The relationship between children's literacy knowledge and reading attainment in Year 1

Abstract

The current study investigated the relationship between literacy knowledge at the onset of formal school instruction and children's reading attainment at the end of Year 1. 250 Year 1 children from 4 private schools were individually assessed at the beginning of Year 1 on book and code knowledge (Clay 1979), print awareness (Goodman,1981; Woodward; Hartse and Burke,1984), knowledge of functions of print (Weiss & Hagen,1988), knowledge of letter names and letter sounds. At the end of the scholastic year the children were individually assessed on reading accuracy and comprehension through Macmillan's Individual Reading Analysis (Vincent and de la Mare, 1992). Correlations were computed to analyse the data. There were statistically significant moderate, positive correlations between book and code knowledge, knowledge of functions of print, knowledge of letter sounds and print awareness with reading accuracy and comprehension. There was a significant negative correlation between knowledge of letter names and reading accuracy and comprehension. The data were also analysed by sex, age and school. There were statistically significant sex differences on functions of print and letter names, with girls performing significantly better than boys. The older children in the cohort performed statistically significatly better than the younger children on all skills except letter names. There were also statistically significant differences among schools. The implication of these results is discussed within an educational context.