Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine if word reading and vocabulary are reciprocally related. Method: We followed a sample of 172 English-speaking Canadian children (82 girls, 90 boys; M[subscript age] = 75.87 months at the first measurement point) from the beginning of Grade 1 until the beginning of Grade 3 and assessed them three…

Background: The present study aimed to examine the early growth of word and nonword reading fluency and their cognitive predictors in a consistent syllabic orthography (Japanese "Hiragana"). Method: One hundred sixty-nine Grade 1 Japanese children (M[subscript age] = 80.12 months, SD = 3.62) were followed until the middle of Grade 2 and…

We examined the role of different cognitive skills in word reading (accuracy and fluency) and spelling accuracy in syllabic Hiragana and morphographic Kanji. Japanese Hiragana and Kanji are strikingly contrastive orthographies: Hiragana has consistent character-sound correspondences with a limited symbol set, whereas Kanji has inconsistent…

We examined the direction of the relation between morphological awareness and reading/spelling skills in 2 languages varying in orthographic consistency (English and Greek) and whether word reading fluency and vocabulary mediate the relation between morphological awareness and reading comprehension. One-hundred and 59 English-speaking Canadian and…

We evaluated two experimenter-delivered, small-group word reading programs among at-risk poor readers in Grade 1 classes of regular elementary schools using a two-arm, dual-site-matched control trial intervention. At-risk poor word readers (n = 201) were allocated to either (a) Direct Mapping and Set-for-Variability (DMSfV) or (b) Current or…

The Double Deficit Hypothesis of dyslexia is one approach to classifying students with reading disabilities. The theory offers four distinct groups of readers: (a) average readers, (b) students with phonological deficits, (c) students with naming speed deficits, and (d) students with double deficits: those having both (b) and (c). This study…

We investigated the effects of morphological awareness on five measures of reading in 103 children from Grades 1 to 3. Morphological awareness was assessed with a word analogy task that included a wide range of morphological transformations. Results indicated that the new measure had satisfactory reliability, and that morphological awareness was a…