Phonological processing skills and early reading abilities in Hong Kong Chinese kindergarteners learning to read English as a second language

The present 9-month longitudinal study investigated relations between Chinese native language phonological processing skills and early Chinese and English reading abilities among 221 kindergarteners in Hong Kong. Phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and short-term verbal memory differed in their relations to concurrent and subsequent Chinese and English word recognition. The significant bidirectional relations between phonological awareness and Chinese reading ability remained even after accounting for the variance due to age, vocabulary, and visual skills performance. When all predictors were considered simultaneously, only phonological awareness remained a significant predictor of Chinese and English reading abilities both concurrently and longitudinally.