Kindergarten Letter Knowledge, Phonological Skills, and Memory Processes: Relative Effects On Early Literacy

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 62, 30–59 (1996)
ARTICLE NO. 0021
Kindergarten Letter Knowledge, Phonological Skills, and

Memory Processes: Relative Effects on Early Literacy
JAN CAROL NÄSLUND
University of New Mexico
AND
WOLFGANG SCHNEIDER
University of Würzburg, Germany
Kindergarten phonological awareness tasks are first compared as to their predictabil-

ity of later literacy performance independent of letter knowledge for a group of German
children. Results indicate that the phonological awareness tasks vary in their prediction
of later literacy performance, which includes spelling and a variety of reading tasks in
the first and second grades. A second concern was the relative influence of kindergarten
phonological awareness compared with letter knowledge in the prediction of later
literacy. The primacy of phonological awareness was demonstrated in predicting later
literacy. However, evidence indicated that high letter knowledge in kindergarten may
also reliably predict better later literacy skills. Results also suggest a developmental
effect in the emergence of phonological processing skills in verbal memory between
the ages of 4 and 8. Results of this study differ from those found in other (English
speaking) populations most likely given differences in early literacy knowledge, age
of beginning reading instruction, and differences in German and English orthography.
q 1996 Academic Press, Inc.
One robust idea among those investigating reading acquisition has been
that children’s metalinguistic awareness affects their reading performance.
This one idea has set the stage for many valuable lines of inquiry into the
This research was supported by a fellowship to the first author from the Alexander von
Humboldt Stiftung in Bonn, Germany, and data was collected at the Max Planck Institute for
Psychological Research in Munich, Germany. We thank Prof. Franz E. Weinert, Herman Schnei-
der, and the professional technical assistants at the Max Planck Institute for Psychological
Research for their support in completing this study. Address correspondence and reprint requests
to Jan Carol Näslund, University of New Mexico, College of Education, Program in Educational
Linguistics, Albuquerque, NM 87131.
30
0022-0965/96 $18.00
Copyright q 1996 by Academic Press, Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
AID JECP 2294 / ad01$$$$81 05-16-96 00:24:15 jecpa AP: JECP

KINDERGARTEN PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS 31
exact nature of these linguistic processes and their interaction with other
factors in children’s reading performance. Many studies suggest that metalin-
guistic awareness, especially the ability to analyze and segment speech into
phonological units, begins to develop about the time children acquire skills
for reading. There is also evidence that the level of metalinguistic awareness
a child displays before entering formal education has a significant effect on
reading acquisition, especially in acquiring the ability to decode letter strings
into pronounceable syllables and words (Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Bryant,
Bradley, MacLean, & Crossland, 1989; Lundberg, 1987, 1989; Lundberg &
Høien, 1991; Lundberg, Frost, & Petersen, 1988; Lundberg, Olofsson, &
Wall, 1980; MacLean, Bryant, & Bradley, 1987). Thorough reviews of this
research over the past two decades are available (Sawyer & Fox, 1991;
Wagner & Torgesen, 1987).
Evidence for levels of metalinguistic skill in the development of literacy
is related to the first concern of this study: the comparison of various tasks
which are intended to measure preschool phonological awareness in their
predictability of later reading performance. Mann (1991), Treiman (1991),
and Tunmer and Rohl (1991) suggest that phonological processing is not a
unitary skill. There is likely a hierarchy of skills which arise over the course
of a child’s development. Phonological awareness refers to sensitivity to
multiple levels of spoken language. This includes sensitivity to language
components in the broad sense, such as rhyme and alliteration detection, and
the ability to segment words into syllables. In the narrower sense, this includes
more explicit segmentation skill, as demonstrated in the analysis and synthesis
of individual phonemic units (i.e., onset consonants and vowel/coda rime
components) and individual phonemes.
The study reported here was conducted in southern Germany, where chil-
dren are seldom given reading instruction before entering first grade. Parents
are not encouraged to provide any reading instruction before their children
enter formal schooling. Lack of preschool literacy in Germany does not reflect
lack of educational opportunity or a disadvantaged preschool environment.
This situation in German kindergartens provides the opportunity to compare
performance of children with various levels of letter knowledge and phonolog-
ical awareness. One objective was to determine if performance of kindergarten
children in a variety of phonological awareness tasks differentially predicts
later reading performance. The phonological awareness tasks used in this
study were expected to span various levels of development, with some tasks
expected to be at ceiling level for most children (those concerning linguistic
operations at the level of the syllable), and some expected to be difficult for
preliterate children (requiring intrasyllable operations, such as those pertaining
to onset/rime units). Yopp (1988) provides a comparison of validity and
reliability for a wide range of tasks commonly used to test phonological
processing. She administered these tasks to English speaking kindergarten
children who had received some instruction in the alphabet (and possibly

32 NÄSLUND AND SCHNEIDER
other reading related skills). Differences in kindergarten phonological pro-

cessing skills might be expected between German and American children due
to variable literacy levels (i.e., letter knowledge and basic word recognition)
and age at the onset of formal reading instruction.
A second objective of this study was to determine if the relationship be-
tween phonological awareness and later reading skills varies as a result of
preschool letter knowledge. Some studies have cast doubt on the presence of
phonological awareness in the absence of letter knowledge and direct phonics
instruction. Morais (1991) has criticized research demonstrating phonological
awareness in the absence of literacy for using tasks that do not tap actual
awareness of individual phonemes. For Morais and his colleagues, phonologi-
cal awareness is demonstrated by the ability to represent consciously and
perform mental operations in working memory on individual phonemic units
of speech. Studies by Morais, Cary, Alegria, and Bertelson, (1979; Morais,
1991) and Read, Zhang, Nie, and Ding (1986) suggest that performance of
phonological awareness tasks depends upon familiarity with an alphabetical
system. For example, Morais’ (1991) sampled highly accomplished, but illiter-
ate, Portuguese poets who performed well in producing rhyming sequences,
but were unable to perform tasks which require mental operations at the level
of individual phonemes; in particular, repeating words without the first or
last phoneme. Read et al. (1986) found a similar lack of phonemic segmenta-
tion ability among Chinese adults who have never learned the Pin-yin alpha-
betic orthography in Chinese, but who are proficient readers of Chinese logo-
graphy. Without experience with grapheme-to-phoneme training, such as the
typical phonics instruction of nations with alphabetic systems, the participants
in Morais et al.’s (1979; and Morais, 1991) and Read et al.’s (1986) studies
may have had no explicit means to represent speech sound symbolically in
order to perform phoneme segmentation.
The second focus of this study pertains to the relative influence of familiar-
ity with orthography compared with phonological awareness in preschool on
later reading and spelling performance. Is letter knowledge necessary for the
development of phonological awareness? Morais (1991), Read et al. (1986),
and Ehri (1989) have supported this notion. Ehri (1989) cites research demon-
strating a significant effect of learning to spell on development of phonological
recoding skills (demonstrated by the facility in sounding out nonwords) as
evidence that phonological awareness and recoding arise through learning to
use an alphabetic system. She supports this argument convincingly with chil-
dren in the early stages of learning to read. Learning to spell may facilitate
a child’s understanding of grapheme–phoneme relationships in alphabetic
languages to some extent, but it is not clear that familiarity and use of the
alphabetic system are necessary prerequisites of phonological awareness.
Tunmer and Rohl (1991) have called attention to a troublesome circular
argument concerning the mutual causal effects of phonological awareness
and alphabetic literacy. They dispute Morais’, Ehri’s, and Read et al.’s argu-

ment that phonological awareness develops as a result of learning the alphabet

and its phonetic representations and suggest that a child must possess a
rudimentary level of phonological awareness in order to benefit from specific
instruction in phonics. Children must have some awareness of the separable
phonemic components of speech in order to learn such representations effec-
tively.
Some of the arguments presented above may have less to do with the actual
level of phonological ability of preliterate, nonliterate, and literate individuals
than with the method of assessments commonly used. Wagner, Torgesen, and
Rashotte (1994) recently completed a longitudinal (English speaking) study
from kindergarten through second grade. They report different rates of devel-
opment for various phonological processing abilities (i.e., phonological syn-
thesis, analysis, coding in working memory, isolated naming, and serial nam-
ing). Some tasks require sensitivity to phonemic distinctions, and others re-
quire the ability to hold phonological components in working memory in
order to perform mental operations on these (i.e., analysis and segmentation).
Wagner et al. (1994) also found a significant effect of kindergarten phonologi-
cal awareness in their prediction of later reading skills after controlling for
the variance in kindergarten letter knowledge and word recognition.
Phonemic segmentation skills themselves appear to be facilitated by, or may
even require some knowledge of, orthographic representations. For example,
Perfetti, Beck, Bell, and Hughes (1987) tested speech segmentation ability
(initial and end phoneme deletion) using word lists that contained some voice-
less consonants. Such a task confounds facility with phonics (grapheme–
phoneme correspondences) and phonological awareness and requires some
amount of instruction in phonics. For example, one item used to illustrate the
deletion task to children is to take that the /tI/ sound from the word ‘‘CAT.’’
In order to perform this task, a child would need to know that the sound /tI/
is meant to be the final consonant /t/. Perfetti et al. (1987) appropriately used
this task with school children, who are likely familiar with such phonetic
representations. Such a task would not be appropriate for individuals without
orthographic knowledge. Phonetic representations of voiceless phoneme
sounds in isolation are not likely to be acquired spontaneously, but require
specific instruction. A preliterate child may identify that /æt/ and /bæt/ have
something in common, but may not be able to identify what sound is different,
given that /b/ alone has no voiced representation. Separating /æ/ from /t/
would also prove problematic. Without some form of representation (i.e.,
letters), how would children identify where the vowel (rime) stops and ‘‘last
sound’’ (coda) begins?
Other tasks, such as those at the level of syllables, and sensitivity to pho-
nemes within syllables, such as rhyme detection, and Bradley and Bryant’s
(1985) phoneme oddity tasks are likely more appropriate tests of preliterate
phonological awareness. For example, phoneme oddity tasks require the pho-
nological recoding of a list of words in working memory in order to compare

rime (vowel sounds), onset–consonant/rime, and rime/coda–consonant com-

ponents. The child is asked to identify words that differ in sound at various
positions within the word, which requires phonemic analysis at the level of
individual sounds. These tasks would appear to fulfill the requirements of
basic level phonological awareness, without requiring training in phonics. In
an attempt to control for possible memory load effects in their phonological
oddity tasks, Bryant et al. (1989) presented children with pictures of each of
the four words to compare in each list. This control did not change the
significant correlations between their phonological oddity measures and read-
ing performance. This may indicate that the reduction of memory load for
the words (lexical representations) is independent of phonological recoding
each word in the list. Oddity recognition tasks have also been shown to be
highly predictive of later reading performance (Bradley & Bryant, 1985;
MacLean et al., 1987; Tunmer & Rohl, 1991).
Until phonological processing develops to the level of a spontaneous cogni-
tive mechanism for recoding and storing linguistic information in working
memory, tasks which require bringing phonological processing under con-
scious control may prove difficult and may be impossible for young children.
The third focus of this study pertains to a possible developmental factor
explaining the relationship between development of phonological skills and
verbal memory capacity. Brady, Mann, and Schmidt (1987), Brady, Shank-
weiler, and Mann (1983), Mann and Liberman (1984), and Mann, Liberman,
and Shankweiler (1980) have conducted a series of investigations which
demonstrate phonological recoding effects in working memory which relate
to reading. Good readers usually demonstrate more spontaneous phonological
recoding ability than poorer and younger readers and efficiently recode verbal
stimuli into phonological representations in working memory. Spontaneous
phonological recoding in working memory is demonstrated by the magnitude
of interference effects in recalling lists with phonologically similar elements
(e.g., letters, words, sentences) in comparison to phonologically dissimilar
lists of information. The assumption is that the presence of these interference
effects reflects an individual’s level of spontaneous phonological recoding
in working memory. If children are phonologically recoding information in
working memory, their memory processes should be adversely affected if the
stimuli are phonologically similar. For children who do not recode and re-
hearse phonological features of speech spontaneously, it is expected that
phonological similarity should not disrupt memory as much as it does for
children who spontaneously do use phonological recoding. In addition, lack
of spontaneous phonological recoding in working memory results in lessened
overall verbal memory capacity.
Ellis and Large (1988) report findings from a comprehensive longitudinal
study documenting children’s development in reading in relation to auditory
and visual perception, phonological awareness, short-term memory, grammat-
ical knowledge, and other related skills (44 total) from ages 5 through 7. Ellis

and Large (1988) considered two roles of short-term memory in reading.

One pertained to the articulatory loop that holds phonological information in
working memory in order to decode text. The other role of short-term memory
involves the comprehension of sentences. Developmental and environmental
variables were suggested to explain differential performances of children
between the ages of 5 and 7 in short-term memory tasks, and differences in
the direction of influence between reading and short-term memory tasks. Ellis
and Large (1988) also hypothesize that children’s acquisition of reading re-
lated skills underlie some developmental changes in the interaction of phono-
logical awareness, short-term memory, and reading.
Leather and Henry (1994) insist on the importance of testing the indepen-
dence of various phonological and memory tasks (simple and complex) when
predicting reading (and arithmetic) performance. Simple word span measures
in the Leather and Henry (1994) study always entered the regression models
first before other variables, such as phonological awareness and complex
memory. Given the chance of strong interdependence between memory span
and phonological awareness in their prediction of literacy, the present study
will enter the variables of most interest (phonological awareness and letter
knowledge) in the first, second, and last positions in the models, before and
after verbal IQ and word span. This will allow an assessment of the relative
independence of letter knowledge and phonological awareness measures and
variance due to verbal IQ and memory span.
Bowey (1994) compared performance of kindergarten children on various
levels of phonological awareness. Novice readers were compared to nonread-
ing children who varied in letter knowledge. One nonreader group was
matched in letter knowledge with the novice reader group. Two other non-
reader groups included children with lower levels of letter knowledge. The
two groups equal in letter knowledge performed similarly on lower level
phonemic sensitivity tasks, but the novice reader group was superior in the
more difficult phonemic sensitivity tasks. The novice readers and nonreaders
with high letter knowledge were significantly better than the nonreaders with
less letter knowledge on all phonemic sensitivity tasks. However, after Bowey
(1994) controlled for verbal ability, she no longer found significant differences
in phonemic sensitivity among nonreading groups, regardless of letter knowl-
edge. Bowey (1994) suggests some important links between general verbal
ability and the development of some prerequisites of reading. The study
reported here includes analyses before and after controlling for general verbal
ability, given the possibility of verbal ability as a significant factor in ex-
plaining early literacy development.
The children studied by Bowey (1994), Ellis and Large (1988), and by
Wagner et al. (1994) began literacy instruction at an earlier age than our
German sample. This makes it difficult to partial out effects of early letter
knowledge and other reading skills in assessing the developmental relationship
between phonological awareness and memory span in English samples. In

the present study, phonological awareness and memory span are measured
over time. This allows the assessment of a possible direction of influence
between memory span and phonological processing before and during reading
acquisition. In addition, phonological recoding interference effects in memory
are compared in kindergarten (age 6) among children controlling for letter
knowledge. The presence of interference effects, independent of letter knowl-
edge, and their correlation with phonological awareness and later reading
would provide some support for development of phonological recoding in
working memory prior to formal reading instruction.
METHOD
Subjects
One hundred thirty-four children from the southern region of former West
Germany were mean age 4.1 years (SD Å 0.5 years) at the start of the study.
These children were participants in the Munich Longitudinal Study of the
Genesis of Individual Competencies (LOGIC; Weinert & Schneider, 1989).
Parents of participants responded to an advertisement in a local newspaper
for voluntary participation in a longitudinal study. Screening was intended
to determine parents’ and children’s commitment to a longitudinal study.
Researchers intended to secure a varied group of children. About half of the
children were from the city of Munich, and the other half were from near
suburbs. Only those children who remained during the first 4 12 years of the
study were included in the analyses. Twenty-two children were promoted
from kindergarten to first grade 1 year later than the rest of the group. Their
performance was not included in all the analyses. It should be noted that
children usually begin kindergarten in Germany at age 3 or 4 and remain
until age 6 or 7. The decision when a child enters first grade is based on
parents’ and teachers’ assessments of a child’s readiness for the structured
environment of elementary school.
Design
Most of the tasks reported in the present study were administered through-
out a day visit to the Max-Planck Institute or satellite testing center in a
suburb near Munich. These visits occurred three times during each year of
the study. The emergent literacy tasks were a subset of the total tasks per-
formed during the early summer visit of the last kindergarten year for most
children. The verbal ability and word discrimination tasks were administered
during the first grade visits. The decoding tasks were administered during the
first and last visits during the second grade. The reading comprehension and
spelling tests were administered in children’s classrooms as part of a larger
study of children in the Munich area schools. A list of measures used in this
study and the time(s) administered are found in Table 1. Descriptions of
measures follow.

TABLE 1
Measures and Age of Administration
Age 4 Age 6 Age 7 Age 8
Word span Word span Verbal ability Word span

—Phonologically —Phonologically Word discrimination —Phonologically
dissimilar dissimilar dissimilar
—Phonologically similar Phonological tasks:
Letter knowledge —Phon recognition
Rhyme detection —Phon manipulation
Syllable count Reading tasks:
Sound-in-word detection —Comprehension:
Syllable segmentation Early and Late
Pseudoword repetition —Word and P-Word
Syllable blending decoding speed
Onset/rime blend Early and Late
Phoneme oddity —Spelling
—Onset, middle, rime Early and Late
Tasks and Procedure

Tasks at Age 4
Word span. A German version of Case, Kurland, and Goldberg’s (1982)
word span task was administered. Seven familiar German words were used
(Fisch, Stern, Schuh, Ball, Baum, Topf, Bank) in 10 lists of words, 2 lists
each from three to seven words long. The child was instructed to listen to
each list carefully and then to repeat the words in the same order they were
presented. Children were given the word lists in order of increasing number
of words until they failed to repeat 2 lists at a given level. Word span was
recorded as the number of words correctly repeated in at least one of the two
trials at that level.
Tasks at Age 6
Word span. The German version of Case et al.’s (1982) word span task
was repeated. A second memory span task was given using phonologically
similar words. Nine sets of four words each were used. Three of these sets
contained words sharing the same consonant cluster ending. Three sets shared
the same middle vowel sound, and three sets had all the same vowel, but in
addition, three of the words in each set also had the same consonant cluster
ending.
Preschool letter knowledge phonological and tasks. The following letter
knowledge and phonological awareness tasks were devised by Jansen, Knorn,
Mannhaupt, Marx, Beck, and Skowronek (1986) and Brügelmann (1986) for
use in a large scale longitudinal study in northern Germany. All tasks pre-

sented verbal material via a reel-to-reel tape player to assure clarity. A female
voice was used. These tasks were presented when children were in the last
month of kindergarten (June/July; mean age Å 6.1 years). All tasks described
were developed by Jansen et al. (1986), unless otherwise indicated.
Letter knowledge. Letter knowledge was assessed from a subset of answers
in a task measuring preschool number and letter knowledge. The children
were first asked if they knew what numbers and letters were. Numbers (1–
9) and letters (all but x, ä, ö, and ü) were presented in a fixed random order
on five cards. Children were to point to each of the characters on the cards
and say if they recognized it or not. The idiomatic German instructions trans-
late almost literally as how the letter or number ‘‘calls.’’ This could mean
what it is called or how it sounds. Only responses to the letters are used in
the analyses here. Responses were classified as letter name, letter sound, word
(e.g., saying ‘‘Hans’’ when identifying ‘‘H’’), or wrong letter. Letter names
and letter sounds were considered correct responses. Parents were also inter-
viewed about their children’s letter and word reading abilities in kindergarten.
Rhyme detection. Children were presented 6 practice and 10 experimental
trials of two words each. Half of the word pairs rhymed. The child was asked
to say whether each of the pairs rhymed.
Syllable count. Children first practiced saying two and three syllable words
while clapping once for each syllable. Three practice and 10 experimental
trials were given. Five trials each were given for two and three syllable words.
Sound-in-word detect. Children were presented with a vowel sound and
asked to listen to a word and say whether the sound was in the word they
heard. All target words had the vowel sound in the initial position. Word
initial vowels are very consistent in pronunciation in German. The vowels
sounds used were ÉaÉ as in ‘‘sock,’’ ÉeÉ as in ‘‘able,’’ ÉiÉ as in ‘‘easy,’’ ÉoÉ
as in ‘‘only,’’ ÉuÉ as in ‘‘through,’’ and ÉaiÉ as ‘‘eye.’’ The three additional
German vowel sounds, ÉäÉ, ÉöÉ, and ÉüÉ were not used. Three practice and
10 experimental trials were administered.
Syllable segment (Brügelmann, 1986). The child was asked to play ‘‘ro-
bot,’’ imitating how a robot says words with breaks (e.g., BA-NA-NE, ‘‘ba-
nana’’). After three practice trials, the child was presented with 10 familiar
words to say in robot talk.
Pseudoword repeat. Children were presented with two practice and 10
experimental trials in repeating ‘‘Zauberwörter’’ (magic words). Seven words
had four syllables, two had five syllables, and one had six syllables. Four of
the words (including the one with six syllables, ‘‘pi-ni-ku-ra-ku-la’’) had a
simple consonant vowel (CVCV) structure. The rest of the words included
at least one CVC syllable. Stress and other prosodic variations were kept to
a minimum. Pseudowords did not contain morphemes common to German.
Syllable blend (Brügelmann, 1986). This task was presented by a fictitious
robot that spoke mechanically. The child was made familiar with the way
the robot spoke and was told that the mechanical parts that made him talk

malfunctioned. The child was to help the experimenter identify the words the
robot was trying to say. The purpose of the robot language was to present
items without stress or other prosody cues, which is expected of robots.
Three practice and 10 experimental trials were given. Familiar words were
pronounced by the robot without stress and with elongated vowels in each
syllable (e.g., ‘‘ZUUU-KEEER,’’ meaning ‘‘sugar’’), and the child was to
identify what word the robot was attempting to say.
Onset/rime blend. The child heard a monosyllable word pronounced in two
parts. Four of the trials separated the first onset/rime unit from the ending
consonant (vowels followed one glottal, one aspirated, one stop, and one
fricative consonant). Six trials separated the initial onset consonant or conso-
nant clusters from the final rime/consonant segment (four fricative, and two
nasal consonants). After hearing each presentation, the child was to tell the
experimenter what word had been broken apart (e.g., Sch-uh, pronounced the
same as the English word ‘‘shoe’’). Two practice and 10 experimental trials
were presented.
Phoneme oddity. A German version of Bradley and Bryant’s (1985) pho-
neme oddity task was devised for this research. Three sets of items were
presented according to Bradley and Bryant’s procedure, with the same expla-
nations and games used in practice trials to assure that children understood
the ‘‘odd man out’’ rules of the game. Each child had 10 trials in each of
the three oddity detection tasks. The first task, middle-sound-oddity, required
detecting which of four monosyllable words did not share the same middle
sound (all words presented in each trial shared the same ending consonant
or consonant cluster; e.g., Hahn Sohn Lohn Mohn). The second task, end-
sound-oddity, required detecting which of four monosyllable words did not
rhyme with the other three (all words presented in each trial shared the same
middle vowel or diphthong; e.g., Haus Baum Maus Laus). The third task,
onset-sound-oddity, required detecting which of four presented words did not
share the same consonant onset (all words presented in each trial shared the
same middle vowel or diphthong; e.g., Tal Tat Tag Rad).
First Grade Tasks
Verbal IQ. The verbal section of the Hamburg–Wechsler Intelligence Test
for Grade School Children (HAWIK-R, Tewes, 1983) was administered to
children at the end of first grade. This test includes word usage, verbal compre-
hension, and general knowledge items.
Word discrimination. This task was administered at the end of first grade.
Children were presented with three sets of four pictures and one set of three
pictures and were asked to identify these (i.e., ‘‘Apfel’’-apple, ‘‘Zug’’-train,
‘‘Auge’’-eye, ‘‘Baum’’-tree). Words printed in large letters were presented
for 1 s on a portable slide projector screen. Each set of trials with four pictures
had 12 words, 4 to 6 of which were the words represented in the pictures.
The rest were distractors (i.e., ‘‘Bauen’’ and ‘‘Bau’’ as distractors for

‘‘Baum’’). In the trial with three pictures, only 9 words were presented. Only
real words were used. Distractors were chosen for phonemic similarity. The
mean number of errors was low for word discrimination (mean, 4.4; standard
deviation, 3.9).
Second Grade Tasks
Word span. The German version of Case et al.’s (1982) word span task
was repeated.
Phoneme recoding. Two phonological tasks were administered in the sec-
ond grade (when most children were 8 years old). These tasks were more
difficult than those administered in preschool and required phonemically re-
coding information. The phoneme recognition task required children to listen
to nine pairs of prerecorded three syllable pseudowords and determine if these
were the same or if these differed. They were told the words may differ just
slightly. There were two pairs of pseudowords that were identical. If they
answered yes, they were instructed to listen carefully again to the two pseu-
dowords and say which sounds differ between the two. Responses were con-
sidered correct if one or both sounds were correctly identified. The phoneme
manipulation tasks required replacing and switching phonemes within two
syllable pseudowords. One practice and six experimental trials were adminis-
tered for each of these tasks. Children were first asked to listen to then
repeat a prerecorded pseudoword (e.g., ‘‘ANI’’). They were then instructed
to replace one sound with another. For example, after saying ‘‘ANI,’’ they
were asked to replace the ÉiÉ with ÉuÉ, resulting in ‘‘ANU.’’ Vowels were
always replaced with vowels and consonants with consonants.
The last task also had one practice and six experimental trials. The proce-
dure was the same, except that after repeating the prerecorded word, children
were asked to switch two sounds within the word (e.g., switching the ÉoÉ
and ÉmÉ sound in ‘‘OMT’’ to produce ‘‘MOT’’). It is assumed that an
orthographic representation strategy can be used in these tasks in addition to
phonological awareness.
A combined score for both of these tasks is used. This combined measure
is referred to as phoneme recoding.
Word and nonword decoding speed. Four letter words and pseudowords
(30 of each) were adapted from Rott and Zielinski (1984). This list was
developed according to specifications by Hogaboam and Perfetti (1978) in
order to test decoding speed. Items were presented on a computer screen. An
internal timing device measured children’s responses from the moment of
presentation on the screen. Letters were about 2.5 in. high. The experimenter
pressed the computer keyboard space bar as soon as the child pronounced
the last sound of each item.
In pilot studies, it was found that German children tend to pronounce the
first letter of each item while decoding (e.g., ‘‘rrrrrrr-rot’’). This may reflect
a ‘‘phonetic attack’’ decoding approach taught in many schools. Therefore,

voice onset was not appropriate for the speed measurement. A second concern
was comparability of word decoding and nonword decoding tasks. Voice
onset time is not justified in measuring nonword decoding, given that each
grapheme is decoded serially in German. It is also assumed that word recogni-
tion interacts with speed of production in word decoding responses. The
analyses with word and nonword decoding in this study were at the level of
speech production, given that recognition could not be accurately timed.
Nonword decoding is used in this study primarily as a measure of grapheme–
phoneme decoding in comparison to word decoding, which includes both
grapheme–phoneme recoding and lexical access processes. The decoding
data used here are from the fall of second grade (E-early) and early summer
(L-late) in second grade. The schools are in session in this region from late
September to early July. Very few children made errors in either decoding
task during pilot trials of the tasks and in the study itself. All items were
only four letters, and no irregular or unusual spellings were used. The tasks
were designed to minimize variance due to errors so that variance in speed
among subjects could be better estimated.
Reading comprehension. This test was developed by the first author to be
used in a large scale longitudinal study of over 1200 children in the Munich
area and suburbs. This test was administered in the fall (E-early) and the
early summer (L-late) during second grade. The first set of 18 items tested
comprehension within the context of individual sentences. The vocabulary
was drawn from textbooks being used by the Bavarian school system. Six of
these items tested word discrimination in addition to comprehension. Syn-
onyms were sought in four items, and the remaining items were word usage
and comprehension (e.g., translation: ‘‘You cannot read ,’’ (a) a newspa-
per, (b) a radio, (c) stories, (d) a book). The second part of the test included
five short stories, also with familiar vocabulary, each followed by two or
three multiple choice questions. Questions required children to infer from
part or all of the text for their answer choice.
Analyses with the larger group of 1200 children indicated that the more
difficult questions were those requiring inferences from more than one sen-
tence in the story. Chronbach as for test item reliability in each of the two
test parts at both testing times ranged from 0.81 to 0.88. During the last phase
of the study reported here, children were enrolled in 52 different second grade
classrooms in the region. Some children did not take the reading comprehen-
sion test, but did take part in all other tasks. Not all teachers allowed these
tests to be administered in their classrooms, and the researchers could not
justify giving these children a different test situation as the others. Therefore,
analyses for the reading measures include only 89 children. Composite literacy
measures (described later) include only children with scores from the reading
comprehension tests.
Spelling. The 18 items for this test were taken in part from Brügelman’s

TABLE 2
Distribution of Letter Knowledge the Summer before Entering First Grade
Letters named Frequency Percentage Cumulative percentage
0 28 20.9 20.9
1 17 12.7 33.6
2 17 12.7 46.3
3 11 8.2 54.4
4 10 7.5 62.0
5 9 6.7 68.7
6–9 15 11.2 79.9
10–13 8 6.0 85.9
14–17 6 4.5 90.4
18–21 1 0.7 91.1
22–26 12 8.9 100.0
Note. Mean letters named Å 5.5; SD Å 6.6.
(1986) spelling test items. Additional items were taken from the official list
of vocabulary for the second grade distributed by the Ministry of Education
in the region of Bavaria. The spelling test was given twice, once in the fall
(E-early) and in the early summer (L-late) in the second grade.
RESULTS AND PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION

Distributions and Correlations
Letter knowledge. Table 2 provides the distribution of letter knowledge.
Although this does not appear to be a normal distribution, the range of letter
knowledge (and presence of children with no apparent letter knowledge) may
give us reasonable estimates of the influence of phonological awareness on
later reading skills independent of letter knowledge.
Parents were surveyed about their children’s level of preschool literacy.
Over 50% said their children could recognize single letters. About 20% of
the parents said their children were able to read some words, and less than
2% of the parents responded that their children could read sentences. (Teach-
ing reading and writing skills was not recommended for the kindergarten
years (ages from 3/4 to 6/7) in former West Germany.) Given these parents’
survey responses, it was surprising that 46% of the children could name
between zero and two letters. The random presentation of the letters in this
study may have assessed actual letter recognition more systematically, con-
trolling for children’s practicing letter names in their familiar order (‘‘A, B,
C, etc.’’). Some parents may have assumed letter recognition from correct
alphabet recitation and assumed word and sentence reading with familiarity
in particular contexts (i.e., when reading a favorite story book together with
a parent).

TABLE 3
Descriptive Statistics Reported in Proportions for Phonological Tasks
Variables M SD Min. Max.
Kindergarten
Rhyme detection .86 .23 0.40 1.0 (guessing controlled)
Syllable counting .82 .18 .30 1.0
Sound-in-word .77 .36 01.0 1.0 (guessing controlled)
Syllable segment .76 .21 .10 1.0
Pseudoword repeat .72 .20 .10 1.0
Syllable blend .63 .14 0 1.0
Onset/rime blend .55 .18 0 1.0
Onset-oddity .25 .28 0.20 1.0 (guessing controlled)
Middle-oddity .64 .29 0.06 1.0 (guessing controlled)
Rime-oddity .28 .28 0.20 1.0 (guessing controlled)
Second grade
Phoneme recognition .57 .23 0 .86
Phoneme manipulation .57 .17 .08 .83
Note. Proportions reporting minimums under zero are corrected for guessing. All other propor-
tions with minimums of zero and above indicate tasks not associated with guessing responses.
Phonological awareness tasks. Means, standard deviations, and ranges for

all phonological tasks given in kindergarten and second grade are reported in
proportions correct in Table 3. For tasks providing participants with response
choices, the reported proportions have been corrected for chance levels. As
predicted by Mann (1991), Treiman (1991), and Tunmer and Rohl (1991),
the easiest tasks were those that required mental operations at the syllabic
level and discrimination between two stimuli. Using speech cues for syllabary
and comparison tasks does not demand a high level of metalinguistic skill or
breaking the syllable into smaller phonemic units. However, the tasks that
require manipulation of speech units (i.e., syllable blending and onset/rime
segmenting) and those requiring children to maintain speech units in working
memory (i.e., onset and rime oddity decisions and phoneme recognition and
manipulation) were apparently more difficult. Onset- and end-sound-oddity
had lower mean responses than middle-sound-oddity. Middle-sound-oddity
is likely the least difficult of the oddity measures given that vowels are more
salient features in speech perception than are consonants. Children probably
do not require the same high level of speech analysis and segmentation skills
for middle-oddity as required for onset- and rime-oddity.
Correlations of predictors and later literacy skills. Correlations among the
phonological variables, letter knowledge, and word span in kindergarten and
the literacy measures from first and second grade are found in Table 4. Only
the 89 children who completed all reading tasks are included in this table.
As shown in Table 4, phoneme-oddity (total score) and rhyme detection

44
AID
TABLE 4
Correlations of Predictor Measures with Reading and Spelling Measures
JECP 2294
Comprehension Word decode P-word decode Spelling
Word
discrimination E L E L E L E L
Word span (4) .40** .24* .13 .01 0.04 0.02 0.08 .21* .31**
Letter know. (6) .27** .33** .32** 0.36** 0.04 0.36** 0.10 .16 .31**
Word span (6) .33** .38** .28** 0.41** 0.14 0.37** 0.17 .30** .48**
/ ad01$$2294
Rhyme detection (6) .32** .34** .38** 0.21* 0.37** 0.23* 0.20* .28** .36**
Syllable count. (6) .07 .12 .54** 0.01 0.02 0.07 0.15 .14 .36**
Sound-in-word (6) .27** .32** .27** 0.11 0.11 0.10 0.09 .23* .25*
Syllable segment (6) .12 0.07 0.12 0.02 0.02 0.09 0.14 0.01 0.12
P-word repeat (6) .14 .17 0.01 0.20* 0.33** 0.25* 0.27* .28** .35**
Syllable blend (6) .15 .05 .21* 0.08 .33** 0.07 0.04 0.12 .18
Onset/rime blend (6) .22* .26* 0.01 0.22* .10 0.16 0.01 .06 0.01
Phoneme oddity (6) .38** .50** .45** 0.35* 0.21* 0.26* 0.21* .38** .60**
NÄSLUND AND SCHNEIDER
Verbal IQ (7) .28** .37** .38** 0.13 0.21* 0.17 0.02 .23* .15
05-16-96 00:24:15
Word span (8) .12 .31** .29** 0.10 0.01 0.27** 0.06 .26* .11
Phon recode (8) .31** .48*** .31** 0.24* 0.07 0.36** 0.03 .44** .25*
jecpa
E, Early in second grade; L, late in second grade.
* p õ .05.
** p õ .01.
*** p õ .001.
AP: JECP
correlate significantly with all of the literacy measures. Letter knowledge,

word span, and phoneme recoding were significant in all but two or three
cases. Syllable segmentation did not correlate significantly with any of the
literacy measures, and syllable blending correlated significantly only with
word decoding (L). The other phonological awareness measures correlated
significantly with at least three of the literacy measures. Syllable segmentation
and counting therefore have been excluded in all subsequent analyses.
Multivariate Analyses
Canonical correlations for early second grade. The relationship between
the predictor measures (phonological processing measures from kindergarten,
verbal ability, word span, letter knowledge) and early literacy measures (word
discrimination, reading comprehension, word and nonword decoding, and
spelling) was assessed first with a canonical correlation analyses. Only the
89 children who completed all reading tasks are included in these analyses.
Syllable counting was not included given that it did not significantly correlate
with any of the early literacy measures. Canonical correlation analysis esti-
mates the best linear combination of the measurement variables in each of two
sets of variables to be compared and determines what are called ‘‘canonical
variates’’ to best describe the relationship between these two sets of variables.
The analyses also determine the number of significant (orthogonal) canonical
variates that can be extracted in statistically comparing two sets of variables.
That is, the best description of the relationship between two groups of vari-
ables may require more than one linear combination of the two groups of
variables. In this case, canonical correlation analysis was used primarily to
address the multivariate nature of the study and to determine the relative
strength of relationships of predictor measures in explaining the variance in
our literacy measures.
Table 5 presents the key results of the canonical correlation analysis im-
portant to this study. Our specific purpose was to determine the significance
of the relationship between our predictor measures and the various literacy
measures in this study and use the standardized canonical coefficients from
the individual literacy measures in the first canonical variable to create a
composite dependent variable for further multiple regression analyses. The
adjusted canonical correlation in the first canonical variate (see Table 5) is
.58, and the approximate standard error of the estimate is .06. This correlation
was significant (all indicators, p õ .0001, including Roy’s Greatest Root, see
Harris, 1985). As shown, the canonical r 2 overall (between the two sets) is
.42. The overall variance explained by the canonical correlation between these
two sets of variables is therefore relatively high. Only one canonical variate
was significant. Therefore only one set of relationships between the two sets
of variables needs to be interpreted.
The redundancy analyses included in these results allows an estimate of
the proportion of variance in one set of variables explained by individual

TABLE 5
Canonical Redundancy Analysis with Early Literacy and Kindergarten Predictor Measures
First predictor First early literacy

Canonical variate Canonical variate
Early literacy variables Correlation r2 Predictor variables Correlation r2
Word discrimination .46 .23 Verbal IQ (7) .35 .10

Reading comprehension .57 .40 Word span (K) .37 .11
Word decoding 0.48 .31 Letter knowledge (6) .47 .22
P-word decoding 0.41 .25 Rhyme detection (6) .39 .14
Spelling .39 .20 Sound-in-word (6) .32 .09
Pseudoword repeat (6) .26 .07
Onset/rime blend (6) .25 .10
Phoneme-oddity (6) .55 .31
Note. Canonical r (Adjusted) Å .58; Canonical r 2 Å .42; likelihood ratio standard error Å .06,
degrees of freedom Å 40, p õ .002; variance of early literacy explained by: literacy variables
Å .54 and kindergarten predictor variables Å .28.
variables in the other set of variables. Table 5 provides the multiple correla-
tions and r 2 values of each of the predictor measures as it correlates and
subsequently explains the variance of the combined literacy measures. Pho-
neme-oddity and letter knowledge appear to explain the largest proportion of
the variance in the literacy variables. The proportion of variance accounted
for in early literacy by the linear combination of individual measures that
make up that variable is 54%. The amount of variance accounted for in the
literacy variable by the linear combination of the predictor measures is 28%.
The canonical correlation analyses only answers part of our question. The
significance of predictor measures in explaining the variance in our early
literacy measures will now be addressed.
Hierarchical regression models for early second grade. In order to deter-
mine the relative strength of these predictor variables, hierarchical regression
analyses were performed, using a weighted sum of the literacy variables
(multiplying standardized scores for the literacy measures by their standard-
ized canonical coefficients for each of the analyses). Table 6 provides the
results of these analyses. Only the 89 children who completed all reading tasks
are included in these analyses. Separate regression analyses were performed in
order to determine differences in results depending upon which phonological
processing measure is used. There are five separate models presented in
Table 6, each including only one of the kindergarten phonological awareness
measures. The redundancy analysis (see Table 5) already indicated the relative
strength of predictability of phoneme-oddity in comparison to the other phono-
logical measures. However, our purpose is, in part, to demonstrate relative
influences of letter knowledge and various phonological tasks. The change

TABLE 6
Hierarchical Regression for the Kindergarten Predictors on Early Literacy
Change Change Change Change Change

Variable step entered in r 2 in r 2 in r 2 in r 2 in r 2
1 Letter knowledge (6) .21*** .21*** .21*** .21*** .21***

2 Rhyme detection (6) .09***
2 Sound-in-word (6) .05*
2 P-word repeat (6) .03
2 Onset/rime blend (6) .02
2 Phoneme oddity (6) .14***
1 Sound-in-word (6) .10***
1 P-word repeat (6) .07**
1 Onset/rime blend (6) .06**
2 Letter knowledge (6) .16*** .16*** .17*** .17*** .06**
4 Word span (6) .02 .04* .03* .04* .04*
4 Verbal IQ (7) .01 .02 .03* .03* .00
4 Letter knowledge (6) .10*** .09*** .10*** .08** .05*
4 Rhyme detection (6) .03*
4 Sound-in-word (6) .02
4 Pseudoword repeat (6) .00
4 Phoneme oddity (6) .08**
2
Total r .34 .33 .31 .32 .40
* p õ .05.
** p õ .01.
*** p õ .001.
in r 2 reported for each variable reflects a series of fixed order hierarchical

regressions (SAS-Statistical Package, Version V, 1985), controlling for all
other variables in previous steps determined in each model. In response to
Bowey’s (1994) concern about verbal ability and Leather and Henry’s (1994)
concern about the separability of phonological processing and verbal memory,
essentially three models are tested for each phonological task, comparing
variance accounted for when phonological tasks and letter knowledge are
placed first, second, and last in the models, which also include both kindergar-
ten verbal IQ and word span. The variance accounted for by word span and
verbal IQ is assessed as if each of these variables appear last in the models.
The total r 2 (variance accounted for by the model) is provided in the last row
of each column. As indicated, total variance accounted for in each literacy
regression model ranges between 31 and 40%.
In comparing the models, it appears that letter knowledge is significant
when it is placed first, second, and last in all the models. The significance of

kindergarten phonological awareness differs across models. All kindergarten

phonological tasks explain a significant proportion of the variance in the
literacy variable when placed first in each model. When each of these phono-
logical tasks is placed after letter knowledge, only rhyme detection, sound-
in-word, and phoneme-oddity are significant. When placed last in the model,
after letter knowledge, word span, and verbal IQ, only rhyme detection and
phoneme-oddity are significant. The other kindergarten phonological aware-
ness does not reach significance.
Treiman (1985, 1991) has shown that within syllable manipulations (such
as onset/rime blending and phoneme segmentation) are more advanced meta-
linguistically than tasks at the syllabic level. In addition, phonemic manipula-
tion tasks have been found to be significantly correlated with reading perfor-
mance. The kindergarten phonemic manipulation and segmentation tasks did
not account for as much variance in reading performance among the subjects
in this study compared with previous studies (see Yopp, 1988). However, the
rhyme detection and phoneme-oddity tasks do predict reading performance
in our subjects as they had in other studies (Bradley & Bryant, 1985; MacLean
et al., 1987).
Canonical correlations for late second grade. A second set of canonical
correlations and hierarchical regressions were performed to assess the relation-
ship between the predictor kindergarten measures of phonological awareness,
verbal ability, word span, letter knowledge, and literacy measures from late
in second grade (reading comprehension, word and nonword decoding, and
spelling). Only the 89 children who completed all the reading tasks are in-
cluded in these analyses. The same kindergarten phonological tasks as used
in the models for literacy early in second grade were used in the canonical
correlation analyses for late in second grade. As shown in Table 7, the adjusted
canonical correlation in the first canonical variate is .77, and the approximate
standard error of the estimate is .04. This correlation was significant (all
indicators, p õ .0001, including Roy’s greatest root). As shown, the canonical
r 2 is .59. The overall variance explained by the canonical correlation between
these two sets of variables is therefore relatively high. Redundancy analyses
and multiple correlations indicate that letter knowledge, rhyme detection, and
phoneme-oddity appear to explain the largest percentage of variance in the
set of late literacy measures. However, it appears that the variances in the
late decoding measures are not explained by the predictor measures, nor do
these measures contribute to defining the canonical correlate as well as the
early decoding measures defined the early literacy variate. Only one canonical
variate was found to be significant, which means only one set of relationships
between the predictor and the literacy measures requires interpretation. The
proportion of variance accounted for in the late literacy variable by the linear
combination of the individual measures that make up that variable is 35%.
The amount of variance accounted for in the literacy variable by the linear
combination of the predictor measures is 21%.

TABLE 7
Canonical Redundancy Analysis with Late Literacy and Kindergarten Predictor Measures
First predictor First late literacy

Canonical variate Canonical variate
Late literacy variables Correlation r2 Predictor variables Correlation r2
Reading comprehension .48 .23 Verbal IQ (7) .27 .07

Word decoding .05 .00 Word span (6) .33 .11
P-word decoding 0.27 .07 Letter knowledge (6) .45 .20
Spelling .72 .53 Rhyme detection (6) .48 .23
Sound-in-word (6) .29 .09
Pseudoword repeat (6) .24 .06
Onset/rime blend (6) .00 .00
Phoneme oddity (6) .66 .44
Note. Canonical r (Adjusted) Å .77; Canonical r 2 Å .59; likelihood ratio standard error Å .04,
degrees of freedom Å 32, p õ .0001; variance of early literacy explained by: literacy variables
Å .35 and predictor variables Å .21.
Hierarchical regression models for late second grade. Hierarchical regres-

sions, with a composite of the late literacy canonical coefficients as the depen-
dent measures, were performed in the same way as for the early literacy
models. Multiple regression models with the five kindergarten phonological
variables (used in the analyses for early literacy) can be found in Table 8.
When placed first in each model, letter knowledge, rhyme detection, sound-
in-word, and phoneme-oddity tasks are significant. Pseudoword repetition and
onset-rime blending are not significant. Only rhyme detection and phoneme-
oddity are significant when placed second in the model after letter knowledge,
and when placed last after letter knowledge, word span, and verbal IQ. Letter
knowledge is significant in all models when placed first, second, and last,
except when preceded by phoneme-oddity.
Syllable segmentation was also tested in a model with letter knowledge,
word span, and verbal IQ, given the significant correlation between this pho-
nological measure and reading comprehension and the decoding measures
late in second grade (which were not observed early in second grade). How-
ever, syllable segmentation failed to account for a significant proportion of
the variance in the late literacy variable even when placed first in the model.
In summary, rhyme detection and phoneme-oddity appear to be the strongest
phonological tasks predicting early and late second grade literacy perfor-
mance. Although letter knowledge is also a strong predictor, it appears that
phoneme-oddity is at least as good of a predictor in the case of early second
grade literacy and a better predictor than letter knowledge in the case of late
second grade literacy.
The interaction of memory span and phonological awareness. Word span

TABLE 8
Hierarchical Regression for the Kindergarten Predictors on Late Literacy
Change Change Change Change Change

Variable step entered in r 2 in r 2 in r 2 in r 2 in r 2
1 Letter knowledge (6) .19*** .19*** .19*** .19*** .19***

1 Sound-in-word (6) .06**
2 Letter knowledge (6) .11*** .14*** .17*** .19*** .02
4 Word span (6) .02 .03* .04* .03* .00
4 Verbal IQ (7) .01 .01 .01 .01 .00
4 Letter knowledge (6) .07** .07** .08*** .08** .02
4 Rhyme Detection (6) .08*
4 P-word rep (K) .00
4 O/R blend (K) .00
4 Phoneme-oddity (K) .22***
2
Total r .30 .23 .23 .23 .44
* p õ .05.
** p õ .01.
*** p õ .001.
was tested in the first year of kindergarten, then again along with the kinder-
garten phoneme-oddity, and in second grade along with phoneme recoding
(the combined score for the phonological tasks administered in the second
grade). Correlations among the word span and phonological tasks can be
found in Table 9. Phoneme-oddity was used as the kindergarten phonological
measure given its high predictability in later reading measures in comparison
with the other kindergarten phonological measures used in this study. All 134
children are included in the correlations and subsequent analyses of memory
and phonological awareness.
All correlations are significant (p õ .05 level), with the exception of word
span (4) and phoneme recoding (8). In order to test the relative proportion
of variance accounted for in word span (6 and 8) by the phonological measures
(6 and 8), and the relative proportion of variance in phonological measures
(6 and 8) accounted for by word span (4, 6, and 8), a series of forced step
hierarchical regressions were performed. The unique variance accounted for

TABLE 9
Correlations among the Phoneme-Oddity, Phoneme recode and Word Span Measures
Word span Word span Word span Phoneme- Phoneme-

(4) (6) (8) oddity (6) recode (8)
Word span (4) — .27** .35*** .21* .13

Word span (6) — .51*** .39*** .30**
Word span (8) — .25* .38***
Phoneme-oddity (6) — .38***
* p õ .05.
** p õ .01.
*** p õ .001.
by phonological measures in word span (6 and 8) is assessed by partialling

out the earlier measurement of word span (4 or 6) first before entering the
phonological variable. The unique variance accounted for by word span in
phoneme-oddity and recoding (6 and 8) is assessed by partialling out the
variance for earlier measurement of phonological-oddity (6) before entering
the word span (4 or 6) variable. The variance attributed to letter knowledge
is also partialled out. This method was thought more robust than using
crossed-lag partial correlations for assessing possible directional relationships
among word span and phonological measures (see Gathercole, Willis, Em-
slie, & Baddeley, 1991). These regression results can be found in Tables 10
and 11.
Word span (4) and word span (6) predict a significant proportion of variance
TABLE 10
Hierarchical Regressions for Word Span (6) and Phoneme-Oddity (6) as Dependent Measures
Word span (6) Phoneme-oddity (6)
Change Change
Predictor step entered in r 2 Predictor step entered in r 2
1 Word span (4) .03 1 Word span (4) .06***

1 Phoneme-oddity (6) .10*** 2 Word span (4) .04*
(after letter knowledge 6)
2 Phoneme-oddity (6) .04* 1 Word span (6) .05**
(after Word span 4)
2 Phoneme-oddity .06* 2 Word span (6) .03*
(after letter knowledge 6) (after letter knowledge 6)
* p õ .05.
** p õ .01.
*** p õ .001.

TABLE 11
Hierarchical Regressions for Word Span (8) and Phoneme recode (8) as Dependent Measures
Word span (8) Phoneme recode (8)
Change Change
Predictor step entered in r 2 Predictor step entered in r 2
1 Word span (4) .05* 1 Phoneme-oddity (6) .19***

1 Phoneme-oddity (6) .01 1 Word span (4) .07**
1 Phoneme recode (8) .02 2 Word span (4) .03*
(after Phoneme-oddity 6)
1 Word span (6) .19*** 2 Word span (4) .04*
1 Word span (6) .05*
2 Word span (6) .02
(after Phoneme-oddity 6)
2 word span (6) .03*
1 Word span (8) .03
* p õ .05.
** p õ .01.
*** p õ .001.
in phoneme-oddity (6), even after controlling for letter knowledge (K) in each
model. Phoneme-oddity (6) predicts a significant proportion of the variance
in word span (6) after being placed second in the model, either after letter
knowledge (6) or after word span (4). Word span (4) is a significant predictor
of phoneme recoding (8), even when controlling for either letter knowledge
(6) or for phoneme-oddity (6). Word span (6) is a significant predictor of
phoneme recoding (8) after letter knowledge (6), but not after phoneme-
oddity (6). Word span (8) was not a significant predictor of phoneme recoding
(8). Neither phoneme-oddity (6) nor phoneme recoding (8) were significant
predictors of word span (8).
These analyses suggest an interaction of verbal memory span and phonolog-
ical awareness by kindergarten for most of our German subjects, given the
reciprocal strength of word span (4 and 6) and phoneme-oddity (6). By the
second grade, it is likely that the influence of memory span and phonological
processing are mutually influential to such a high degree that their effects
might be considered redundant. This may prevent attempts to statistically
partial out the unique effects of phonological processing and verbal memory
measures. Recall the regression analyses for the early and late composite
literacy variables (see Tables 6 and 8). Word span (6) is significant in all but
the rhyme detection models when placed last after the letter knowledge,
phonological, and verbal IQ measures in predicting early literacy. For the
late composite literacy variable, word span (6) is significant when placed last

in all of the models, except those including rhyme detection and phoneme
oddity. This indicates that word span (6) is itself a reliable predictor of the
early and late literacy measures in this study, and probably shares a large
proportion of the variance with the phonological measures.
What this pattern of results also may suggest is that by the age of six,
spontaneous phonological recoding and rehearsal strategies develop and in-
fluence verbal memory for some children, such that phonological recoding
becomes an integral component of verbal memory (Gathercole et al., 1991).
An additional analysis was performed to test the interaction of phoneme
oddity (6) and word span (6). A significant partial correlation (controlling for
letter knowledge) was found between intra individual differences in memory
span for lists of phonologically similar and phonologically dissimilar words
(indicating an interference effect for phonologically similar lists of words)
and phoneme-oddity (r Å .57, p õ .001). The correlation between word span
(K) and phoneme-oddity (K) was .33 (p õ .001). The lists of phonologically
similar words shared either onset, middle sound, or rime. Larger discrepancies
in children’s recall for phonologically similar and dissimilar words suggests
larger phonological interference effects and spontaneous phonological recod-
ing in working memory (see Brady et al. 1983; Mann et al., 1980; Mann &
Liberman, 1984). The significant positive correlation between phonological
interference effects and phoneme-oddity performance further suggests that
memory span and phonological awareness are covaring processes for many
children by the age of 6.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Previous studies have indicated that among beginning readers, phonological
processing skills are highly reliable predictors of reading performance. For
example, for the 5-year-old children in a study conducted by Liberman, Shan-
kweiler, Fisher, and Carter (1974), reading performance was significantly
predicted by syllable segmentation. The 6-year-old preliterate children in this
study demonstrated a ceiling effect in the syllable segmenting and counting
tasks. Due to their age, the German sample was likely more developed meta-
linguistically than children in the Liberman et al. (1974) study. However,
when compared to the semiliterate 6-year-old children in Perfetti et al. (1987)
and Yopp (1988) studies, the German children at age 6 would appear to be
less proficient in some of the more advanced phonological tasks, especially
tasks that require mental operations at the level of individual phonemes.
The development of phonological processes involved in recoding informa-
tion in working memory in the preschool years needs to be investigated in
more detail. Gathercole et al. (1991) have conducted a longitudinal investiga-
tion with young children, introducing a unitary variable they call ‘‘phonologi-
cal working memory,’’ which is measured by tasks of pseudoword repetition.
They argue that phonological processing and verbal memory are integrated
cognitively to the point where these cannot be theoretically or practically

separated. Their study intended to show the influence of phonological memory

on vocabulary development between the ages of 4 and 8.
The pseudowords used in the Gathercole et al. (1991) studies were intended
to be ‘‘nonlexical’’ material. However, these pseudowords are constructed
largely of commonly used English morphological structures. A more thorough
critique of the materials used by Gathercole et al. (1991) to measure phonolog-
ical memory, and suggestions for investigating the processing demands of
phonological tasks, is provided by Snowling, Chiat, and Hulme (1991). Snow-
ling et al. (1991) suggest that researchers should continue to study separate
phonological processes, such as segmentation, blending, and articulatory as-
sembly, rather than attempt to explain phonological processing as a unitary
variable, or incorporate phonological processing with memory as a unitary
factor (see also McDougall, Hulme, Ellis, & Monk, 1994).
Caution should be used in interpreting the results of the partial correlation
between interference effects and phoneme-oddity measures in the present
study. Hulme (1984) and Hulme and Tordoff (1989) have studied the develop-
mental effects of acoustic similarity on working memory. Although these
researchers found interference effects, similar to the findings of Brady et al.
(1983, 1987) and Mann et al. (1980, 1984), they also warn against interpreting
the findings without considering differences in memory span. When control-
ling for memory span, Hulme and Tordoff (1989) discovered phonological
interference effects for children at all levels of word span. When tested for
recall of similar-sounding word lists, children demonstrated phonological in-
terference effects when lists were closer in length to their memory span for
dissimilar words. Lower memory span may be responsible artifactually for
lower discrepancies between memory span for phonologically similar and
dissimilar lists for poorer readers.
In the present study, children with low memory span for the phonologically
dissimilar words (three words and under) recalled less phonologically similar
words than dissimilar words in general. The recall for phonologically similar
words among children who recalled four or more phonologically dissimilar
words was similar to the performance of children with poorer word span
(dissimilar words lists). The mean number of similar-sounding words recalled
differed by about one word for children with better and poorer word span. If
one considers proportional differences, those with poorer reading skills (who
tend to have poorer working memory) will also demonstrate some level of
phonological interference effects. Considering absolute differences in memory
span for similar- and dissimilar-sounding word lists, the discrepancy appears
to increase for better readers.
The results of the present study suggest that phonological processes are
varied, with some developing spontaneously without explicit knowledge of
letters. The findings concerning the influence of phonological awareness on
later literacy skills in this study were task specific. Tunmer and Rohl (1991)
suggest that many measures reported to assess the phonological awareness

actually require some level of letter knowledge, thus confounding letter

knowledge with level of phonological awareness. The differences found in
performance of particular phonological tasks may reflect the strategic use of
letter knowledge these afford. The phonological tasks which significantly
predict reading in the present study (in the regression analyses) required no
specific letter sound knowledge. Wagner et al. (1994) report a significant
effect of each of the kindergarten and first grade phonological processing
abilities they measured (sound elision, comparison, oddity, segmentation, and
blending of onset/rime and syllables) on first and second grade decoding,
controlling for letter knowledge. However, when results were obtained via
structural equation modeling, their phonological tasks did not equally predict
decoding. In predicting first grade decoding performance, the analysis tasks
(elision, oddity, and sound recognition), but not the synthesis tasks (blending
tasks) had a significant influence. In second grade decoding, the first grade
synthesis tasks, but not the analysis tasks, had a significant influence. Although
their subjects had a very high level of letter knowledge (mean Å 20.7 letters),
the pattern indicates much the same as the present study. In kindergarten,
tasks which appear to depend upon, or appear more influenced by, letter
knowledge are less predictive of early reading performance. Synthesis, or
segmentation, tasks appear more appropriate and predictive of reading for
children who have some facility with grapheme–phoneme relationships.
Some research with English speaking children suggests that grapheme–
phoneme knowledge is more predictive of reading than phonological aware-
ness. Byrne and Fielding-Barnsley (1990, 1991) found that phonological
awareness was no longer a significant predictor of reading after partialling out
the effects of early letter knowledge (but see Wagner et al., 1994). Definitive
conclusions about the relative influence of preschool letter knowledge and
phonological awareness in English speaking studies are difficult to reach
given the relatively high level of preschool literacy (i.e., letter knowledge
and rudimentary word recognition) in some English speaking countries. One
finding of the present study was that many preliterate German children to
develop phonological processing skills and that these skills appear to signifi-
cantly facilitate their later reading performance independent of early letter
knowledge. The hypothesis that children cannot develop phonological aware-
ness before they are familiar with individual grapheme–phoneme correspon-
dences (e.g., letters and their corresponding sounds) does not appear to be
supported here. The majority of children in this study with high phonological
awareness at the same time demonstrated low letter knowledge. A defensible
argument in this case is that letter knowledge results from direct teaching
and practice. However, more phonologically aware children may learn these
relationships at a faster rate. Higher levels of preliterate phonological aware-
ness may facilitate rehearsing and accessing sound information about learned
letters more efficiently during reading instruction. This may account for the
high correspondence between letter knowledge and phonological processing

skills in English speaking studies, given widespread early exposure in pre-

school and kindergarten.
A phonological awareness training study based upon these assumptions
was recently conducted by Lundberg et al. (1988). Children in Scandinavia,
where the study was conducted, begin formal reading instruction at age 7,
on average. Although some significant positive effects on later reading 2
years after training were found, results also indicate that some children were
resistent to extensive training in phonological awareness. Children with low
phonological awareness may not assimilate letter-to-sound relationships eas-
ily, despite extensive exposure. More research is needed to explain some of
the variation in preschool metalinguistic development, especially for children
with low levels of phonological awareness.
Some language specific comparisons between this study and English speak-
ing studies should be made. In the case of decoding English pseudowords,
high levels of errors have been reported in studies with young children (see
Stanovich, Cunningham, & Feeman, 1984). Decoding of pseudowords by
English speakers is confounded by experience with rules of pronunciation
that extend over several graphemes (i.e., in the case of long vowels in letter
strings like ‘‘MAKE’’ and corresponding pseudoword ‘‘DAKE’’), using lexi-
cal pronunciation ‘‘checking’’ procedures (i.e., in the example of knowing
whether ‘‘ENOUGH’’ sounds like ‘‘THOUGH’’ or ‘‘ROUGH’’), and other
seemingly nontransparent uses of analogy (see Goswami, 1988), by pronunci-
ation of frequently read irregular orthography, and by competition of phone-
mic response in orthography (i.e., ‘‘pear’’ and ‘‘bear,’’ versus ‘‘fear’’ and
‘‘dear’’). Experiments such as those conducted by Van Orden (1987) demon-
strating differences in error and speed attributed to competing pronunciation
responses are not possible in German.
One other confounding factor in comparing German and English speaking
studies is the age of beginning reading instruction. At age 6 and 7, preliterate
German children are likely to be more developed metacognitively in phono-
logical awareness and memory processes in comparison to 4- and 5-year-old
English speakers beginning to read. In addition, differences in the transpar-
ency of orthography may also affect the approach children have toward read-
ing, especially in the acquisition phase. Whole word guessing and decoding
by analogy observed in English children (see Frith, 1985; Goswami, 1988)
are not as likely to be found in German reading acquisition (see Wimmer &
Hummer, 1990). German children appear to make use of all graphemic infor-
mation affording them phonetic cues for accurate decoding. This may explain,
in part, the lack of impulsive decoding resulting in errors in this study.
Most children, even poorer readers, possess a strategy for accurate phonetic
decoding of letter strings in German. The slow and drawn out decoding
process observed in some children in this study likely interfered in their
comprehension of text, as indicated by the significant relationship between
nonword decoding (a speed measure) and reading comprehension (r Å .61,

p õ .0001). The low level of errors for this German sample in both decoding
tasks may be due to these orthographic-specific factors. However, longer letter
strings or presenting lists rather than single items in the decoding tasks may
elicit more errors.
A study recently completed by Näslund, Schneider, and van den Broek
(1994), which compared the relationships among reading, phonological, mem-
ory, and lexical access measures between German and American children in
the first and second grade, used multiple lists of four words or nonwords
each, instead of single words for the decoding task. The lists were also of
increasing complexity. More errors, and thus measurable variance, were elic-
ited using this method, compared to the easier decoding tasks used in the
present study. The number of errors for nonwords (but not words) was signifi-
cantly related (just at the .05 level) to reading comprehension. The speed of
word and nonword decoding was more highly related to comprehension for
both German and American children compared to decoding errors. Differential
relationships among phonological awareness, memory span, lexical access,
decoding (using longer strings of words and nonwords), and reading compre-
hension, and differences in types of errors and strategies between German
and American children will provide further information about variability in
reading associated with orthographic and strategic differences in these two
populations of beginning readers.
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Kindergarten Letter Knowledge, Phonological Skills, and Memory Processes: Relative Effects On Early Literacy

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Kindergarten Letter Knowledge, Phonological Skills, and Memory Processes: Relative Effects On Early Literacy

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JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 62, 30–59 (1996)

ARTICLE NO. 0021

Kindergarten Letter Knowledge, Phonological Skills, and

JAN CAROL NÄSLUND

University of New Mexico

University of Würzburg, Germany

Kindergarten phonological awareness tasks are first compared as to their predictabil-

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other reading related skills). Differences in kindergarten phonological pro-

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ment that phonological awareness develops as a result of learning the alphabet

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rime (vowel sounds), onset–consonant/rime, and rime/coda–consonant com-

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and Large (1988) considered two roles of short-term memory in reading.

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Age 4 Age 6 Age 7 Age 8

Word span Word span Verbal ability Word span

Tasks and Procedure

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Letters named Frequency Percentage Cumulative percentage

Note. Mean letters named Å 5.5; SD Å 6.6.

RESULTS AND PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION

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Variables M SD Min. Max.

Phonological awareness tasks. Means, standard deviations, and ranges for

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correlate significantly with all of the literacy measures. Letter knowledge,

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First predictor First early literacy

Early literacy variables Correlation r2 Predictor variables Correlation r2

Word discrimination .46 .23 Verbal IQ (7) .35 .10

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Change Change Change Change Change

1 Letter knowledge (6) .21*** .21*** .21*** .21*** .21***

in r 2 reported for each variable reflects a series of fixed order hierarchical

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kindergarten phonological awareness differs across models. All kindergarten

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First predictor First late literacy

Late literacy variables Correlation r2 Predictor variables Correlation r2

Reading comprehension .48 .23 Verbal IQ (7) .27 .07

Hierarchical regression models for late second grade. Hierarchical regres-

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Change Change Change Change Change

1 Letter knowledge (6) .19*** .19*** .19*** .19*** .19***

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Word span Word span Word span Phoneme- Phoneme-

Word span (4) — .27** .35*** .21* .13

by phonological measures in word span (6 and 8) is assessed by partialling

Word span (6) Phoneme-oddity (6)

1 Word span (4) .03 1 Word span (4) .06***

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Word span (8) Phoneme recode (8)

1 Word span (4) .05* 1 Phoneme-oddity (6) .19***

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1 Letter knowledge (6) .21* .21* .21* .21* .21***

1 Letter knowledge (6) .19* .19* .19* .19* .19***

Word span (4) — .27 .35* .21* .13