Emergent literacy skills, behavior problems and familial antecedents of reading difficulties: A follow-up study of reading achievement from kindergarten to fifth grade

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Abstract

This study examined the relation between emergent literacy skills, teachers’ reports of behavioral problems, and word reading achievement in a community sample of French students. Family background was investigated and included familial antecedents of reading difficulties (Fa/Rd) and parents’ educational level. The analyses explored the pattern of concurrent relations between behavioral, familial and emergent literacy measures in a sample of 812 preschoolers, and their predictive power in explaining word reading achievement in a sub-sample of 150 children followed from kindergarten to fifth grade. Word reading at fifth grade was predicted by kindergarten measures of phonological awareness and letter knowledge. Teachers’ reports of inattention symptoms at each grade level were associated with early reading skills and with subsequent word reading. Fa/Rd were concurrently and longitudinally associated with emergent literacy skills, teachers’ reported inattention and word reading. These results indicate that children with a family history of reading difficulties are at increased risk for the co-occurrence of reading difficulties and attention problems from kindergarten onward. These findings confirm the shared influence of Fa/Rd on the comorbidity between inattention symptoms and reading difficulties in a non-diagnosed community sample of preschool children followed through late elementary school.

Highlights

► Inattention was more strongly related with reading-related tasks at both grades. ► Emergent literacy skills and inattention were correlated with Fa/Rd at kindergarten. ► Word reading and inattention reports were also associated with Fa/Rd at fifth grade. ► Fa/Rd play a role in the co-occurrence of reading difficulties and attention problems. ► This role was in place from kindergarten onward in a non-diagnosed community sample.

Introduction

Reading acquisition is a central challenge in children's developmental trajectories and a key determinant to overall educational success during elementary school (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1997, Duncan et al., 2007, Stanovich, 1986). As a result, children who manifest early difficulties in learning to read represent a vulnerable group at high risk of underachievement trajectories throughout childhood and beyond, with long lasting consequences and costs for individuals and societies (Campbell et al., 2001, Heckman, 2006, Maughan et al., 2009).

The concept of emergent literacy postulates that the development of reading ability is associated with a range of skills displayed by the preliterate child that are considered developmental precursors of conventional forms of reading and writing, as well as the social environments that allow the emergence of these developments (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Within the set of emergent literacy skills, the existing literature has highlighted three main constructs strongly associated with preschool children's subsequent word identification abilities: oral language skills, print knowledge and phonological processing abilities. An extensive body of research has supported the predictive value of these skills for preschoolers’ later word reading outcomes (Jordan et al., 2000, Lonigan et al., 2000, Storch and Whitehurst, 2002, Spira et al., 2005, Wagner et al., 1997). Importantly, extant longitudinal analyses have shown that individual differences in these early literacy skills are relatively stable from kindergarten onward and contribute to later discrepancies in reading ability throughout elementary school (Billard et al., 2009, Cunningham and Stanovich, 1997, Hecht et al., 2000, Watier et al., 2006). Preschoolers’ oral language skills, such as vocabulary knowledge and oral comprehension, were found to be powerful predictors of early and later reading achievement suggesting their crucial role in learning to read for beginning readers (Muter et al., 2004, Storch and Whitehurst, 2002, Watier et al., 2006). Print knowledge, which refers to children's understanding of the conventions of prints (e.g., knowing that writing goes from left to right and top to bottom across a page), letter names and print to sound correspondences, was shown to explain a substantial proportion of variability in the growth of reading outcomes (Hecht et al., 2000, Wagner et al., 1997). However, letter knowledge has been pointed as the most powerful single predictor of short and long-term literacy success, when compared with other aspects of print knowledge (Lonigan et al., 2000, Muter et al., 2004, Storch and Whitehurst, 2002). Finally, phonological awareness, the ability to explicitly represent and manipulate the sounds of language, is considered a developmental precursor of critical importance in the initial stages of reading acquisition, particularly in children's ability to decode words into their linguistic units (Hulme et al., 2005, Wagner and Torgesen, 1987, for a review). Poor readers have been consistently found to perform below the level of normal readers on phonological awareness tasks (Hecht et al., 2000, Shaywitz et al., 1999) and longitudinal studies have demonstrated its unique contribution to later reading progress during elementary school (Billard et al., 2008, Billard et al., 2009, Spira et al., 2005, Storch and Whitehurst, 2002, Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2003, Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2005, Torgesen et al., 1997, Wagner et al., 1997). Moreover, the relation between phonological awareness and learning to read appears to be reciprocal, as demonstrated in several studies regarding the crucial role of early reading skills in the acquisition of phonological awareness (de Santos Loureiro et al., 2004, Dellatolas et al., 2003). Thus, a substantial body of evidence suggests the developmental continuity between preschoolers’ emergent literacy and oral language skills with later reading and word decoding abilities. As a consequence, children who fail to develop proficient levels of emergent literacy skills at preschool are at increased risk of experiencing inadequate reading abilities during elementary school (Storch and Whitehurst, 2002, Whitehurst and Lonigan, 1998).

In order to increase understanding of the factors that influence early academic achievement, researchers have called for a broader perspective that recognizes the importance of behavioral correlates in subsequent learning (Duncan et al., 2007, Entwisle and Alexander, 1998). Notably, the association between reading achievement and behavior problems during early and middle childhood has been well documented (Hinshaw, 1992, for a review). Numerous studies at the preschool level have presented evidence regarding the intersection between emergent literacy skills and early behavior problems prior to school entry (Lonigan et al., 1999, Rabiner and Coie, 2000, Spira and Fischel, 2005, for a review; Velting & Whitehurst, 1997). Moreover, evidence from longitudinal research has demonstrated a link between early behavior problems and academic underachievement from kindergarten to elementary school (Al Otaiba and Fuchs, 2006, Bub et al., 2007, Dally, 2006, Hinshaw, 1992, for a review; Rabiner and Coie, 2000, Trzesniewski et al., 2006, Vaughn et al., 1993). Therefore, children who meet criteria for reading disabilities (RD) are reported to be at increased risk of comorbidity with psychiatric disorders, in particular with externalizing disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive subtype (Hinshaw, 1992), and Conduct Disorder (CD) (Angold, Costello, & Erkanli, 1999). However, it has been proposed that the significant overlap of RD, ADHD and CD is related with shared associations between these diagnostic entities. Indeed, reading difficulties and CD were shown to be unrelated except by their common correlation with the attention deficits reported in ADHD (Rapport et al., 1999, Carroll et al., 2004). Furthermore, despite the well-documented association between ADHD and reading problems (Merrell and Tymms, 2001, Hinshaw, 1992), a growing literature has documented that it is the inattentive subtype of ADHD, when compared with the hyperactive subtype, which correlates more strongly with the reading difficulties of school-aged children (Willcutt and Pennington, 2000a, McGee et al., 2002). Importantly, longitudinal studies have presented evidence that inattentive behavior during kindergarten predicted reading achievement by the end of elementary school (Duncan et al., 2007, Rabiner and Coie, 2000), and that inattention reported at elementary school significantly predicted long-term educational attainment at age 22–23 (Pingault et al., 2011). In France, existing literature has revealed similar patterns concerning the association between behavior problems and reading difficulties. Inattention symptoms reported by the teacher, but not hyperactivity-impulsivity or conduct problems, were significantly related with early reading skills in preschool children (Dellatolas et al., 2006, Giannopulu et al., 2008), and predicted reading achievement on measures of word identification and reading comprehension (Billard et al., 2010, Giannopulu et al., 2007). Although existing literature has reported a significant association between reading achievement and behavior problems on children in elementary school, the relationship between emergent literacy skills and behavioral difficulties in young children before school entry remains understudied (Doctoroff, Greer, & Arnold, 2006). In addition, longitudinal studies that examine the influence of separate dimensions of behavioral problems on emergent literacy skills and subsequent reading outcomes are needed, due to existing evidences presented in several studies regarding the predictive value of distinct dimensions of behavior problems, other than inattentive behavior, on reading acquisition (Bracken and Fischel, 2007, Spira et al., 2005, Trzesniewski et al., 2006).

In addition to the significant role that emergent literacy and behavior problems play on preschoolers’ later reading ability, the impact of family background on children's reading development is well established (Entwisle and Alexander, 1998, Sénéchal and LeFevre, 2002, Whitehurst and Lonigan, 1998). For instance, parents’ education level has been consistently associated with children's performances on measures of emergent literacy skills and with later reading performance (Billard et al., 2008, Bradley and Corwyn, 2002, Burchinal et al., 2002, Hecht et al., 2000, Watier et al., 2006). Of particular interest in this field of research is the finding that difficulties in learning to read are significantly familial: children reared in families where at least one relative had a history of RD are at increased risk of developing the disorder, when compared to children without familial antecedents of RD (Puolakanaho et al., 2007, Snowling et al., 2003). These studies have put forward the notion of a familial risk in the development of reading difficulties, which is conventionally conceptualized as the presence of a history of RD antecedents in at least one of the child's relatives (i.e. parents and/or siblings). Moreover, these studies have highlighted that the inclusion of measures of familial antecedents of reading acquisition in screening procedures during kindergarten, in addition to measures of oral language, letter knowledge and phonological awareness, improved significantly the probability of identifying a child at risk of developing RD later on elementary school. Importantly, a study conducted by Doyen et al. (2004) extended the previous findings by demonstrating that a parsimonious screening procedure aimed to examine the presence of parental antecedents of reading difficulties was related with both lower scores on early literacy skills and with teachers’ reports of inattention symptoms during kindergarten. This result is in line with evidences from family studies concerning the significant familial nature of RD and ADHD (Pennington et al., 2009, for a review), and concurs with the findings from a twin study regarding the shared familiality between these two disorders (Friedman, Chhabildas, Budhiraja, Willcutt, & Pennington, 2003). However, there remains a dearth of information relative to the association between familial antecedents of reading acquisition, children's emergent literacy skills and inattentive behavior before school entry, as well as its impact on subsequent reading performance at the end of elementary school in non-diagnosed samples. Therefore, as suggested by Hinshaw (1992), the present study examines the role of familial antecedents of reading acquisition as a background variable implied in the co-variation between reading achievement and behavior problems, specifically inattentive behavior. Although previous studies conducted in France have shed some light over the factors implied during reading development, longitudinal studies aimed to analyze the developmental precursors and correlates of reading acquisition are still required (INSERM, 2007). The mid-term contribution of emergent literacy skills, behavior problems and family background on the mid-term reading outcomes of French-speaking children remains to be examined in the general population.

The objectives of the present study were (a) to examine the concurrent associations between emergent literacy skills, oral language, behavioral problems and familial background at kindergarten and (b) to determine the predictive value of this broad constellation of factors as explanatory variables of word reading achievement at fifth grade. Additionally, this study aimed to extend previous research concerning the association of familial antecedents of reading difficulties, teachers’ reports of behavioral problems and emergent literacy skills with later word reading achievement at the end of elementary school.

For these purposes, the present study used a community-based sample drawn from a larger prospective study in a general population of French preschoolers. Some of these preschoolers would have been expected to develop reading problems during elementary school, given the reported prevalence of reading disabilities in the general population (e.g., 7.5%, according to Shaywitz, Shaywitz, Fletcher, & Escobar, 1990). Information concerning children's early literacy, oral language, behavioral difficulties and familial factors was gathered during the kindergarten year, and a sub-sample of this kindergarten group was followed through the end of elementary school, where children's behavior and word reading performances were assessed at fifth grade. Furthermore, we isolated a subset of children at fifth grade whose word reading performances fell significantly below the sample mean, in order to examine how the study's kindergarten variables related with lower performances in the word reading outcome at the end of elementary school. Because significant studies have systematically shown that deficits in word identification constitute the basic source of poor reading, notably in the case of specific reading disability or dyslexia, and that measures of word reading are typically used in the study of clinically significant reading difficulties (Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon, 2004, for a review), we are focusing on difficulties in learning to read associated with inadequate word reading efficiency in the current study.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants were selected from a larger ongoing prospective longitudinal study aimed to identify child and environmental factors related to learning and behavioral difficulties in a community-based sample followed from kindergarten to the end of elementary school (Callu et al., 2003, Callu et al., 2005, Giannopulu et al., 2008). This general population study began during the 2001–2002 school year and included all children aged 3–6 years who attended the preschools of the Creusot

Theory

The general conceptual model (see Fig. 1) presents the hypothesized relationships among emergent literacy skills, oral language, behavior problems, familial antecedents of reading difficulties and word reading achievement from kindergarten to fifth grade. According with the literature, preschoolers’ oral language and emergent literacy skills, such as phonological awareness and letter knowledge, may each facilitate the ability to read words during elementary school (Hecht et al., 2000, Lonigan

Descriptive statistics and preliminary analyses

Demographic and descriptive statistics for all measures at kindergarten and fifth grade are presented in Table 1, Table 2. It is informative to note that the number of observations (N) available for some of the study's variables differed according with the assessment measures used to collect data at kindergarten and at fifth grade. Therefore, due to the presence of missing data for some of the participants in the present study, the data analysis here reported was based on the total of

Discussion

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the longitudinal associations between a host of early literacy-related and behavioral variables with word reading achievement in a sample of French students followed from kindergarten to the fifth grade. A second aim of the study was to extend previous findings concerning the association of familial antecedents of reading difficulties, teachers’ reports of behavioral problems and emergent literacy skills at kindergarten with word reading

Implications and future research directions

The educational implication of the findings here presented is noteworthy. The inclusion of information about familial antecedents of reading difficulties in screening procedures during preschool improves the early identification of children that might develop reading difficulties at the end of elementary school. Importantly, the results indicated that children characterized by a familial history of reading difficulties might represent a vulnerable group in risk of manifesting concurrent

Acknowledgments

The present research was supported in part by Fédération des Oeuvres Laïques of the Urban Community of Creusot Montceau-les-Mines, the French Ministry of Health, France Foundation (Fondation de France), INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale) and MGEN (Mutuelle Générale de l’Éducation Nationale–Projet Maternelle). We are very thankful to the members of the research team, the school doctors and nurses of the National Department of Education, and the pediatricians,

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