders and hierarchical regression analyses. Hierarchical regression showed that rapid automatized naming uniquely predicted reading ability, especially orthographic skills, while phonemic awareness better predicted nonword decoding, and a double‑deficit subgroup (slow naming speed and low phonemic awareness) exhibited marked reading difficulties, supporting the double‑deficit hypothesis.

Abstract

Concurrent relationships among measures of naming speed, phonological awareness, orthographic skill, and other reading subskills were explored in a representative sample of second graders. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that naming speed, as measured by the the rapid automatized naming (RAN) task, accounted for a sizable amount of unique variance in reading with vocabulary and phonemic awareness partialled out. The unique contribution of naming speed to reading was relatively stronger for orthographic skills, whereas the contribution of phonemic skills was stronger for nonword decoding. In further analyses, marked difficulties on a range of reading tasks, including orthographic processing, were seen in a subgroup with a double deficit (slow naming speed and low phonemic awareness) but not in groups with only a single deficit. These findings are broadly consistent with Bowers and Wolf's (1993a, 1993b; Wolf & Bowers, 1999) double-deficit hypothesis of reading disability.