Contribution of cognitive abilities and home literacy activities to hiragana reading and spelling skills in kindergarten children

Abstract

The contribution of cognitive abilities and home literacy activities to early reading and spelling skills of Japanese Hiragana were investigated in a cross-sectional study of 243 Japanese-speaking upper kindergarten children. They were tested in phonological awareness (nonword repetition and word repetition in reversed order), rapid automatized naming (RAN), visual cognition, receptive vocabulary, and reading and spelling of Hiragana characters. Parents filled in a questionnaire about home literacy activities, frequency of home reading and parent teaching. For reading, the scores of RAN, word repetition in reversed order and nonword repetition significantly predicted the reading score, while home literacy activities showed no significant contribution. For spelling, the scores of RAN, word repetition in reversed order, nonword repetition, figure copying and frequency of parent teaching at home significantly predicted the spelling score. These findings suggest that cognitive abilities are important for reading and spelling acquisition in kindergarten children, but parent teaching may also play a role for early spelling acquisition in Hiragana.