Developmental Changes in Reading Ability: A Longitudinal Analysis of Japanese Children from First to Fifth Grade

Abstract

The relationship between reading ability and other skills that are components of reading ability was analyzed longitudinally in the present study. The children who were participants in the study were attending public school in Osaka, and had participated in a previous 2-year longitudinal study (Takahashi, 1996a). They participated in the study while in the first, third, and fifth grades. At the end of first grade, the speed of naming hiragana words was quicker in those children who had acquired the skill of reading hiragana script before entering school than in children who had learned it in school; naming speed strongly determined the children's reading comprehension. As the children became older, the differences among the children in naming speed diminished, and the relationship of speed to comprehension also became weak. When the children were in the fifth grade, the speed of naming kanji words was not related to reading comprehension. That is, the efficiency of processing at the level of encoding did not determine the children's reading ability when they were in the fifth grade. The size of their vocabulary had, on the other hand, a continuously strong influence on reading comprehension, which could be explained by reading comprehension in the third grade. Reading ability and vocabulary had, therefore, a reciprocal relationship: elementary school children increased their vocabulary through reading, and the strength of their vocabulary determined their reading comprehension.