Development of Reading and Phonological Skills of Children at Family Risk for Dyslexia: A Longitudinal Analysis from Kindergarten to Sixth Grade

The main focus of this article is to develop a better understanding of the developmental trajectories of literacy and phonological skills within Dutch‐speaking children. Children at high and low risk for dyslexia were followed and compared at four different moments: kindergarten and first, third and sixth grades. Three groups were then compared: (1) dyslexic readers; (2) normal readers at high risk for dyslexia; and (3) normal readers at low risk for dyslexia. Children diagnosed with dyslexia scored lower than high‐risk normal readers on phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), verbal short‐term memory and literacy skills. Normal readers at high risk scored between both groups, confirming that dyslexia is to be considered as a continuum rather than an all‐or‐none condition. Growth analyses showed that the three groups evolved similarly on all measures except for phoneme deletion and literacy measures. Finally, solely PA and RAN explained a significant amount of variance in the evolution of reading skills. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Source: Dyslexia - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Research Article Source Type: research