title: Phonological processing and emergent literacy in Spanish-speaking preschool children.
abstract: Phonological awareness (PA), phonological memory (PM), and phonological access to lexical storage (also known as RAN), play important roles in acquiring literacy. We examined the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of these phonological processing abilities (PPAs) in 147 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children whose native language was Spanish. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the validity of each PPA as separate from general cognitive ability and separate from each other. Moreover, structural equation modeling found RAN uniquely associated with knowledge of Spanish letter names and Spanish letter sounds. PA was found the best predictor of children's ability to distinguish alphabetic text from nonalphabetic text. Finally, general cognitive ability was only indirectly associated with emergent literacy skills via PPAs. These results highlight the importance of PPAs in the early literacy development of native Spanish speaking preschool children.
authors.affiliation: Division of Developmental Pediatrics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 7000 Fannin Street, Suite 2377, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Jason.L.Anthony@uth.tmc.edu
authors.forename: Jason L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Anthony
authors.forename: Jeffrey M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Renee
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McDonald
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Corbitt-Shindler
authors.forename: Coleen D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Carlson
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Francis
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D004522:Educational Status; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008606:Mental Processes; D010700:Phonetics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014706:Verbal Learning