Letter knowledge is considered an important cognitive foundation for learning to read. The underlying mechanisms of the association between letter knowledge and reading skills are, however, not fully understood. Acquiring letter knowledge depends on the ability to learn and retrieve sound-symbol pairings. In the current study, this process was explored by setting preschool children's (N = 242, mean age = 5.57 years) performance in the acquisition and retrieval of a paired associate learning (PAL) task in relation to their letter knowledge as well as to their performance in tasks assessing precursors of reading skills (i.e., phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, phonological short-term memory, backward recall, and response inhibition). Multiple regression analyses revealed that performance in the acquisition of the PAL task was significantly associated with phonological awareness and backward recall, whereas performance in the retrieval of the PAL task was significantly associated with rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, and backward recall. Moreover, PAL proved to be mediating the relation between reading precursors and letter knowledge. Together, these findings indicate that the acquisition of letter knowledge may depend on a visual-verbal associative learning mechanism and that different factors contribute to the acquisition and retrieval of such visual-verbal associations.

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Für Kinder mit Lernstörung (LS) hören die Lernproblemen nicht mit dem Unterrichtsschluss auf, sondern setzen sich bei den Hausaufgaben fort. Dennoch ist über die Hausaufgabenpraxis bei LS wenig bekannt. Fragestellung: Ziel war es, die familiäre Hausaufgabenpraxis bei Kindern mit und ohne LS längsschnittlich zu untersuchen. Methode: 82 Eltern (davon 47 von einem Kind mit LS) wurden zu vier Zeitpunkten befragt und latente Veränderungsmodelle gerechnet. Ergebnisse: Eltern von Kindern mit LS berichteten mehr Kontrolle und Konflikte bei den Hausaufgaben und nahmen ihre Hilfe als weniger kompetent wahr. Auch forderten sie von ihren Kindern weniger Anstrengung ein. Längsschnittlich nahmen bei beiden Gruppen die Hausaufgabenkontrolle sowie die familiäre Belastung ab. Diskussion und Schlussfolgerung: Die schwierigere Hausaufgabensituation bei Kindern mit LS legt nahe, das Thema bei der Diagnostik anzusprechen und zu eruieren, wie die Familien entlastet werden können.

We examined the contribution of rapid automatized naming (RAN) components (articulation time, pause time, and pause time consistency) to reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling in a sample of 257 German children (139 boys, 118 girls; Mage = 5.60 years, SD = 0.31) followed from kindergarten to Grade 1. In kindergarten, children were assessed on measures of RAN (colors and objects), phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, phonological short-term memory, and paired-associate learning. Reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling were assessed at the end of Grade 1. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that pause time and pause time consistency continued to predict reading fluency, but not reading comprehension or spelling, after controlling for the effects of the other cognitive skills assessed in kindergarten. Articulation time did not add to the prediction of any literacy skills. These findings support previous research suggesting that, during the early phases of learning to read, pause time holds the key in the relation between RAN and reading fluency.