Alphabetic orthographies differ in the transparency of their letter-sound mappings, with English orthography being less transparent than other alphabetic scripts. The outlier status of English has led scientists to question the generality of findings based on English-language studies. We investigated the role of phonological awareness, memory, vocabulary, rapid naming, and nonverbal intelligence in reading performance across five languages lying at differing positions along a transparency continuum (Finnish, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, and French). Results from a sample of 1,265 children in Grade 2 showed that phonological awareness was the main factor associated with reading performance in each language. However, its impact was modulated by the transparency of the orthography, being stronger in less transparent orthographies. The influence of rapid naming was rather weak and limited to reading and decoding speed. Most predictors of reading performance were relatively universal across these alphabetic languages, although their precise weight varied systematically as a function of script transparency.

Evidence that rapid naming skill is associated with reading ability has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. However, there is considerable variation in the literature concerning the magnitude of this relationship. The objective of the present study was to provide a comprehensive analysis of the evidence on the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading performance. To this end, we conducted a meta-analysis of the correlational relationship between these 2 constructs to (a) determine the overall strength of the RAN–reading association and (b) identify variables that systematically moderate this relationship. A random-effects model analysis of data from 137 studies (857 effect sizes; 28,826 participants) indicated a moderate-to-strong relationship between RAN and reading performance (r = .43, I2 = 68.40). Further analyses revealed that RAN contributes to the 4 measures of reading (word reading, text reading, non-word reading, and reading comprehension), but higher coefficients emerged in favor of real word reading and text reading. RAN stimulus type and type of reading score were the factors with the greatest moderator effect on the magnitude of the RAN–reading relationship. The consistency of orthography and the subjects’ grade level were also found to impact this relationship, although the effect was contingent on reading outcome. It was less evident whether the subjects’ reading proficiency played a role in the relationship. Implications for future studies are discussed

International audienceAlthough the transparency of a writing system is hypothesized to systematically influence the cognitive skills associated with reading development results of cross language investigations are inconsistent and usually do not address this issue in a developmental context We therefore investigated the cognitive dynamics of reading fluency of different word types in Grades 1-4 in three orthographies differing in degree of transparency (Hungarian Dutch and Portuguese) The overall results showed that the relative strength of the contributions of phonological awareness and rapid naming to word reading fluency shifted as a function of reading expertise The contribution of phonological awareness remained significant in all grades but decreased as a function of grade whereas the contribution of rapid naming increased Orthographic depth systematically modulated the strength of the cognitive contributions to reading but not the overall developmental pattern Together these results indicate that the cognitive development of reading skill is fairly universal (at least for alphabetic scripts) and that differences in orthographic depth will not recruit different cognitive processes but will mainly be expressed in rate of reading developmen