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Research and clinical practitioners have mixed views whether reading and spelling difficulties should be combined or seen as separate. This study examined the following: (a) if double dissociation between reading and spelling can be identified in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and (b) the cognitive and noncognitive precursors of this phenomenon. Finnish-speaking children (n = 1963) were assessed on reading fluency and spelling in grades 1, 2, 3, and 4. Dissociation groups in reading and spelling were formed based on stable difficulties in grades 1-4. The groups were compared in kindergarten phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, letter knowledge, home literacy environment, and task-avoidant behavior. The results indicated that the double dissociation groups could be identified even in the context of a highly transparent orthography: 41 children were unexpected poor spellers (SD), 36 were unexpected poor readers (RD), and 59 were poor in both reading and spelling (RSD). The RSD group performed poorest on all cognitive skills and showed the most task-avoidant behavior, the RD group performed poorly particularly on rapid automatized naming and letter knowledge, and the SD group had difficulties on phonological awareness and letter knowledge. Fathers' shared book reading was less frequent in the RD and RSD groups than in the other groups. The findings suggest that there are discernible double dissociation groups with distinct cognitive profiles. This further suggests that the identification of difficulties in Finnish and the planning of teaching and remediation practices should include both reading and spelling assessments.

This study examined the dynamic relationships among the components of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and the predictive value of cognitive skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid naming, and vocabulary) on the SVR components. Altogether, 1,815 Finnish children were followed from kindergarten to Grade 3. Their cognitive skills were assessed in kindergarten, listening comprehension and reading fluency in Grades 1 and 2, and reading comprehension in Grades 1-3. Reading fluency and listening comprehension accounted for 37% of the variance in reading comprehension in Grade 2 and 28% in Grade 3. The direct effect of reading fluency on reading comprehension disappeared after Grade 1, whereas the effect of listening comprehension remained significant across time. Cognitive skills predicted reading comprehension mainly indirectly via listening comprehension and reading fluency in Grade 1. These findings support the validity of the SVR model in the context of a transparent orthography, but they also show that the direct effect of reading fluency on reading comprehension wanes after the early school years.

We examined the longitudinal predictors of nonword decoding, reading fluency, and spelling in three languages that vary in orthographic depth: Finnish, Greek, and English. Eighty-two English-speaking, 70 Greek, and 88 Finnish children were followed from the age of 5.5 years old until Grade 2. Prior to any reading instruction, they were administered measures of phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid naming speed. In Grade 2, they were administered measures of nonword decoding, text-reading fluency, and spelling. The results showed that the model for nonword decoding in Greek was similar to that of Finnish (both have consistent grapheme-to-phoneme mappings) while the model for spelling in Greek was similar to that of English (both have some inconsistent phoneme-to-grapheme mappings). In addition, the models for nonword decoding and spelling in Finnish were similar, because Finnish is consistent in both directions. Letter knowledge dominated the prediction in each language. The predictable role of orthographic consistency on literacy acquisition is discussed.

We examined the double-deficit hypothesis in Finnish. One hundred five Finnish children with high familial risk for dyslexia and 90 children with low family risk were followed from the age of 3 1/2 years until Grade 3. Children's phonological awareness, rapid naming speed, text reading, and spelling were assessed. A deficit in rapid automatized naming (RAN) predicted slow reading speed across time and spelling difficulties after Grade 1. A deficit in phonological awareness predicted difficulties in spelling, but only in the familial risk sample. The effect of familial risk was significant in the development of phonological awareness, RAN, reading, and spelling. Our findings suggest that the basic premise of the double-deficit hypothesis--that RAN and phonological awareness are separable deficits with different effects on reading and spelling outcomes--holds also in a consistent orthography. (Contains 2 figures and 7 tables.)

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the effect of task-focused behaviour on reading fluency, spelling and comprehension; and (b) to examine the role of the different literacy skills in subsequent task-focused behaviour. Two hundred and seven Finnish-speaking children were followed from preschool until their fourth year at school and were tested for reading fluency, spelling and reading comprehension. The teachers also rated the children's task-focused behaviour. The results showed that task-focused behaviour was a significant predictor of later reading comprehension and spelling skills. However, all three literacy skills predicted subsequent task-focused behaviour.