Working Memory and Reading Development

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the development of working memory and reading in proficient students from 1st to 4th year of elementary school. Method: Participants were 19 people of both genders, with an average age of 8.26 years, enrolled between the 1st and 4th year of elementary school, who met the proposed inclusion criteria and were proposed and evaluated for working memory and reading level. Results: There're no significant differences in the level of reading and working memory between genders male and female. The research points to an improved performance of working memory with the increasing age and educational level. The students belonging to the 3rd and 4th year showed better results in the physical assessment of working memory, as well as in the evaluation of the reading level. Conclusion: In this study, it was observed that with the increasing age and schooling, there was an improvement in the performance of working memory, and consequently a better performance in reading. But it cannot be inferred that only the working memory and reading complement themselves bidirectionally, because the literature indicates that other factors also help the development of reading.

Home learning environment and physical development impact children’s executive function development and literacy in rural Côte d’Ivoire

“…During literacy development, inhibitory control supports an emerging reader by suppressing irrelevant and distracting information both in their environment and in their prepotent responses to the visual stimulus of written language (Altemeier et al, 2008;Dehaene et al, 2015). Working memory allows the reader to retain and manipulate the phonological and visual information necessary to learn the mappings between written language and its corresponding sounds and meanings-decoding ability (Ferreira et al, 2013). Cognitive flexibility, the ability to switch between different cognitive tasks, allows an emerging reader to think about the properties of words beyond their semantic information and develop the meta-linguistic knowledge to understand the segmental nature of language, which in turn allows the reader to map segments to individual symbols (e.g.…”

Phonological Processing and other Language Parameters in ADHD Children

“…Studies suggested that the LA is accompanied by reading, especially in comprehension, decoding skills, and fluency [19] . Working memory (WM) refers to the ability to retain and manipulate information temporally during performance of cognitive tasks such as comprehension, reasoning, and learning [20] .…”

Performance of Phonological Processing in Children with Attention Deficit Hiperactivity Disorder

“…The WM is responsible for the temporary storage of information while performing cognitive tasks such as reasoning, comprehension and learning (Alloway, Gathercole, & Elliott, 2010;Carrilo-Mora, 2010;Voorde, Roeyers, & Wiersema, 2010, Ferreira, Valentin, & Ciasca, 2013. According to the model of Baddeley and Hitch (1974) and Barkley (2002), the WM is responsible for maintaining the information recently processed and the establishment of connections with the new information.…”