Young Children's Concepts about Print and Reading: Toward a Model of Word Reading Acquisition

THE AUTHORS tested theoretical models of the development of print concepts and word reading. Eighteen measures of print concepts and word reading were obtained from 81 children three to seven years of age. A five-component model hypothesized from previous findings fit the data better than a fouror two-component model. The five component model included a concepts-about-print component which influenced a graphic awareness component, which in turn influenced a phonemic awareness component, which influenced a grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge component, which ultimately influenced a word reading component; in addition, concepts about print also influenced grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge. According to results of developmental analyses, children expand their knowledge in each of these print components with age.