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Reading and Writing

, Volume 30, Issue 8, pp 1705–1728 | Cite as

The associations among preschool children’s growth in early reading, executive function, and invented spelling skills

  • Chenyi Zhang
  • Gary E. Bingham
  • Margaret F. Quinn
Article
First Online:

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine associations among children’s emergent literacy (early reading), language, executive function (EF), and invented spelling skills across prekindergarten. Participants included 123, primarily African American, 4-year-old children enrolled in a variety of prekindergarten settings. In addition to describing the concurrent and longitudinal relations between children’s emergent literacy, EF, and invented spelling skills, this study investigated associations among children’s growth in these targeted skills and explored potential indirect effects from children’s EF to invented writing skill. Multiple regression analyses suggested that although early reading skills were significantly and concurrently associated with invented spelling skills, children’s phonological awareness was the only early reading skill predictive of later invented spelling skills. Children’s EF was not concurrently or longitudinally associated with invented spelling after controlling for early reading skills. However, regression analyses of children’s residual scores suggested that children’s EF skill at the beginning of the semester was predictive of their later invented spelling skills through children’s letter-sound knowledge.

Keywords

Early writing Invented spelling Executive function Early literacy Early childhood 
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© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education, College of Education and Human DevelopmentGeorgia State UniversityAtlantaUSA

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