Un análisis estructural sobre las relaciones entre conciencia fonológica, lectura y funcionamiento ejecutivo en Educación Infantil

Abstract

The LolEva test for the assessment of Phonological Awareness (PA) and Initial Reading Competence (ILC) is a computerised instrument aimed at identifying the existence of problems in the development of skills that could lead to difficulties in learning to read. Previous analyses of its psychometric properties with a sample aged between 3 and 8 years showed high reliability, good item discrimination, and the presence of three factors that explained 75% of the variance: performance in PA, CLI, and word reading times. In a first phase, and with the results obtained in a later sample of 343 children aged 3 to 6 years old in public and state-subsidised schools, the resulting model was subjected to a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The results provide evidence in support of the reliability and construct validity of the test and support the relationship of continuity between the development of phonological awareness and learning to read. In a second phase, the aim was to evaluate the usefulness of the Children's Executive Functioning Questionnaire (CHEXI), originally designed to identify children at risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in predicting the level of development of phonological awareness and early reading competence in early childhood education. 155 children aged 3-6 years in the second cycle of kindergarten were assessed using the CHEXI (a teacher-reported assessment of Executive Functioning) and the LolEva Test for Oral and Written Language Assessment (a computer-based test designed to jointly assess phonological awareness and early reading proficiency). The results showed that Executive Functioning is significantly related to Phonological Awareness as a whole, and to the automaticity of the grapheme-phoneme conversion processes with which learning to read begins. Similarly, Executive Functioning appears to be a reasonable predictor of the possible existence of learning to read difficulties.