Initial level and growth were negatively related within phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge, consistent with a compensatory pattern¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2016 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Intercepts were negatively correlated with slopes for blending, elision, letter-name, and letter-sound knowledge, so children starting higher grew less in the same skill; rhyme showed the opposite positive correlation. → Lerner Matthew D. 2016

Evidence¶

Lerner Matthew D. 2016¶

Lerner Matthew D., Lonigan Christopher J. (2016). Bidirectional Relations between Phonological Awareness and Letter Knowledge in Preschool Revisited: A Growth Curve Analysis of the Relation between Two Code-Related Skills. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.023

q3 · i? · associational · r2

Zero-order correlation analysis of growth model parameters in the 358-child sample. The article reports the negative intercept–slope correlations and, for rhyme, "a significant positive correlation between intercept and slope for Rhyme."

"Within-construct correlations indicated that intercepts were at least weakly and negatively correlated with slope for Blending, Elision, letter-name knowledge, and letter-sound knowledge, indicating that children who started the preschool year with higher levels of these skills tended to experience less growth in the same skill"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Alphabet Knowledge and Print Awareness — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Phonological Awareness — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Children with higher initial letter-name knowledge show faster growth in phonological awareness across the preschool year — related
• Initial letter-sound knowledge and phonological awareness were not uniquely related to growth in each other — related
• Initial phonological awareness uniquely predicts growth in letter-name knowledge, most strongly via elision skill — related
• The bidirectional relation between letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness was independent of maturation and correlated developmental trajectories — related
• The bidirectional letter-knowledge–phonological-awareness relation extends to supra-phonemic tasks, indicating an earlier developmental origin than previously reported — related
• Final achievement level and rate of achievement change were positively correlated: students with higher final levels experienced smaller achievement decrements — related
• Children with higher initial levels in NRS or CS show slower subsequent linear growth in the same component — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Math fluency in grades 3-5 showed a cumulative growth pattern with a small significant positive intercept-slope correlation — related
• Kindergarten-to-fifth-grade slope-intercept correlations varied across reading measures, showing cumulative, compensatory, and stable patterns for different measures — related