Differentiating poor and good readers in second grade: Cognitive and linguistic variables

Abstract

The present study examined the relationships of reading fluency with cognitive and linguistic skills in second graders. In particular, the roles of phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological memory (PM) and morphological awareness (MA) in prediction of oral reading fluency (ORF) were explored in Turkish poor and good readers. Sixty six second grade students participated in the study and the measurements of ORF, PA, RAN, PM, and MA were administered. After data collection, the sample was divided into two groups as poor and good readers based on the students’ performance on ORF. The findings showed that relationships between ORF and other variables differentiate in poor and good readers. PA and RAN were related significantly to ORF in poor readers while ORF was correlated with PA and MA in good readers. Also, regression analyses indicated that PA is the most significant predictor to ORF in poor readers while MA is a significant precursor for ORF in good readers. Moreover, both PA and RAN have additional explanations to ORF in poor readers although only MA was a significant contributor of ORF in good readers. Consequently, these findings demonstrated that poor readers are on the process of reading acquisition via phonological awareness and naming speed, but good readers move up into semantics of words via morphological awareness. As Turkish is a transparent and agglutinating language, the results of this study offer a different perspective on Turkish reading development.