Rhythmic abilities in prereaders predict future reading skills
Abstract
Rhythmic abilities have been related to language processing skills such as phonological awareness, rise time discriminationand verbal memory. Following this reasoning, they have also been linked to reading acquisition. In particular, in prereaders,tapping to a beat, a task that entails rhythmic processing through auditory-motor synchronization (AMS), has shown todiscriminate children with poor and good phonological skills. However, evidence regarding how the AMS-reading linkdevelops through time, starting before reading instruction, is scarce. In the present study, we followed a large sample of600 children from kindergarten to second grade, through a digital assessment of literacy and literacy-related skills, as wellas rhythmic abilities. We found that AMS in K5 uniquely contributes to future reading performance, above and beyondphonological skills. These findings underscore the role of rhythmic abilities in reading acquisition, and its relation tophonological processing.