Developmental Cognitive Abilities Related Reading Among Children And The Effect Of Reading Environment

ObjectiveWe aimed to explore the developmental patterns of cognitive factors whichmight affect the reading development of children in low grades in primary school. Weexpected to find how family reading environment affected the phonologicalprocessing abilities which were thought to help children improving their reading skills.It would be helpful to provide scientific basis for promoting the reading environmentof children.Methods1. In part one, we selected366children with simple cluster sampling methodfrom a primary school in Wuhan in October,2009. All the participants came fromgrade one and grade two. These children were required to finish the tests includingphonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthography, rapid naming,working memory span and phonetic short-term memory. We followed these childrento evaluate the same tests in the next two years (2010,2011). Firstly, we tried toanalysis the dynamic change of their cognitive abilities in three consecutive years.Secondly, we tried to compare the differences of six cognitive abilities between thetwo grades in each year.2. In part two, we used random cluster sampling method to select two hundredand sixteen children of grade three in October,2010from the same school as part one.They finished the phonological processing tests (including phonological awareness,rapid naming test and short-term phonological memory test) and questionnaires offamily reading environment. We used Generalized Linear Models to study the influence of family reading environment on the phonological processing abilities ofchildren.Results1. We found the cognitive abilities of two grades were significantly developed inthree consecutive years. For example, the phonological awareness in grade one(F=95.357, P<0.001) and in grade two (F=45.896, P<0.001). Then we did comparisonbetween each two grades and found that abilities of phonological awareness,morphological awareness, rapid naming and phonetic short-term memory in both twogrades were upgraded as they grew up. While development of orthography wasslowed down in grade three, and then increased again.(orthograph in grade two:51.30±5.54, one year later,51.29±8.46, P>0.05; two years later,53.67±5.29, P<0.001)Working memory developed slowly during the grade two and grade three.(Forexample, working memory in grade one:9.05±4.83, one year later,5.97±3.29,P<0.001; two years later,9.57±5.03, P<0.001).2. Development of six cognitive abilities in different grades indicated that theabilities (includes: phonological awareness, morphological awareness, phoneticshort-term memory, rapid naming, working memory span) in higher grades weresuperior to lower grades. There were no significant differences in orthography ingrade two and grade three.(grade one and grade two: t=-10.253, P<0.001; grade twoand grade three: t=-1.072, P>0.05; grade three and grade four: t=-3.678, P<0.001).3. The results indicated that time of children watching TV every day (one to twohours P<0.05; less than one hour P<0.05) and parents encouraged children to readextracurricular books frequently (P<0.01) had significant influence on phonologicalawareness. The frequency of buying extracurricular books to children (P<0.05) hadsignificant influence on rapid naming test and phonetic short-term memory. Parentsreading weekly (P<0.05) had significant influence on rapid naming test.Conclusions1. The phonological processing abilities (including phonological awareness,rapid naming test and phonetic short-term memory) and morphological awareness of children were developed earlier than other abilities. They were stable improved as thechildren grew up. But orthography and working memory span were improved slowlyin their elementary grades; they would improve obviously until grade three or four.2. Parents should often encourage the child to read extracurricular books. Whendoing Parent-Child reading they should discuss with the child frequently. Parents alsoneed to guide their child to watch some beneficial television programs and control thetime of watching TV. Building a good reading environment for children may help topromote the phonological processing abilities of children and then improve thereading abilities of children.The development of reading-related cognitive abilities of children in low-gradeswas imbalanced. We could improve the family reading environment to promote thedevelopment of phonological processing skills of children. We could timely detect thelag of development in the orthography and working memory cognitive level ofchildren. It will provide the basis and foundation for teachers and parents to improvethe students’ reading abilities.