Comparing the phonological, musical, and general cognitive profiles of early-emerging poor, average, and good readers of Chinese

Introduction This study compared the phonological, musical, and general cognitive profiles of early-emerging poor, average, and good readers. Methods We assessed Cantonese preschool children on Chinese word reading, phonological awareness, lexical tone awareness, musical rhythm perception, musical pitch perception, working memory, and non-verbal intelligence. Results Early-emerging poor readers exhibited poorer phonological awareness than early-emerging average and good readers, whereas the latter two groups did not differ significantly. In the working memory task, early-emerging good readers outperformed both early-emerging average and poor readers, who performed similarly. No significant group differences were found in lexical tone awareness, musical rhythm perception, musical pitch perception, or non-verbal intelligence. Discussion The results reflect phonological deficits in early-emerging poor readers. Furthermore, phonological awareness and working memory were useful for identifying early-emerging poor and good readers, respectively. Clinically, these findings imply that early-emerging poor readers may benefit most from initial phonological awareness training, followed by working memory training. Moreover, working memory training may also be beneficial for early-emerging average readers seeking to improve their Chinese word reading.