Preschool pathways to reading comprehension: A systematic meta-analytic review

The study summarises and compares previous studies that investigate the relationship between children’s reading-related skills in kindergarten and their reading comprehension when they attend school. The study has the following objectives: 1) Establish accurate estimates of the relationship between children’s code-related skills in kindergarten and later reading comprehension, as well as between the children’s linguistic comprehension in kindergarten and later reading comprehension. 2) Establish accurate estimates of the relationship between different general skills, such as nonverbal intelligence or working memory and reading comprehension, in addition to investigating the relationship between background factors related to socioeconomic background and later reading comprehension. 3) Formulate and evaluate a structured calculation model with two different but related pathways, which include code-related skills and linguistic comprehension as predictors of later reading comprehension. 

The meta-analysis shows two different relationships between linguistic comprehension in kindergarten and reading comprehension in school: 1) Code-related skills in kindergarten, such as letter knowledge and phonological awareness, affect later reading comprehension through word recognition. 2) Linguistic skills, such as vocabulary and grammar knowledge, have a direct influence on reading comprehension. The authors believe the results show that reading-related interventions in kindergarten have a positive effect on children’s reading comprehension in school.

The study is a meta-analysis and a systematic review of 64 longitudinal studies that investigate relationships between different skills in kindergarten and later reading comprehension in school. The skills measured in kindergarten include vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, phonological awareness, letter knowledge and RAN (rapid automated naming), as well as working memory, non-verbal IQ and socioeconomic background. In order to be included in the analysis, the studies had to report data from two measurement points: one in kindergarten, before reading instruction, and one in school, after reading instruction had started. The children’s age in the included studies was between three and six years old. The data material was statistically analysed.

Hjetland, H. N., Brinchmann, E. I., Scherer, R., Hulme, C. & Melby-Lervåg, M. (2020). “Preschool pathways to reading comprehension: A systematic meta-analytic review”. Educational Research Review, 30(2020): artikkel 100323.