How Well Do Phonological Awareness and Rapid Automatized Naming Correlate With Chinese Reading Accuracy and Fluency? A Meta-Analysis

ABSTRACT

Previous meta-analyses on the relationship between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and reading have been conducted primarily in English, an atypical alphabetic orthography. Here, we aimed to examine the association between phonological awareness, RAN, and word reading in a nonalphabetic language (Chinese). A random-effects model analysis of data from 35 studies revealed a moderate relationship of phonological awareness with reading accuracy (r = .36) and reading fluency (r = .39). RAN also correlated significantly with reading accuracy (r = –.38) and reading fluency (r = –.51), but its relationship varied as a function of test type (graphological RAN correlated more strongly with reading than nongraphological RAN) and reading outcome (RAN correlated more strongly with reading fluency than reading accuracy). Age/grade and dialect (Mandarin vs. Cantonese) did not influence the size of the correlations. Taken together, the findings of this meta-analysis suggest that phonological awareness and RAN are universal correlates of word reading.

Acknowledgments

This study was sponsored by grants from the National Key Basic Research Program of China (Grant # 2014CB846103) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant # 31271082) given to Shu Hua.

Notes

¹ Because some of our studies included also correlations between morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and Chinese reading, we also calculated the average correlation for these linguistic skills. Twenty-one studies reported correlations between morphological awareness and reading accuracy (N = 3,541, M sample size = 168.62, SD = 132.01, range = 47–496, age range = 5:1–12:2 years). The overall mean correlation was significant, r = .401, 95% confidence interval (CI) [.346, .453], z(20) = 22.907, p < .001. Only two of these studies reported also correlations with reading fluency with the overall mean correlation being marginally nonsignificant, r = .283, 95% CI [–.004, .527], z(1) = 3.684, p = .053. Eighteen studies reported correlations between orthographic knowledge and reading accuracy, and three of them also reported correlations with reading fluency. The overall mean correlation for reading accuracy was significant, r = .305, 95% CI [.225, .380], z(17) = 7.206, p < .001 (N = 3,227, M sample size = 179.28, SD = 140.36, range = 53–496, age range = 5:4–12:2 years). The overall mean correlation for reading fluency was also significant, r = .262, 95% CI [.128, .387], z(2) = 3.778, p < .001 (N = 207, M sample size = 69, SD = 18.73, range = 54–90, age range = 8:0–10:6 years).