Pre-elementary Children With Imperfect Letter-Name Knowledge Are at Great Risk of Reading Difficulty in First Grade: One-Year Longitudinal Study in Japanese Hiragana

While letter-naming ability is a well-known preschool predictor of the later acquisition literacy, little known about an appropriate benchmark (i.e., how many letter names children must know at given age) and it may vary among different writing systems. The present study aimed to establish in Japanese Hiragana for pre-elementary (age 5 6 years) examined whether this predicts risk or success reading development via one-year longitudinal survey. Children ( N = 291) were assessed once their year Hiragana-naming accuracy first-grade oral fluency. As result, name 40 45 letters was determined be optimal cut-off, failure meet strongly predicted deficient fluency first grade. These findings support notion that without near-perfect mastery are great difficulty In addition, possible contrasts between Hiragana- alphabet-naming indicated need further research languages scripts goals policies foundational skill early education.