The relationship between selected cognitive variables and beginning reading achievement

Abstract

Using a single measure of reading achievement at the end of first grade, prior studies have investigated the relationship between one or two cognitive variables and success with beginning reading. The purpose of this study was to : 1 ) incorporate four categories of cognitive variables in order to investigate the possibility of an optimal interrelationship among the variables which maximize their predictive power for successful beginning reading achievement; 2 ) determine if the cognitive variables associated with reading achievement at the end of first grade would also be associated with achievement at the end of second and third grade; 3 ) determine if the same set of cognitive variables are associated with different measures of reading. Cognitive variables found in the literature and investigated in this study are: 1 ) performance in tasks of classification including class inclusion, multiple classification, conservation of weight, conservation of liquid , and seriation as found in Piaget's cognitive development theory; 2 ) cognitive style (field independence-dependence) as measured by the Children's Embedded Figures Test; 3) children's understanding of reading-related concepts (linguistic concepts of "letter-sound" [phoneme], "word," and "sentence," and written word boundaries; and factors of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised, verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, and freedom from distractibility. Three aspects of beginning reading achievement were examined providing three criterion variables: 1) oral comprehension; 2) silent comprehension; and 3) word recognition. An individual reading inventory, The Pupil Placement Test, was used to measure the criterion variables. Complete data were obtained and subsequently analyzed from 101 subjects randomly selected from all first, second, and third grade students enrolled in the local school district. Each grade was analyzed separately. Analyses used to examine the interrelationship s between the predictor variables and their relationship with the criterion variables were...