Socioeconomic background modulates cognition-achievement relationships in reading.

Multiple factors contribute to individual differences in reading ability. The two most thoroughly examined are socioeconomic status (SES) and phonological awareness (PA). Although these factors are often investigated individually, they are rarely considered together. Here we propose that SES systematically influences the relationship between PA and reading ability, and test this prediction in 150 first-graders of varying SES and PA. Results confirm a multiplicative relationship between SES and PA in decoding skills, such that decreased access to resources may amplify cognitive risk factors for poor decoding, whereas greater access to resources may buffer reading skills among children with weaker PA. Attempts to identify the cognitive and experiential factors driving development must acknowledge the complex, synergizing relations between these factors.

[1]  M. Bornstein,et al.  Socioeconomic Status, Parenting, and Child Development , 2003 .

[2]  R. Wagner,et al.  The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. , 1987 .

[3]  A. B. Hollingshead.  Four Factor Index of Social Status [1975] , 1975 .

[4]  A Cornwall,et al.  The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness and Reading and Spelling Achievement Eleven Years Later , 1995, Journal of learning disabilities.

[5]  Adrian Angold,et al.  Relationships between poverty and psychopathology: a natural experiment. , 2003, JAMA.

[6]  S. Korenman,et al.  Long-term poverty and child development in the United States: Results from the NLSY , 1995 .

[7]  D. Share.  Phonological recoding and self-teaching: sine qua non of reading acquisition , 1995, Cognition.

[8]  S. Fisher,et al.  Developmental dyslexia: genetic dissection of a complex cognitive trait , 2002, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[9]  Bruce D. McCandliss,et al.  The development of reading impairment: a cognitive neuroscience model. , 2003, Mental retardation and developmental disabilities research reviews.

[10]  F. Morrison,et al.  Understanding Schooling Effects on Early Literacy: A Working Research Strategy. , 2002 .

[11]  D. Share,et al.  Sources of Individual Differences in Reading Acquisition. , 1984 .

[12]  H. Scarborough,et al.  Predicting, Explaining, and Preventing Children's Reading Difficulties , 2001 .

[13]  L. Cardon,et al.  Differential Genetic Etiology of Reading Component Processes as a Function of IQ , 2002, Behavior genetics.

[14]  E. Zigler.  Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention edited by Jack P. Shonkoff , 2000 .

[15]  D Bellinger,et al.  The long-term effects of exposure to low doses of lead in childhood. An 11-year follow-up report. , 1990, The New England journal of medicine.

[16]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Who Drops Out of and Who Continues Beyond High School? A 20-Year Follow-Up of Black Urban Youth , 1993 .

[17]  I. Gottesman,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS MODIFIES HERITABILITY OF IQ , 2022 .

[18]  Judith A. Bowey,et al.  Socioeconomic Status Differences in Preschool Phonological Sensitivity and First-Grade Reading Achievement. , 1995 .

[19]  E. Hoff.  Causes and consequences of SES-related differences in parent-to-child speech. , 2003 .

[20]  J. Mitchell.  Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing , 2001 .

[21]  Stephen R. Burgess,et al.  Changing relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading as children develop from beginning to skilled readers: a 5-year longitudinal study. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[22]  A. E. Gottfried,et al.  Socioeconomic status in children's development and family environment: Infancy through adolescence. , 2003 .

[23]  W. Barnett.  Long-term cognitive and academic effects of early childhood education on children in poverty. , 1998, Preventive medicine.

[24]  David J. Francis,et al.  How Letter-Sound Instruction Mediates Progress in First-Grade Reading and Spelling , 1991 .

[25]  Michael A. Wallach,et al.  Poor Children Learning to Read Do Not Have Trouble with Auditory Discrimination But Do Have Trouble with Phoneme Recognition , 1977 .

[26]  Peter Bryant,et al.  Social background, phonological awareness and children's reading. , 1990 .

[27]  Identifiers Maryland.  Early Warning Signs of Functional Illiteracy: Predictors in Childhood and Adolescence. Occasional , 1993 .

[28]  G. Duncan,et al.  Ethnic differences in children's intelligence test scores: role of economic deprivation, home environment, and maternal characteristics. , 1996, Child development.

[29]  M. Hack,et al.  Children Who Were Very Low Birth Weight: Development and Academic Achievement at Nine Years of Age , 1989, Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP.

[30]  E. Pedhazur.  Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research: Explanation and Prediction , 1982 .

[31]  P. Bryant,et al.  Categorizing sounds and learning to read—a causal connection , 1983, Nature.

[32]  Ruth Fielding-Barnsley,et al.  Effects of preschool phoneme identity training after six years: Outcome level distinguished from rate of response. , 2000 .

[33]  Greg J. Duncan,et al.  The Consequences of Growing Up Poor , 1999 .

[34]  S. Brady,et al.  Begining to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print , 1991 .

[35]  R. Bradley,et al.  The home environments of children in the United States part I: variations by age, ethnicity, and poverty status. , 2001, Child development.

[36]  V. Mcloyd,et al.  Socioeconomic disadvantage and child development. , 1998, The American psychologist.

[37]  Stephen R. Burgess,et al.  Development of phonological sensitivity in 2- to 5-year-old children. , 1998 .

[38]  C. Ramey,et al.  Prevention of intellectual disabilities: early interventions to improve cognitive development. , 1998, Preventive medicine.

[39]  M. Farah,et al.  Neurocognitive correlates of socioeconomic status in kindergarten children. , 2005, Developmental science.

[40]  S. Meisels,et al.  HANDBOOK OF EARLY CHILDHOOD INTERVENTION , 2000 .

[41]  F. Morrison,et al.  Nature-nurture in the classroom: entrance age, school readiness, and learning in children. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[42]  E. J. van den Oord,et al.  Genetic and environmental influences on vocabulary IQ: parental education level as moderator. , 1999, Child development.

[43]  K. White.  The relation between socioeconomic status and academic achievement. , 1982 .

[44]  Edward R. Sipay,et al.  Cognitive profiles of difficult-to-remediate and readily remediated poor readers : Early intervention as a vehicle for distinguishing between cognitive and experiential deficits as basic causes of specific Reading disability , 1996 .

[45]  T. Conway,et al.  Intensive Remedial Instruction for Children with Severe Reading Disabilities , 2001, Journal of learning disabilities.

[46]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Children and Youth in Neighborhood Contexts , 2003 .

[47]  R. Bradley,et al.  The home environments of children in the United States part II: relations with behavioral development through age thirteen. , 2001, Child development.

[48]  A Cornwall,et al.  The Relationship of Phonological Awareness, Rapid Naming, and Verbal Memory to Severe Reading and Spelling Disability , 1992, Journal of learning disabilities.

[49]  Joseph K. Torgesen,et al.  Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing , 1997 .

[50]  M. McCormick,et al.  Long-term follow-up of infants discharged from neonatal intensive care units. , 1989, JAMA.

[51]  Marilyn Jager Adams,et al.  Beginning To Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. , 1991 .

[52]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Early warning signs of functional illiteracy: predictors in childhood and adolescence. , 1993, Child development.

[53]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Single mothers in low-wage jobs: financial strain, parenting, and preschoolers' outcomes. , 2000, Child development.

[54]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Cumulative familial risks and low-birthweight children's cognitive and behavioral development , 1994 .

[55]  Catherine E. Snow,et al.  Interrelationships among Prereading and Oral Language Skills in Kindergartners from Two Social Classes. , 1987 .

[56]  Stephen R. Burgess,et al.  Explaining social class differences in growth of reading skills from beginning kindergarten through fourth-grade: The role of phonological awareness, rate of access, and print knowledge , 2000 .