Growth modeling of phonological awareness

In a longitudinal study following prereading kindergartners through first grade, the variables verbal memory, IQ, and speech perception (SP) together predicted 26% of growth in and 42% of the final status of phonological awareness (PA). The correlation between initial status and growth in PA was .51, suggesting that those who begin with high PA develop that skill more quickly than those who begin with lower PA. Although those low and high in SP in kindergarten had substantially different word-decoding scores by the middle of first grade (low: M = 6.8 words; high: M = 18.1 words), this difference was no longer significant once phonological processing was controlled, suggesting that the effect of SP on word decoding is mediated by phonological processing ability.