title: The unique role of lexical accessibility in predicting kindergarten emergent literacy.
abstract: The goal of this longitudinal study was to examine how lexical quality predicts the emergence of literacy abilities in 169 Dutch kindergarten children before formal reading instruction has started. At the beginning of the school year, a battery of precursor measures associated with lexical quality was related to the emergence of letter knowledge and word decoding. Confirmatory factor analysis evidenced five domains related to lexical quality, i.e., vocabulary, phonological coding, phonological awareness, lexical retrieval and phonological working memory. Structural equation modeling showed that the development of letter knowledge during the year could be predicted from children's phonological awareness and lexical retrieval, and the emergence of word decoding from their phonological awareness and letter knowledge. It is concluded that it is primarily the accessibility of phonological representations in the mental lexicon that predicts the emergence of literacy in kindergarten.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Sciences, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9044, 6500 KD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ludo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Verhoeven
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Sciences, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9044, 6500 KD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van Leeuwe
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Sciences, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9044, 6500 KD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rosemarie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Irausquin
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Sciences, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9044, 6500 KD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Eliane
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Segers
keywords: Emergent literacy; Kindergarten; Letter knowledge; Phonological awareness