The National Early Literacy Panel found six early skills with medium to large links to later reading and spelling, including letter knowledge, awareness of sounds in words, rapid naming, and writing letters or one's own name. The links held after IQ and family income were taken into account.
The National Early Literacy Panel found six early skills with medium to large links to later reading and spelling.
In the source’s own words“six variables representing early literacy skills or precursor literacy skills had medium to large predictive relationships with later measures of literacy development.”
One of the six is rapid naming: how fast a child can name a random row of letters or digits.
In the source’s own words“rapid automatic naming (RAN) of letters or digits: the ability to rapidly name a sequence of random letters or digits”
The panel says these six kept their predictive power even after IQ and family income level were taken into account.
In the source’s own words“maintained their predictive power even when the role of other variables, such as IQ or socioeconomic status (SES), were accounted for.”
For later decoding, the panel reported a strong average link with letter knowledge across 52 studies.
In the source’s own words“Children’s AK yielded a strong relationship of 0.50 averaged across 52 studies involving 7,570 children.”
Being able to write letters or one's own name is also on the panel's list of six.
In the source’s own words“writing or writing name: the ability to write letters in isolation on request or to write one’s own name”
The National Reading Panel report says awareness of sounds in words, measured at the start of kindergarten, is one of the two best predictors of how well children will learn to read.
In the source’s own words“PA measured at the beginning of kindergarten is one of the two best predictors of how well children will learn to read.”
A review of dyslexia research reports a study in which letter knowledge and sound awareness at age 4.5 predicted decoding at age 5.5.
In the source’s own words“letter knowledge and phoneme awareness measured at 4.5 years predicted decoding skills at 5.5 years.”
The same review reports that spoken language at age 3.5 predicted those foundations: letter knowledge, rapid naming and sound awareness.
In the source’s own words“Language at 3.5 years predicted the foundations for decoding: namely letter knowledge, RAN, and phoneme awareness”
We read each of these ourselves on October 9, 2026. Follow the links to read them too.
“Behind in reading” can mean ten different things, and each one needs different help. Check off what is true for your child. You will see the one thing to work on first, and what can wait.
