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Parent-child language interaction in early childhood carries long-term implications for children’s language and reading development. Naturalistic conversational interaction, in particular, has been linked to white matter organization of neural pathways critical for language and reading. Yet parent-child shared book reading serves a unique role for language interaction as it exposes children to diverse concepts and sophisticated vocabulary and syntax beyond the scope of everyday conversational interaction. Despite this, it remains unclear whether shared reading also contributes to white matter mechanisms subserving language and reading development. If so, to what extent do these environmentally-associated changes in white matter organization relate to subsequent reading outcomes? To address these questions, the present longitudinal study examined shared book reading and white matter organization in kindergarten in relation to subsequent language and reading outcomes among 77 typically-developing children. Findings reveal positive associations between the number of hours children are read to weekly in kindergarten and fractional anisotropy of the left arcuate fasciculus, as well as left lateralization of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). Further, left lateralization of the SLF in these kindergarteners is associated with subsequent reading abilities in second grade. Mediation analyses further reveal that the amount children are read to weekly is indirectly associated with second-grade reading abilities via left lateralization of the SLF. All results are significant when controlling for children’s age and their family’s socioeconomic status. This study provides the first evidence illuminating how white matter structure in relation to shared reading experiences in kindergarten is associated with subsequent school-age reading outcomes. These results carry implications for understanding specific contexts of parent-child language interaction that may support neurocognitive development, independent of socioeconomic factors.

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) tasks have been shown to be a strong correlate of reading abilities. RAN also predicts future reading across different ages, ability levels, and languages, and is often used in literacy screening. Thus, understanding the specific relations between early RAN and later reading difficulties is important. In this systematic review and meta-analysis (with N = 68 samples; k = 373 effect sizes; n = 10,513 participants), we test the extent to which measures of RAN assessed before grade school predict later reading performance in English-speaking children. We also test whether characteristics of the RAN tasks, reading measures, or sample demographics moderate this relationship. We found that kindergarten/preschool RAN is correlated with grade-school reading at r = -.38, similar in magnitude to previous meta-analyses that included various ages and languages. We found that alphanumeric RAN tasks are particularly strongly related to future reading, as compared with non-alphanumeric tasks (p = .01) but that other features of the RAN task, such as the number of items, do not alter its predictive significance. RAN predicts all types of reading measures, but more strongly predicts real word than nonword reading (p < .001). These results support a shared cognitive resource model in which the similarity between RAN and reading tasks accounts for their correlation. We provide practical guidelines based on these data for early screening for reading difficulties and dyslexia.

Purpose: Learning to read is a complex, multi-faceted process that relies on several speech and language-related subskills. Individual differences in word reading outcomes are indicated among children with inaccurate speech-sound productions, with inconsistent reports as to whether phonological deficits and/or weaknesses in oral language explain subsequent reading difficulties. Thus, it remains unclear how variability in speech production accuracy in early childhood may impact reading development. Therefore, the present longitudinal study seeks to clarify the relationship between speech-sound production accuracy in kindergarten and subsequent reading outcomes with a focus on additional potential mediating factors.Method: Speech accuracy, core pre-literacy skills (phonological awareness, rapid naming, letter-name knowledge) and additional potential mediators (oral language, nonverbal cognitive abilities, and socioeconomic status (SES) were characterized at the start of formal reading instruction. Word reading, decoding, reading fluency and comprehension were assessed at the end of second grade. Mediation analyses were conducted to examine factors that mediate the relationship between speech accuracy in kindergarten and subsequent reading outcomes.Results: Speech-sound production accuracy uniquely contributed to the prediction of word reading; whereas full mediation effects of core pre-literacy skills and SES were identified for decoding and fluency. For reading comprehension, full effects of pre-literacy and vocabulary skills were observed. Hierarchical regression models further revealed the relative contributions of each factor to respective reading outcomes.Conclusions: Findings carry implications for the importance of monitoring emergent literacy abilities among children with speech delays and assessing speech-sound production accuracy in multifactorial approaches to early identification of risk for reading difficulties.