Perception of phonemic length and its relation to reading and spelling skills in children with family risk for dyslexia in the first three grades of school.

PURPOSE: To examine the ability to discriminate phonemic length and the association of this ability with reading accuracy, reading speed, and spelling accuracy in Finnish children throughout Grades 1-3.

METHOD: Reading-disabled (RDFR, n = 35) and typically reading children (TRFR, n = 69) with family risk for dyslexia and typically reading control children (TRC, n = 80) were tested once in each grade of Grades 1-3 using a phonemic length discrimination task. Reading, spelling, IQ, verbal short-term memory, phonological memory, and naming speed were assessed.

RESULTS

The RDFR group made more errors in phonemic length discrimination than the TRC group in Grades 2 and 3. After taking into account variance in verbal short-term memory, phonological memory, and naming speed, discrimination ability explained unique variance of spelling accuracy in Grades 2 and 3 and reading accuracy in Grade 3 in the RDFR group. At the individual level, in Grade 2, 31.4% of the RDFR group and 14.7% of the TRFR group performed below -1.25 SDs in the phonemic length discrimination task.

CONCLUSION

Problems in phonemic length discrimination could be one of the accumulating risk factors affecting development leading to dyslexia.