Working memory and phonological awareness as predictors of progress towards early learning goals at school entry

By Tracy Packiam Alloway, Susan E. Gathercole *, Anne-Marie Adams, C. Willis, R. Eaglen, E. Lamont. 2005

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This study investigates whether working memory skills of children are related to teacher ratings of their progress towards learning goals at the time of school entry, at 4 or 5 years of age. A sample of 194 children was tested on measures of working memory, phonological awareness, and non-verbal ability, in addition to the school-based baseline assessments in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, speaking and listening, and personal and social development. Various aspects of cognitive functioning formed unique associations with baseline assessments; for example complex memory span with rated writing skills, phonological short-term memory with both reading and speaking and listening skills, and sentence repetition scores with both mathematics and personal and social skills. Rated reading skills were also uniquely associated with phonological awareness scores. The findings indicate that the capacity to store and process material over short periods of time, referred to as working memory, and also the awareness of phonological structure, may play a crucial role in key learning areas for children at the beginning of formal education.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0aecaff208087998237dc183a8755f02ba61a1fa

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Citations in the corpus

Behavioral self-regulation and executive function both predict visuomotor skills and early academic achievement (2014, background): “For example, measures of working memory in preschool are found to relate to early literacy skills (Alloway et al., 2005; Bull et al., 2008), with behavioral SR consistently related to higher math scores (Becker, McClelland, Loprinzi, & Trost, 2014; Cameron et al., 2012).”
The differential role of verbal and visuospatial working memory in mathematics and reading (2018, unknown): “The relationship between WM and academic achievement has been extensively studied in primary school children (Alloway & Alloway, 2010; Alloway et al., 2005; Bull et al., 2008; Gathercole & Pickering, 2000), while less attention has been devoted to students attending middle schools (e.”
The Developmental Relationship Between Language and Low Early Numeracy Skills Throughout Kindergarten (2014, background): “Phonological awareness, for instance, has been related to quantity number competences (Krajewski & Schneider, 2009) and informal mathematics (Alloway et al., 2005) in early childhood.”
Brief report—Phonological awareness and visual-spatial sketchpad functioning predict early arithmetic attainment: Evidence from a longitudinal study (2008, methodology): “Similar pictorial rhyme detection tasks are commonly used to index young children's phonological awareness (eg, Alloway et al, 2005 ; Alloway, Gathercole, Willis, & Adams, 2004 ) and have high test–retest reliability (eg, .”
The effects of peer ostracism on children's cognitive processes (2012, background): “There is also evidence that working memory deficits are related to social problems in children (e.g., Alloway et al., 2005), and problems in dynamic social decoding—the ability to rapidly interpret nonverbal social and emotional cues in others (Phillips, Tunstall, & Channon, 2007).”
Spatial and visual working memory ability in children with difficulties in arithmetic word problem solving (2010, background): “In addition to knowledge base, reasoning, and comprehension, working memory is a fundamental component in many current theories of children’s problem solving (Alloway et al., 2005; Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001).”
Investigating the predictive roles of working memory and IQ in academic attainment. (2010, unknown): “One explanation for this is that working memory is a relatively pure measure of a child’s learning potential and indicates a child’s capacity to learn (Alloway et al., 2005; Dollaghan, Campbell, Needleman, & Dunlosky, 1997; Weismer et al., 2000).”
Conclusions about Interventions, Programs, and Approaches for Improving Executive Functions that appear Justified and those that, despite much hype, do not (2015, background): “They are more ritical for school readiness than IQ or entry-level reading or math Alloway et al., 2005; Blair, 2002; Blair and Razza, 2007; Carlson nd Moses, 2001; Hughes and Ensor, 2008; Morrison et al., 2010). hey are predictive of success throughout the school years from reschool through…”