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Emergent Writing Development and Later Reading Abilities for Monolingual and Bilingual Children Identified as At Risk for Reading Difficulties

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Title: Emergent Writing Development and Later Reading Abilities for Monolingual and Bilingual Children Identified as At Risk for Reading Difficulties
Language: English
Authors: Ye Shen (ORCID 0000-0002-6833-765X), Shayne B. Piasta (ORCID 0000-0003-3655-4702), Alida K. Hudson (ORCID 0000-0002-2257-422X), Jessica A. R. Logan (ORCID 0000-0003-3113-4346), Kandia Lewis (ORCID 0000-0002-7891-9258), Cynthia M. Zettler-Greeley (ORCID 0000-0003-2256-2971)
Source: Grantee Submission. 2025.
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 25
Publication Date: 2025
Sponsoring Agency: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Contract Number: R305A160261
Document Type: Reports - Research
Descriptors: Preschool Children, Beginning Writing, Beginning Reading, Reading Skills, Reading Difficulties, Reading Comprehension, At Risk Students, Reading Ability, Monolingualism, Bilingualism, Bilingual Students, Writing Skills, Reading Writing Relationship
DOI: 10.1007/s11145-025-10662-8
Abstract: We examined associations between preschoolers' levels and growth rates of emergent writing skills and their later reading abilities, including whether being bilingual altered such associations. This study involved 243 preschoolers in 95 early childhood classrooms, who were measured on emergent writing skills across four time points and later word reading and reading comprehension abilities. Results of growth curve modeling showed that children's initial levels of name writing, letter writing, and picture writing, but not consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word spelling, predicted their later reading abilities in both word reading and passage comprehension. The growth rates of letter writing, CVC word spelling, and picture writing skills from preschool to Grade 1 predicted both reading outcomes; the growth rate of name writing skills predicted later word reading only. Being bilingual did not alter the associations. Our findings provide evidence that regardless of children's language status, children's initial emergent writing skills and growth in these skills during early childhood are important in their later acquisition of reading. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Reading and Writing."]
Abstractor: As Provided
Notes: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38663.v1
IES Funded: Yes
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: ED673173
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0193563715;2ap01apr.26;2026May11.03:02;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0193563715-1">Emergent writing development and later reading abilities for monolingual and bilingual children identified as at risk for reading difficulties </title> <p>We examined associations between preschoolers' levels and growth rates of emergent writing skills and their later reading abilities, including whether being bilingual altered such associations. This study involved 243 preschoolers in 95 early childhood classrooms, who were measured on emergent writing skills across four time points and later word reading and reading comprehension abilities. Results of growth curve modeling showed that children's initial levels of name writing, letter writing, and picture writing, but not consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word spelling, predicted their later reading abilities in both word reading and passage comprehension. The growth rates of letter writing, CVC word spelling, and picture writing skills from preschool to Grade 1 predicted both reading outcomes; the growth rate of name writing skills predicted later word reading only. Being bilingual did not alter the associations. Our findings provide evidence that regardless of children's language status, children's initial emergent writing skills and growth in these skills during early childhood are important in their later acquisition of reading.</p> <p>Keywords: Emergent writing; Bilinguals; Word reading; Reading comprehension; At risk for reading difficulties; Growth curve modeling; Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Cognitive Sciences</p> <p>Ye Shen is now at the University of South Florida.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Reading is one of the most fundamental skills for academic success and career attainment (World Literacy Foundation, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref1">71</reflink>]). However, for decades, a large portion of U.S. fourth graders have consistently performed below proficient levels in reading. Indeed, the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that from 1992 to 2022, approximately 31–41% of fourth graders scored below the basic level, and 63–71% performed below the proficient level in reading (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref2">43</reflink>]). Early identification of children who are at risk for reading difficulties is essential to provide targeted interventions to help alleviate later literacy challenges (Piasta et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref3">49</reflink>]). Further, there is a high co-occurrence of reading and writing difficulties in elementary grades; that is, many children who struggle with reading also have challenges in writing (Graham et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref4">20</reflink>]; Kim, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref5">32</reflink>]). In fact, an even lower percentage (27%) of students attained a proficient level in writing in 2011 (NCES, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref6">44</reflink>]).</p> <p>Young children's emergent writing competence has received less attention than early reading skills and its predictors (Guo et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref7">23</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref8">24</reflink>]; Rowe, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref9">56</reflink>]). Children start developing writing abilities in early childhood, for instance, when they start scribbling their names. Studies with preschool children also reported close links between children's emergent writing and later reading abilities, such as name/letter writing, word recognition, and letter knowledge (Diamond et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref10">12</reflink>]; Molfese et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref11">42</reflink>]). Although studies have shown relations between emergent writing and emergent reading skills, far less is known about whether and how emergent writing skills are related to children's later reading abilities in elementary school. Considering the long-established association between reading and writing (e.g., Shanahan, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref12">59</reflink>]), it is important to understand how writing develops in early childhood and how it may influence later reading skills, especially for those children who are at risk for later reading—and likely writing (Thomas et al., [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref13">67</reflink>])—difficulties. Moreover, with the ever-growing bilingual population in the U.S., it is crucial to understand the relations between emergent writing skills and later reading for young bilingual children. Indeed, extant research on differences between native English monolingual children and bilingual children reveal that being bilingual is likely to alter reading–writing relations, such that bilingual children draw on different components of writing skills to facilitate their reading development (Chiappe et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref14">8</reflink>]; Shen & Coker, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref15">60</reflink>]). Thus, the overarching purpose of the current study was to examine the associations between children's initial levels and growth rates from preschool to Grade 1 of emergent writing skills and later reading abilities, including whether being bilingual altered such associations.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-3">The importance of emergent writing skills</hd> <p>Emergent writing is a complex construct that emerges rapidly across children from 3 to 5 years of age (Campbell et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref16">7</reflink>]; Puranik & Lonigan, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref17">52</reflink>]). Puranik and Lonigan ([<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref18">54</reflink>]) propose a theoretical model of children's emergent writing skills that encompasses three factors: procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and generative knowledge. Procedural knowledge corresponds to word-level writing skills (e.g., name writing, letter writing, word writing) and is likely related to transcription skills identified in models of older children's writing (e.g., the simple view of writing; Juel et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref19">30</reflink>]). Puranik and Lonigan ([<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref20">54</reflink>]) note that children's procedural knowledge about writing is substantially shaped by their development of alphabet knowledge. Conceptual knowledge corresponds to children's understanding of the function and conventions of print (e.g., print carries meaning, write from left to right in English). Generative knowledge corresponds to children's ability to use writing to convey meaning beyond the word level (e.g., story writing). Using writing to convey meaning at the phrase and sentence level draws upon different language skills than writing at the word level (i.e., procedural knowledge; Berninger & Swanson, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref21">1</reflink>]) and requires children to integrate and use their procedural and conceptual writing knowledge (Puranik & Lonigan, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref22">54</reflink>]). Although writing with meaning beyond the word level is often challenging for young children, preschool teachers can lay the foundation for generative knowledge by having children express themselves orally to share ideas and stories (Byington & Kim, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref23">5</reflink>]).</p> <p>Within this framework of emergent writing development, children demonstrate various skills, including scribbling, letter-like forms, and representing sounds with symbols, which can be assessed through tasks such as name writing, letter writing, word writing (e.g., consonant–vowel–consonant [CVC] words), and composition—such as that measured by children prompted to write a story based on a picture (Levin et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref24">38</reflink>])—with heterogeneity among preschool children (Sun et al., [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref25">66</reflink>]). For example, while children may compose marks to represent spoken ideas or phrases before they accurately map sounds to letters, they may also write single letters before successfully writing their name, which requires coordinating multiple letters. As children gain experience with written language, they build conceptual knowledge and transition from early scribbles to using random strings of letters intended to be writing, demonstrating an understanding that writing involves specific symbols intended to carry meaning. However, they may not yet grasp that letters represent sounds. As children develop procedural knowledge through a growing understanding of the alphabet and alphabetic principle, their emergent writing skills evolve to encompass more complex skills associated with conventional writing, such as accurately forming letters, spelling, and composing words. These skills, assessed through tasks such as name writing, letter writing, and spelling are foundational to children's overall literacy development (National Early Literacy Panel [NELP], [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref26">45</reflink>]).</p> <p>One of the first concepts children learn to write is their name (e.g., Both-de Vries & Bus, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref27">4</reflink>]). Name writing, often mastered by the end of preschool (Puranik & Lonigan, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref28">53</reflink>]), is closely related to children's print knowledge (Puranik et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref29">55</reflink>]; Thomas et al., [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref30">67</reflink>]). However, it may not provide insight into children's letter name and letter sound knowledge because children often write their names by rote memorization (Puranik et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref31">55</reflink>]). On the other hand, children's letter writing, or the ability to write individual letters, is significantly related to children's alphabet knowledge (Guo et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref32">23</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref33">24</reflink>]) and phonological awareness (Puranik et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref34">55</reflink>]), two critical skills necessary for proficient decoding and spelling. Thus, developing the skill of letter writing is a significant aspect of children's literacy development and signals their progression toward conventional writing (Puranik et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref35">55</reflink>]). Letter writing uniquely contributes to preschool children's CVC word spelling abilities (Puranik et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref36">55</reflink>]) because when children can write the letters of the alphabet with accuracy and automaticity, they can devote more cognitive resources to higher-order procedural tasks such as word spelling and the generative knowledge task of composition (Graham et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref37">22</reflink>]; cf. Kim et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref38">33</reflink>]). Moreover, preschool children's early spelling skills are a reliable predictor of their later writing proficiency (Kim et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref39">33</reflink>]), with children who correctly write CVC words often demonstrating the highest emergent writing abilities (Guo et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref40">23</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref41">24</reflink>]).</p> <p>Preschool children identified as at risk for literacy difficulties often struggle with emergent writing skills (i.e., name writing, letter writing, CVC word spelling, and composition) relative to their peers (Thomas et al., [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref42">67</reflink>]). For example, when asked to write their names, individual letters, or CVC words, children at risk for literacy difficulties tended to use drawing, scribbling, and shapes that resembled letters, whereas their peers tended to use more letter-like formations and conventional letters. Further, when examining children's picture writing (i.e., writing in response to a picture prompt), children at risk for literacy difficulties used significantly fewer letters in their writing and demonstrated less alignment between their verbal responses and what they had written on the page.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-4">Reading–writing connection</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193563715-5">Theoretical framework</hd> <p>A significant body of research has demonstrated the relation between reading and writing (Graham et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref43">21</reflink>]; Kim et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref44">35</reflink>]; Shanahan, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref45">59</reflink>]). The most prominent model—Shared Cognition Model—addresses this relation from a shared knowledge perspective (Fitzgerald & Shanahan, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref46">16</reflink>]). To read or write successfully, children must draw upon shared knowledge that underlies both reading and writing. There are four different types of knowledge implicated in reading and writing: pragmatical metaknowledge (e.g., knowing about the purposes and functions of reading and writing), domain knowledge (e.g., prior knowledge about substance and content), knowledge about text attributes (e.g., syntax), and procedural knowledge (e.g., knowing about how to access, use, and generate knowledge).</p> <p>The Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model (IDL Model) further posits that reading and writing are interdependent and draw on shared processes and skills (Kim, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref47">31</reflink>]). Although also explaining the reading–writing connection from a shared knowledge perspective, the IDL Model focuses on highly similar skills and knowledge, including content and discourse knowledge, social-emotional systems, higher-order cognitive skills, oral language skills, word reading and spelling, metalinguistic awareness, and domain-general knowledge. Thus, these processes underlying reading and writing allow reading and writing to interact, influence each other, and develop simultaneously. Kim ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref48">31</reflink>]) further described the dynamic nature of the relation, which speaks to the idea that the reading–writing connection may vary as a function of the developmental phase and measurement of the construct. The IDL Model has been tested among students in elementary grades in several studies, demonstrating significant relations between reading and writing (e.g., Kim, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref49">32</reflink>]; Kim & Graham, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref50">34</reflink>]). The current study thus adds to the literature by evaluating how emergent writing skills and writing growth in early childhood are related to children's later reading abilities.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-6">The role of emergent writing in reading for English monolingual preschool children</hd> <p>Research with preschool children has reported positive connections between emergent writing and reading processes (Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref51">19</reflink>]; Molfese et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref52">42</reflink>]). Studies show that children's emergent writing during preschool is concurrently related to emergent reading skills, including letter knowledge (Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref53">19</reflink>]; Guo et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref54">23</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref55">24</reflink>]), phonological awareness (Blair & Savage, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref56">2</reflink>]; Guo et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref57">23</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref58">24</reflink>]), and letter-word identification (Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref59">19</reflink>]; Molfese et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref60">42</reflink>]).</p> <p>Specifically, Puranik et al. ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref61">55</reflink>]) observed positive associations between three measures of emergent writing (i.e., name writing, letter writing, and CVC word spelling) and letter knowledge among preschoolers aged 4–5 years. Guo et al. ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref62">23</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref63">24</reflink>]) used cluster analysis and identified three emergent writing profiles in terms of letter writing, name writing, and CVC word spelling. Findings showed that letter knowledge and phonological awareness predicted profile membership when controlling for age, such that preschoolers with better letter knowledge and phonological awareness skills tended to be in the subgroup with higher emergent writing skills. Blair and Savage ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref64">2</reflink>]) also found that name writing was uniquely associated with phonological awareness, even after controlling for letter-sound knowledge. Moreover, name writing was associated with letter-word identification skills for children when they entered preschool (Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref65">19</reflink>]). Likewise, Molfese et al. ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref66">42</reflink>]) found that letter writing and name writing consistently correlated with word reading in preschool and kindergarten.</p> <p>The aforementioned cross-sectional findings support an association between emergent writing and emergent reading skills at a single time point; limited longitudinal studies further strengthen the idea that emergent writing skills can facilitate children's later reading. For instance, following preschool children to kindergarten and Grade 1, Hand et al. ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref67">25</reflink>]) found that preschool CVC word spelling contributed to kindergarten reading outcomes, including letter-word identification, word attack, sight word efficiency, phonemic decoding efficiency, and passage comprehension. In Grade 1, however, preschool CVC word spelling was only found to predict Grade 1 pseudoword reading (word attack and phonemic decoding efficiency). Following preschool children in Head Start from the beginning to the middle and end of the school year, Diamond et al. ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref68">12</reflink>]) examined the relations between name writing and letter knowledge during the year. They observed that children's initial level and growth of name writing were associated with growth in letter knowledge. Further, children who wrote at least one letter when writing their name knew more letters and learned letters at a faster rate than children who did not write any letters. Molfese et al. ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref69">42</reflink>]) followed preschoolers (measured in fall and spring) to kindergarten to investigate the relations between name and letter writing and children's letter-word identification skills. Findings revealed that both name and letter writing in the fall of preschool predicted children's initial letter-word identification, indicating that children with higher name writing and letter writing scores were more likely to perform better in letter-word identification in the fall of preschool. However, neither was significantly related to children's growth in letter-word identification from preschool to kindergarten. The authors concluded that the unexpected findings might be attributable to the limitation in measurement time points and the choice of using fall writing skills as predictors, given potential floor effects.</p> <p>In sum, previous studies have confirmed the important relations between emergent writing and reading skills; however, these studies have not addressed how emergent writing growth rates are related to later reading. Moving beyond initial skills to focus on young children's emergent writing growth rates can provide critical insights into instructional targets and practices for preschool. The two studies focusing on emergent writing skills only examined their relations to the growth of reading skills (Diamond et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref70">12</reflink>]; Molfese et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref71">42</reflink>]). Additionally, most of the previous work only focuses on one or two measures of emergent writing (i.e., name writing, letter writing), which does not reflect the complex nature of the construct. Further, participants in previous studies were all typically developing, which does not consider the population of children most likely in need of more early literacy support—children at risk for later literacy difficulties. The current study focuses on this population of children and allows further understanding of the relations between emergent writing and later reading skills. Our findings will provide practical implications on how to support those children early in preschool to remediate later literacy difficulties.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-7">The role of emergent writing in reading for bilingual children</hd> <p>Bilingual children represent the fastest growing school population in the United States (Irwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref72">29</reflink>]). For bilingual children, dual language involvement brings the added complexity of acquiring literacy skills in multiple languages. Beyond learning each language, bilingual children also tend to transfer their knowledge and skills across two languages (Shen & Goodrich, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref73">62</reflink>]). This is supported by Cummins' ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref74">11</reflink>]) linguistic interdependence hypothesis, which posits that literacy abilities developed in one language can facilitate the development of skills in another language. Such cross-language transfer is achieved through the common proficiency underlying the development of first and second language literacy skills. The linguistic interdependence hypothesis has been supported in different studies showing cross-linguistic relations in reading (Chung et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref75">10</reflink>]), writing (Schoonen et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref76">58</reflink>]), and even across reading and writing skills (Pae, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref77">46</reflink>]; Ye et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref78">72</reflink>]) across multiple language pairs, such as English-French, Korean-English, and Chinese-English. However, how these skills transfer across different languages is likely dependent on various factors in play. One factor is the orthographic and phonological similarities and differences between the languages. The Transfer Facilitation Model (Koda, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref79">36</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref80">37</reflink>]) posits that cross-language transfer is likely to be achieved more easily and require less adjustment if bilinguals speak two languages that have similar orthographic and phonological features. Moreover, differences in this cross-language transfer processes may also be different based upon whether children were sequential or simultaneous bilinguals.</p> <p>Such cross-linguistic interaction makes it more difficult to disentangle how bilingual children read and write successfully. Indeed, for bilinguals developing proficiency in two languages, reading and writing appear to interact but likely in a different way relative to monolingual children. For example, Shen and Coker ([<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref81">60</reflink>]) matched native English monolingual and bilingual first graders from diverse heritage language backgrounds on English receptive vocabulary and examined reading–writing connections. They found that spelling predicted reading comprehension for bilingual and English monolingual children, whereas written composition predicted reading comprehension for English monolingual children only. Results revealed that English monolingual children may draw on spelling and written composition skills to comprehend texts, whereas bilingual children mainly rely on spelling. Chiappe et al. ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref82">8</reflink>]), however, found significant associations between English spelling and English word reading/reading comprehension for both Korean-English bilingual and monolingual children at the start of Grade 1, but such relations persisted only for bilinguals at the end of Grade 1. As such, evidence suggests that being bilingual may alter reading–writing relations; however, such differences between English monolingual and bilingual children may depend upon the measures used and children's developmental stage. It is worth noting that these studies focused on emergent bilinguals with emergent English oral proficiency who spoke a heritage language at home. Thus, their emerging skills in English literacy may play a role in the relations between reading and writing (Kim, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref83">32</reflink>]). Additionally, differences in heritage language spoken at home may further explain such variations. Reflecting the preschool demographic landscapes at our recruitment state, our sample of bilingual speakers spoke a variety of languages, including those speaking English or another heritage language as their native language. Such differences in demographics may result in different patterns of reading–writing connections from previous studies.</p> <p>Research suggests that bilingual children may experience reading difficulties, writing difficulties, or the co-occurrence of the two (Zhang & Wang, [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref84">75</reflink>]). In one study, authors aimed to identify a single measure that could be used as a mass screening tool to screen young bilingual children at risk for reading difficulties (Chua et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref85">9</reflink>]). Among five conventional tests (i.e., phonological awareness, vocabulary, spelling, letter identification, rapid digit naming), Chua et al. ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref86">9</reflink>]) found that spelling scores provided the best fit in terms of sensitivity and specificity to identify English-Chinese or Chinese-English bilingual kindergartners at risk for reading difficulties, thereby providing further evidence of the predictive relation between spelling and word reading for bilingual children, as well as demonstrating how the field can use writing as a tool to screen bilingual children who are at risk for reading difficulties.</p> <p>Notably, available studies on the reading–writing connection in bilingual children all focus on children beyond preschool. To our knowledge, no study has examined the role of emergent writing in bilingual preschoolers' later reading abilities. The current study extends prior research by including a subsample of bilingual preschoolers at risk for reading difficulties to answer the important question of whether being bilingual may alter the relation between emergent writing development and children's later reading abilities. Findings may inform differentiated instructional practices to meet the specific needs of bilingual preschoolers.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-8">The current study</hd> <p>In the current study, we examined the extent to which children's initial levels and rates of growth of emergent writing skills during early childhood predict reading abilities in Grade 1, including both native English monolingual children and bilingual children. We make novel contributions to the extant literature by considering growth rates of emergent writing skills as predictors of later reading while incorporating a set of measures of emergent writing and expanding outcomes beyond word reading to include reading comprehension. Specifically, this investigation was guided by two research questions: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref87">1</reflink>) To what extent do children's emergent writing skills in preschool (i.e., intercept) and the rates of growth of these skills (i.e., slope) from preschool to Grade 1 predict word reading and reading comprehension abilities in Grade 1? (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref88">2</reflink>) To what extent does being bilingual alter the relations between early writing development and later reading abilities? Given that existing literature largely supported the role of emergent writing on reading skills, we hypothesized that emergent writing skills in preschool and the rates of growth of these skills from preschool to Grade 1 would predict reading skills in Grade 1. In addition, due to the complex cross-linguistic interaction, we also hypothesized that being bilingual would alter the strength of the relations between early writing development and later reading skills. The findings of this study may provide critical insights into leveraging writing in the early identification of later literacy difficulties.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-9">Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193563715-10">Participants</hd> <p>We leveraged data from three cohorts of children (<emph>N</emph> = 281) who participated in a larger project conducted in one Midwestern state. The larger project investigated the efficacy of an emergent literacy intervention for preschoolers at risk for later reading difficulties. We found minimal effects of the intervention during preschool and no evidence of longitudinal effects on word reading, spelling, or reading comprehension (Piasta et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref89">48</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref90">49</reflink>]). We invited preschool classroom teachers to participate in the larger project and sampled up to four eligible preschool-age children per classroom. Eligibility criteria included children between 3 and 5 years of age, caregiver consent, children with minimal attendance issues and no severe behavior problems (from teacher report), exhibiting basic English oral proficiency (from caregiver questionnaire), and being identified as at risk for later reading difficulties on a screening assessment. We followed these children from the fall to spring of preschool through kindergarten and Grade 1.</p> <p>The current study involved 243 children in 95 early childhood classrooms having assessment data in preschool and kindergarten, including a subsample of 42 bilingual children. To determine whether a child was bilingual, we first examined the response to the question, "Is English your child's primary language?" in the caregiver questionnaire. Among 243 children, caregivers reported 23 children to have a language other than English as their primary language. In addition, we also looked at the response to the question, "What other language(s) does your child speak?" in the caregiver questionnaire to identify children using English as their primary language but also speaking an additional language. We identified nineteen additional children as bilingual using this second question. These children spoke various languages including Spanish (<emph>n</emph> = 22), and other languages (<emph>n</emph> = 20), including German, Cambodian, Bambara, Arabic, Somali, Nepali, Swahili, Tamil, and Twi.</p> <p>In the fall of preschool, children were, on average, 49.44 months old (<emph>SD</emph> = 5.99). Slightly less than half of the children (48.6%) were girls. The majority of children were Black (65.4%); 32.5% were White, 2.1% were American Indian or Alaska Native, 3.3% were Asian, 0.8% were Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and 7.0% were from other racial backgrounds. Most of the children in our sample were non-Hispanic/Latinx (81.5%). In terms of socioeconomic status, 31.7% of children's mothers had a high school diploma or less; 10.3% had a high school diploma plus technical training certificate; 31.7% received some college education but no degree; 21.4% had an associate or bachelor's degree; and 3.7% had an advanced degree. Three (1.2%) mothers' educational levels were not reported. Annual household income ranged from less than $5,000 to more than $165,001, including 58.1% of families earning between $0 and $25,000 annually, 28.0% between $25,001 and $55,000, 8.5% between $55,001 and $95,000, and 2.4% earning $105,001 or more. Incomes for 7 (2.9%) households were not reported.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-11">Measures</hd> <p>All children completed an initial emergent literacy screener and emergent writing assessments at the beginning of preschool. They were followed from the fall (Time 1) to spring (Time 2) of preschool through kindergarten (Time 3) and Grade 1 (Time 4) and were assessed on different tasks each year. All assessments were administered 1:1 by trained assessors in quiet spaces at children's preschools or elementary schools. These assessors completed rigorous training on all assessments prior to administering these to children (e.g., reviewed technical manuals and administration protocols, scored at least 80% correct on administration quizzes, and completed practice administrations while being observed). Administration and scoring for all assessments followed manualized procedures. Additional information about data and data collection are provided in Piasta et al. ([<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref91">49</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-12">Emergent writing skills</hd> <p>To measure children's emergent writing skills, we used an assessment developed by Gerde et al. ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref92">18</reflink>]) to assess several aspects of writing, including letter writing, name writing, CVC word spelling, and picture writing. These writing tasks were administered at all four time points. Staff were trained to reliability standards; interrater reliability for scoring was high (<emph>k</emph> = 0.92). We applied previous coding systems (Diamond et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref93">12</reflink>]; Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref94">18</reflink>]), with a slight adaptation: we merged scribbling and drawing because very few children (< 0.5%) fell within the "drawing" category for each measure.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-13">Name writing</hd> <p>We asked children to write their names. The name writing task was scored as follows: 0 = <emph>refusal/no response</emph>, 1 = <emph>scribbling/drawing</emph>, 2 = <emph>letter-like shapes</emph>, 3 = <emph>at least one letter,</emph> or 4 = <emph>name spelled correct</emph>. The interrater reliability (Kappa) estimates ranged from 0.78 to 0.89 across all four time points.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-14">Letter writing</hd> <p>We asked children to write ten letters—T, B, H, M, S, A, D, C, J, P. The letter writing task was scored as follows: 0 = <emph>refusal/no response</emph>, 1 = <emph>scribbling/drawing</emph>, 2 = <emph>letter-like shape</emph>, 3 = <emph>a letter other than the letter dictated to the child</emph>, or 4 = <emph>correct letter</emph>. We created a composite score by calculating the average score across the ten letters (α = 0.92). The Kappa reliability estimates ranged from 0.72 to 0.96 across all four time points.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-15">CVC word spelling</hd> <p>We asked children to write five consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC) words—sad, hug, lip, net, and job. The invented spelling task was scored as follows: 0 = <emph>refusal/no response</emph>, 1 = <emph>scribbling/drawing</emph>, 2 = <emph>letters or letter-like shapes</emph>, 3 = <emph>letter of an initial or salient sound</emph>, 4 = <emph>letters of multiple sounds in the word</emph>, or 5 = <emph>word spelled correctly</emph>. We created a composite score by calculating the average score across the five words (α = 0.93). The Kappa reliability estimates ranged from 0.72 to 0.93 across all four time points.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-16">Picture writing</hd> <p>We provided children with two pictures of a mother and baby raccoon and directed them to write what was occurring in each picture. The picture writing task was scored as follows: 0 = <emph>scribbling</emph>, 1 = <emph>letter and letter like</emph>, 2 = <emph>initial/salient sounds,</emph> or 3 = <emph>advanced phonological spelling.</emph> Because two pictures were included in this task, we used the higher score derived from the two picture writing forms. As such, our picture writing measure was scored largely in terms of procedural knowledge (i.e., transcription) rather than generative knowledge (i.e., composition). The Kappa reliability estimates ranged from 0.67 to 0.93 across all four time points.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-17">Emergent literacy screener</hd> <p>We used the Get Ready to Read!-Revised (GRTR-R, Whitehurst & Lonigan, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref95">69</reflink>]), a 10-min, 25-item screener, to identify children at-risk for later reading difficulties. Children completed print knowledge and phonological awareness items by identifying the correct picture out of four. We summed correct items and compared them to manualized age-based benchmarks to identify children at risk for later reading difficulties.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-18">Grade 1 reading outcomes</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193563715-19">Word reading</hd> <p>We used the Letter-Word Identification subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement-NU (WJIII-NU; Woodcock et al., [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref96">70</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref97">70</reflink>]) to measure word reading in Grade 1. Children are directed to say the letter (14 items) or word (remaining items) depicted aloud with items increasing in difficulty. We converted the total correct score to an Item Response Theory (IRT)-based W score.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-20">Reading Comprehension</hd> <p>We used the Passage Comprehension subtest of the WJIII-NU (Woodcock et al., [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref98">70</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref99">70</reflink>]) to measure children's reading comprehension ability in Grade 1. This assessment starts with simple words and phrases and progresses in difficulty to fully textual passages. Children are initially asked to look at a word/phrase and point to a picture that matches a word or phrase, then they are directed to fill in the missing word after reading a passage. We converted the total correct score to an IRT-based W score.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-21">Analytic approach</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193563715-22">Missing data</hd> <p>Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not administer any assessments to the last cohort of children in Grade 1 (<emph>n</emph> = 99). Along with the attrition of 13 children, 131 children remained and were assessed on at least one task in Grade 1. Across all time points, the percentage of missing data ranged from 0% (age, all kindergarten assessment scores) to 46.1% (Grade 1 passage comprehension, name writing, letter writing, and CVC word spelling), with an average of 12.2% missingness. We performed Little's Missing Completely at Random (MCAR; Little, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref100">39</reflink>]) test, which showed that the data were not missing completely at random, χ<sups>2</sups>(<reflink idref="bib126" id="ref101">126</reflink>, _I_N_i_ = 243) = 602.31, <emph>p</emph> <.001. However, given the nature of missingness (due to COVID-19 pandemic), we can assume that our data are missing at random (J. A. R. Logan, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref102">40</reflink>]). Before handling missing data, we detected one outlier, defined as values at or above ± 3 <emph>SD</emph>s from the mean, and removed this score from analyses. The outlier resulted from an extremely high Grade 1 letter word identification test score and was recoded as missing data. In order to handle the missing data under the assumption of missing at random, we used multiple imputation and included all covariates listed in Table 1, as well as the clustering variable (Class ID) in the imputation model. Literature has supported that even 10 imputed datasets can achieve over 95% efficiency of estimates with 50% missing information (Schafer, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref103">57</reflink>]). We multiply imputed our dataset using chained equations with 50 imputed datasets. We conducted multiple imputation analysis before the construction of any growth curve models.</p> <p>Table 1 Descriptive statistics of all study variables</p> <p> <ephtml> <table rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Variables</p></th><th align="left" colspan="5"><p>Full sample</p><p><italic>N</italic> = 243</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Monolingual sample</p><p><italic>n</italic> = 201</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Bilingual sample <italic>n</italic> = 42</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>N</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th><th align="left"><p>Min</p></th><th align="left"><p>Max</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Age in month</p></td><td align="left"><p>243</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>49.44</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5.99</p></td><td align="left"><p>36</p></td><td align="left"><p>60</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>49.42</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>6.12</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>49.52</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5.37</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>242</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.49</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.50</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.51</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.50</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.36</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.48</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Name writing T1</p></td><td align="left"><p>242</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.84</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.98</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.99</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.79</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.92</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Name writing T2</p></td><td align="left"><p>221</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.91</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.83</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.93</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.92</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.81</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Name writing T3</p></td><td align="left"><p>243</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.37</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.79</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.36</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.82</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.45</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.63</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Name writing T4</p></td><td align="left"><p>131</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.63</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.51</p></td><td align="left"><p>2</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.63</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.52</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.63</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.50</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Letter writing T1</p></td><td align="left"><p>242</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.37</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.57</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.50</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.38</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.58</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.29</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.50</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Letter writing T2</p></td><td align="left"><p>224</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.16</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.87</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.14</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.24</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.94</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Letter writing T3</p></td><td align="left"><p>243</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.91</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.95</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.70</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.88</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.95</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.06</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.96</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Letter writing T4</p></td><td align="left"><p>131</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.55</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.62</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.54</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.63</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.57</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.58</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>CVC word spelling T1</p></td><td align="left"><p>242</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.11</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.33</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.80</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.13</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.34</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.99</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.28</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>CVC word spelling T2</p></td><td align="left"><p>224</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.38</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.55</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.40</p></td><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.37</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.53</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.39</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.62</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>CVC word spelling T3</p></td><td align="left"><p>243</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.15</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>5</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.08</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.97</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.50</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.16</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>CVC word spelling T4</p></td><td align="left"><p>131</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.76</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.12</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>5</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.71</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.12</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.13</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Picture writing T1</p></td><td align="left"><p>237</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.18</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.39</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>2</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.19</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.40</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.13</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.33</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Picture writing T2</p></td><td align="left"><p>222</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.47</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.65</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>3</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.47</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.63</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.50</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.75</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Picture writing T3</p></td><td align="left"><p>241</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.18</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>3</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.12</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.99</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.46</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.14</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Picture writing T4</p></td><td align="left"><p>131</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.47</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.93</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>3</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.41</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.96</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.79</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.63</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Word reading T4</p></td><td align="left"><p>131</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>394.83</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>33.49</p></td><td align="left"><p>320</p></td><td align="left"><p>497</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>391.43</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>32.98</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>409.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>33.83</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Passage comprehension T4</p></td><td align="left"><p>131</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>428.48</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>20.80</p></td><td align="left"><p>377</p></td><td align="left"><p>483</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>426.95</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>20.39</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>437.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>21.53</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>T = Timepoint</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-23">Latent growth curve modeling</hd> <p>We used growth curve modeling to estimate the slopes (writing growth rates) and variance components for each writing measure. Because children were nested within classrooms in the current study, we used clustered robust standard errors to account for this in all latent growth curve models. First, we estimated four unconditional growth curve models, one for each of the writing constructs (i.e., name writing, letter writing, CVC word spelling, and picture composition), to determine the overall intercept and slope of writing scores across preschool to Grade 1 and overall fit of the models. Aligned with previous research (Cabell et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref104">6</reflink>]; Shen et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref105">63</reflink>]), we did not constrain the changes/slopes to be linear; instead, we freely estimated the second and third time points for slope loadings and fixed the first and last time points to identify the model (Duncan et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref106">14</reflink>]).</p> <p>We then specified two more sets of latent growth curve models for each writing construct. To test the relation between initial skills/growth rates in emergent writing skills and children's later reading abilities, we used the intercept and slope to predict the two reading measures (i.e., word reading and passage comprehension) in Models 1. We included child age and gender as control variables because previous literature has demonstrated that age (Shen & Del Tufo, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref107">61</reflink>]; Vestheim et al., [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref108">68</reflink>]) and gender (Logan & Johnston, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref109">41</reflink>]) are associated with children's emergent literacy development. Figure 1 illustrates the general model. Next, to examine whether being bilingual alters relations between emergent writing and later reading skills, we added bilingual status (1 = bilingual; 0 = monolingual) and the interaction terms between bilingual status and both the intercept and slope to predict later reading skills (Models 2).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1 Growth curve models predicting Grade 1 reading outcomes</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-24">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193563715-25">Preliminary analyses and results</hd> <p>Table 1 presents the descriptive information for all study variables for the full, monolingual, and bilingual samples. Children showed growth over time in name writing, letter writing, CVC word spelling, and picture writing skills. We further examined whether monolingual and bilingual children scored differently on emergent writing and reading assessments. <emph>T</emph>-tests showed that bilingual children scored significantly lower than monolingual children on CVC word spelling (<emph>t</emph>[69.01] = − 2.93, <emph>p</emph> =.005) in the fall of preschool, but scored significantly higher than monolingual children on CVC word spelling (<emph>t</emph>[24.42], <emph>p</emph> =.032) in kindergarten, as well as on picture writing (<emph>t</emph>[34.22] = 2.22, <emph>p</emph> =.033) and passage comprehension (<emph>t</emph>[<reflink idref="bib129" id="ref110">129</reflink>] = 2.01, <emph>p</emph> =.046) in Grade 1. Table S1 in the online supplementary materials displays the correlation matrix for the full sample, and Table S2 presents the correlations for both the bilingual and monolingual samples.</p> <p>Model fit indices pooled across 50 datasets for the four unconditional latent growth models showed that all models fit the data well—name writing model (<emph>χ</emph><sups>2</sups> [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref111">1</reflink>, _I_N_i_ = 243] = 1.118; CFI = 0.997; RMSEA = 0.026); letter writing model (<emph>χ</emph><sups>2</sups> [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref112">1</reflink>, _I_N_i_ = 243] = 0.818; CFI = 0.999; RMSEA = 0.017); CVC word spelling model (<emph>χ</emph><sups>2</sups> [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref113">1</reflink>, _I_N_i_ = 243] = 0.908; CFI = 0.996; RMSEA = 0.020); picture writing model (χ<sups>2</sups> [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref114">1</reflink>, _I_N_i_ = 243] = 1.859; CFI = 0.989; RMSEA = 0.054). Figure 2 shows the average growth patterns for each of the writing constructs.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 2 Average growth patterns of children's emergent writing skills</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-26">Associations between initial levels and growth rates of emergent writing skills and Grade 1 r...</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193563715-27">Initial levels of emergent writing skills and Grade 1 reading abilities</hd> <p>Table 2 presents the results of growth curve analyses for Models 1. Results showed that children's initial levels (i.e., intercept) of name writing, letter writing, and picture writing in the fall of preschool positively predicted word reading and passage comprehension skills in Grade 1. This suggests that children who performed better on these three writing tasks in the fall of preschool tended to have higher scores on both word reading and passage comprehension measures administered in Grade 1. Children's initial CVC word spelling was not significantly related to Grade 1 word reading or passage comprehension skills.</p> <p>Table 2 Coefficients of intercept and slope of writing skills on reading outcomes (Models 1)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Predictors</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Word reading</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Passage comprehension</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>Coefficient</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>p</italic></p></th><th align="left"><p>Coefficient</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>p</italic></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Name writing</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>78.43**</p></td><td align="left"><p>29.79</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.008</p></td><td align="left"><p>32.86*</p></td><td align="left"><p>16.53</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.047</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>75.10*</p></td><td align="left"><p>37.57</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.046</p></td><td align="left"><p>30.81</p></td><td align="left"><p>20.32</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.129</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.60</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.52</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.247</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.55</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.37</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.144</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 3.69</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.51</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.413</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 2.20</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.25</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.499</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Letter writing</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>62.47***</p></td><td align="left"><p>10.72</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p><.001</p></td><td align="left"><p>25.87***</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.67</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p><.001</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>49.93**</p></td><td align="left"><p>14.88</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.001</p></td><td align="left"><p>15.77*</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.36</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.032</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 0.01</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.47</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.976</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.27</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.34</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.435</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 5.87</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.14</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.156</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 2.65</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.96</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.372</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>CVC word spelling</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>25.53</p></td><td align="left"><p>40.73</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.531</p></td><td align="left"><p>21.14</p></td><td align="left"><p>13.30</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.112</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>37.04***</p></td><td align="left"><p>8.28</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p><.001</p></td><td align="left"><p>16.20***</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.46</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p><.001</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.09</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.34</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.799</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.21</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.28</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.452</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 2.46</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.43</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.472</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 2.26</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.72</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.407</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Picture writing</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>43.75***</p></td><td align="left"><p>10.68</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p><.001</p></td><td align="left"><p>22.11**</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.36</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.003</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>37.00**</p></td><td align="left"><p>11.46</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.001</p></td><td align="left"><p>16.03*</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.37</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.012</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.71</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.42</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.088</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.57*</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.29</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.047</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.87</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.92</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.215</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.39</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.78</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.616</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>*<emph>p</emph> <.05; **<emph>p</emph> <.01; ***<emph>p</emph> <.001</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-28">Growth rates of emergent writing skills and Grade 1 reading abilities</hd> <p>Children's growth rates (i.e., slope) of letter writing, CVC word spelling, and picture writing from preschool to Grade 1 were significantly and positively associated with Grade 1 word reading and passage comprehension. This indicates that children who had faster growth rates on these three writing tasks also performed better in Grade 1 word reading and passage comprehension. Children's growth rates of name writing from preschool to Grade 1 positively predicted their Grade 1 word reading but not passage comprehension skills.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-29">Effect of bilingual status on the relations between emergent writing skills and Grade 1 readi...</hd> <p>To examine whether being bilingual altered the relations between emergent writing skills and Grade 1 reading abilities, we further built on Models 1 and specified Models 2 by adding bilingual status and its interactions with intercept and slope of each writing construct to the growth curve models. As seen in Table 3, none of the interactions between bilingual status and intercepts/slopes were statistically significant. The findings suggest that bilingual status did not influence the relations between emergent writing skills and Grade 1 reading abilities.</p> <p>Table 3 Coefficients of intercept and slope of writing skills and their interactions with bilingual status on reading outcomes (Models 2)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Predictors</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Word reading</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Passage comprehension</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>Coefficient</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>p</italic></p></th><th align="left"><p>Coefficient</p></th><th align="left"><p>SE</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>p</italic></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Name writing</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>77.57</p></td><td align="left"><p>48.23</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.108</p></td><td align="left"><p>24.18</p></td><td align="left"><p>33.76</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.474</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>74.69</p></td><td align="left"><p>73.22</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.308</p></td><td align="left"><p>17.66</p></td><td align="left"><p>59.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.765</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.60</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.50</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.234</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.56</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.38</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.134</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.96</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.57</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.668</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.33</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.736</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 54.22</p></td><td align="left"><p>306.25</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.859</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 96.99</p></td><td align="left"><p>233.71</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.678</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>18.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>66.03</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.784</p></td><td align="left"><p>25.90</p></td><td align="left"><p>48.76</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.595</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>24.71</p></td><td align="left"><p>117.88</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.834</p></td><td align="left"><p>37.44</p></td><td align="left"><p>91.29</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.682</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Letter writing</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>65.82***</p></td><td align="left"><p>14.85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p><.001</p></td><td align="left"><p>30.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>16.87</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.075</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>40.08</p></td><td align="left"><p>22.37</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.073</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.47</p></td><td align="left"><p>34.43</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.966</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 0.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.45</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.898</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.24</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.33</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.464</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 4.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.08</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.312</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.51</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.97</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.610</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.70</p></td><td align="left"><p>66.17</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.979</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 46.38</p></td><td align="left"><p>57.50</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.420</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.65</p></td><td align="left"><p>18.39</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.759</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.65</p></td><td align="left"><p>15.71</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.719</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.74</p></td><td align="left"><p>36.98</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.919</p></td><td align="left"><p>23.37</p></td><td align="left"><p>33.30</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.483</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>CVC word spelling</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>31.62</p></td><td align="left"><p>48.10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.511</p></td><td align="left"><p>35.52</p></td><td align="left"><p>74.23</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.632</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>30.30***</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.02</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p><.001</p></td><td align="left"><p>11.09</p></td><td align="left"><p>8.17</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.174</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.41</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.53</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.441</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.36</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.34</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.295</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.42</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.54</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.754</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.64</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.95</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.579</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.34</p></td><td align="left"><p>66.89</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.452</p></td><td align="left"><p>30.57</p></td><td align="left"><p>76.81</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.691</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 50.58</p></td><td align="left"><p>77.96</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.517</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 39.87</p></td><td align="left"><p>93.23</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.669</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.83</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.93</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.626</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>11.73</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.547</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Picture writing</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>41.08</p></td><td align="left"><p>38.78</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.290</p></td><td align="left"><p>27.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>32.42</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.404</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>35.43*</p></td><td align="left"><p>14.94</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.018</p></td><td align="left"><p>12.55</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.68</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.195</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.73</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.41</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.076</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.59*</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.28</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.039</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.70</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.91</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.145</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.94</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.81</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.490</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 26.45</p></td><td align="left"><p>34.23</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.440</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 25.78</p></td><td align="left"><p>26.07</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.323</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Intercept</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.43</p></td><td align="left"><p>42.65</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.955</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>44.92</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.982</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Bilingual × Slope</p></td><td align="left"><p>14.71</p></td><td align="left"><p>15.56</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.345</p></td><td align="left"><p>12.99</p></td><td align="left"><p>12.88</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>.313</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>*<emph>p</emph> <.05; **<emph>p</emph> <.01; ***<emph>p</emph> <.001</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-30">Discussion</hd> <p>The present study is among the few to examine how preschool emergent writing skills relate to children's later reading abilities across both word reading and reading comprehension. It is also the first to capture the associations between growth rates of emergent writing skills during early childhood and subsequent reading skills with a focus on children identified as at risk for reading difficulties. In general, our findings supported the predictive role of emergent writing on later reading abilities as indicated in prior work. Further, the findings demonstrate that children's development of emergent writing skills in preschool are associated with better reading skills in Grade 1. Notably, the vast majority of children (82%) performed at levels requiring word reading (not simply letter identification) on the Letter-Word Identification subtest in Grade 1, allowing interpretation of this measure as one of reading rather than letter naming. Additionally, 35% of children performed at levels requiring connected-text reading on the Passage Comprehension subtest.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-31">Preschool emergent writing skill levels predict later reading abilities</hd> <p>Results indicated statistically significant and positive associations between preschool children's initial name writing and letter writing skills and Grade 1 reading outcomes. We also found significant positive associations between children's initial picture writing and Grade 1 outcomes, which, to our knowledge, had not been studied. These findings align with the general evidence indicating that initial literacy skills typically predict later literacy outcomes, and there is continuity between emergent literacy skills and conventional reading skills (e.g., NELP, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref115">45</reflink>]; Hjetland et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref116">26</reflink>]). Findings also align with the burgeoning evidence base that initial emergent writing skills predict later literacy outcomes including letter knowledge and word reading (Molfese et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref117">42</reflink>]; NELP, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref118">45</reflink>]; cf. Pritchard et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref119">50</reflink>]). This supports models such as the <emph>Shared Cognition Model</emph> (Fitzgerald & Shanahan, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref120">16</reflink>]) and the <emph>IDL Model</emph> (Kim, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref121">31</reflink>]) in providing further evidence of the reading–writing connection, likely due to shared knowledge or components among these constructs. Greater print knowledge—along with insight into the alphabetic principle and perhaps greater phonological awareness—inherent in better performance on letter and picture writing tasks also contribute to decoding and word reading (NELP, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref122">45</reflink>]; Hjetland et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref123">26</reflink>]). Word reading skills, in turn, support reading comprehension (Hjetland et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref124">26</reflink>]; Hoover & Tunmer, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref125">28</reflink>]). Moreover, both reading comprehension and picture writing indicate children's understanding that print conveys meaning. We also note that instead of composition, our picture writing measure was scored largely in terms of transcription, which may explain the similar results found between letter and picture writing.</p> <p>Our results also showed that preschool name writing skills predicted both word reading and reading comprehension. Given evidence that name writing may be logographic (Puranik et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref126">55</reflink>]), we put forth three potential explanations for this finding: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref127">1</reflink>) it may be that early name writing signals at least initial understandings of letters, the alphabetic principle, print awareness, and/or phonemic awareness; (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref128">2</reflink>) early name writing might be a proxy for children's early literacy experiences, signaling that children with greater name writing skills in preschool might have experienced more positive home (or preschool) literacy environments, which are known to predict later literacy outcomes (Georgiou et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref129">17</reflink>]); and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref130">3</reflink>) children with stronger name writing skills tended to have stronger transcription skills that require more developed fine motor, visual, and orthographic skills, which likely supports more sophisticated writing later on as it frees up cognitive space (Puranik et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref131">51</reflink>]; Zhang et al., [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref132">73</reflink>]).</p> <p>We unexpectedly did not find associations between preschool children's initial CVC word spelling and Grade 1 reading outcomes. Notably, children's initial CVC word spelling performance exhibited a restricted range and the least variability of all initial writing measures, with 83% of the sample scoring a "1" on this measure. These distributional properties likely limited our ability to find associations with initial CVC word spelling. We note, however, that initial picture writing also exhibited a restricted range and less variability than other initial writing measures, yet we still found significant associations between initial picture writing and Grade 1 reading outcomes. Variations in findings between CVC word spelling and picture writing may be attributed to the different measurement and coding systems used. Although both measures included codes of scribbling, letter or letter like, initial or salient sounds, codes in the CVC word spelling measure also included letters of multiple sounds in the word and word spelled correctly, whereas picture writing focused more on advanced phonological spelling.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-32">Rate of growth in emergent writing skills predicts later reading</hd> <p>Results also indicated significant and positive associations between growth rates in name writing, letter writing, CVC word spelling, and picture writing and Grade 1 reading outcomes, with growth in all but name writing predicting both word reading and reading comprehension. Considering not only initial level but also growth in emergent writing skills as predictors of later reading is unique in the literature, to our knowledge, and indicates that the rate at which children develop writing skills matters. This is important in highlighting the malleability of early writing development and suggesting that faster rates of emergent writing growth may be beneficial. Research has reported similar findings for other aspects of emergent literacy, including alphabet knowledge, letter-word identification, and phonological awareness (Cabell et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref133">6</reflink>]; Piasta et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref134">47</reflink>]). Although perhaps not directly stated, these studies also position their findings as aligned with theories emphasizing the consolidation of literacy skills (e.g., Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref135">15</reflink>]). This prior research, as well as the current findings, also converge with research on dynamic assessment (Dixon et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref136">13</reflink>]). Together, this emerging body of work indicates that literacy trajectories, in addition to static skill levels, should be considered and implies that facilitating positive literacy trajectories in the early years through home and school experiences is critical.</p> <p>Unlike other writing skills, growth in name writing predicted Grade 1 word reading but not reading comprehension. This finding may support the first of the two explanations for name writing predictions mentioned above. Specifically, name writing might signal the development of early transcription skills, which are strongly related to decoding and word reading skills. Other writing tasks may signal more sophisticated learning in not only transcription, but also other areas such as understanding of letters, the alphabetic principle, print awareness, and phonological awareness. As such, shared knowledge related to name writing may be less relevant for reading comprehension.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-33">Bilingual status does not alter the emergent writing-later reading relations</hd> <p>Our results indicated that bilingualism did not alter the strength of the relations between the preschool levels and growth rates of emergent writing skills and later reading. This implies that the predictive effects of emergent writing skills on children's subsequent reading are likely to be similar for monolingual and bilingual children, suggesting that supports for emergent writing development at the preschool age (whether home or school supports) may be beneficial regardless of language(s) spoken. We caution, however, that statistical power is often limited for detecting interactions (Sommet et al., [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref137">64</reflink>]) and that this finding needs to be replicated in future work.</p> <p>Methodological differences between this study and previous studies of bilingual children (e.g., Chiappe et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref138">8</reflink>]; Shen & Coker, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref139">60</reflink>]) may explain inconsistencies in the findings. First, previous studies focused on heritage language children who spoke a language other than English at home. We instead focused on both children who spoke English as a primary language in addition to another language as well as heritage language children. The inclusion of both groups reflects the language diversity in US preschool classrooms, considering those who might be heritage language speakers of another language but use English as a primary language. Heritage language speakers comprise a large subset of the bilingual population in the United States (Shen & Del Tufo, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref140">61</reflink>]). Second, previous studies included children who had emergent English oral proficiency. We only included those who maintained basic oral English proficiency. Because language proficiency plays a significant role in children's reading development (Hoover & Gough, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref141">27</reflink>]), as well as in the reading–writing relation (Kim, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref142">31</reflink>]), differences in oral English proficiency may account for the inconsistencies between this and previous studies. Third, the sample in the current study were preschoolers identified as at risk for reading difficulties whereas previous studies focused on elementary-aged children with no reading difficulties. Finally, because of age and developmental differences, measures used in the current study included emergent writing skills, whereas other studies focused on conventional spelling and written composition.</p> <p>It is worth noting that differences did emerge between monolingual and bilingual children in terms of performance and correlations. Bilingual children tended to have better performance in kindergarten emergent writing skills and Grade 1 word reading ability but lower scores in preschool CVC word spelling, compared to monolinguals. This finding suggests that there might be a bilingual advantage in English emergent writing and reading at the elementary age, specifically for children proficient in oral English. The bilingual advantage in literacy skills may be attributed to their cognitive advantages due to a continual competition for selection of the language in use because both languages in a bilingual individual's repertoire are always active (Bobb et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref143">3</reflink>]; Starreveld et al., [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref144">65</reflink>]). Additionally, whereas for monolinguals, all emergent writing skills and later reading abilities variables were correlated significantly, this was not the case for bilinguals. Therefore, although growth models did not show differences in the emergent writing-later reading relations between bilinguals and monolinguals, correlational results suggest that such relations may be weaker for bilinguals.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-34">Limitations and future directions</hd> <p>We note several limitations of the current work. Although the sample of bilingual children was larger (<emph>n</emph> = 42) than in other studies, power issues may limit our ability to detect moderating effects. Further, the bilingual sample is heterogeneous with children speaking a variety of languages, making it difficult to understand the underlying mechanisms of reading–writing connections. Linguistic factors such as structural differences (e.g., alphabetic and logographic; cognates) are hard to capture. Future studies may consider recruiting a large sample of bilingual preschoolers who speak the same language pairs to examine the relations between emergent writing and later reading. Additionally, our picture writing measure was scored largely in terms of procedural knowledge (i.e., transcription) rather than generative knowledge (i.e., composition). Like most studies of preschool emergent writing, our study gave limited attention to children's generative knowledge of writing. Consequently, we encourage future studies to consider moving beyond children's procedural knowledge of writing (i.e., name writing, letter writing, word writing) to evaluate children's composition skills beyond the word level.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-35">Conclusion</hd> <p>We examined the relation between initial levels and growth rates of emergent writing skills and subsequent reading outcomes in a sample of preschool children identified as at risk for later reading difficulties. Our findings provide evidence that children's initial emergent writing skills and their growth rates are important in their acquisition of reading. This suggests that preschool may serve as a critical period to support growth in children's emergent writing skills, moving beyond simply focusing on emergent reading skills (see also Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref145">18</reflink>]; Zhang & Quinn, [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref146">74</reflink>]). In practice, this could mean incorporating explicit writing opportunities into early literacy instruction, including activities like letter formation, name writing, and CVC word spelling, which provide critical scaffolds for reading. Furthermore, assessments should regularly include measures of emergent writing, not just emergent reading, to capture a more complete picture of children's literacy development. Notably, the positive relations between emergent writing and subsequent reading were consistent regardless of whether a child was bilingual or not, highlighting the universal importance of writing on reading for both monolingual and bilingual children. As such, preschool instruction for bilingual children should move beyond a sole focus on early reading skills to emphasize the development of bilingual children's emergent writing skills. Future research should explore the specific types of writing activities that best support reading development across different linguistic backgrounds.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-36">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A160261 awarded to The Ohio State University (Piasta). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or U.S. Department of Education. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the co-investigator Dr. Laura L. Bailet, research project staff and the collaboration with the Ready4Success initiative as led by Shelby Dowdy, as well as the early childhood professionals and children/families without whom this research would not be possible.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-37">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193563715-38">Conflict of interest</hd> <p>Nemours receives royalties through the sale of the commercially available curriculum involved in this research. The potential for bias in reporting study results was minimized through the adoption of the following precautions, as outlined in the investigators' signed Memorandum of Understanding: (a) Nemours' institutional responsibilities for this grant were limited to instructor professional development curriculum training and implementation fidelity monitoring, including the development and maintenance of the implementation fidelity database for this study, (b) Nemours investigators Zettler-Greeley, Bailet (affiliated with Nemours until April, 2018; now retired from Kaplan Early Learning Company as of June, 2021), and Lewis had no role in participant/site recruitment or data collection for the study, were blind to classroom and participant study assignment, and did not participate in data analyses concerning program impacts, (c) The Ohio State University (OSU) investigators conducted all data analyses concerning impacts of the Nemours BrightStart! program, and (d) OSU investigators retained the final decision as to the findings and interpretation that are reported.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-39">Data availability</hd> <p>The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (IPCSR, https://<ulink href="http://www.icpsr.umich.edu">www.icpsr.umich.edu</ulink>) at https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38663.v1.</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-40">Supplementary Information</hd> <p>Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.</p> <p>Graph: Supplementary file 1 (DOCX 40 kb)</p> <hd id="AN0193563715-41">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0193563715-42"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref21" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Berninger VW, Swanson HL. 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Header DbId: eric
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An: ED673173
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PubType: Report
PubTypeId: report
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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Emergent Writing Development and Later Reading Abilities for Monolingual and Bilingual Children Identified as At Risk for Reading Difficulties
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Ye+Shen%22">Ye Shen</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6833-765X">0000-0002-6833-765X</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Shayne+B%2E+Piasta%22">Shayne B. Piasta</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3655-4702">0000-0003-3655-4702</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Alida+K%2E+Hudson%22">Alida K. Hudson</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2257-422X">0000-0002-2257-422X</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Jessica+A%2E+R%2E+Logan%22">Jessica A. R. Logan</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3113-4346">0000-0003-3113-4346</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kandia+Lewis%22">Kandia Lewis</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7891-9258">0000-0002-7891-9258</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Cynthia+M%2E+Zettler-Greeley%22">Cynthia M. Zettler-Greeley</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2256-2971">0000-0003-2256-2971</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Grantee+Submission%22"><i>Grantee Submission</i></searchLink>. 2025.
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 25
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: SourceSuprt
  Label: Sponsoring Agency
  Group: SrcSuprt
  Data: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
– Name: NumberContract
  Label: Contract Number
  Group: NumCntrct
  Data: R305A160261
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Preschool+Children%22">Preschool Children</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Beginning+Writing%22">Beginning Writing</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Beginning+Reading%22">Beginning Reading</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reading+Skills%22">Reading Skills</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reading+Difficulties%22">Reading Difficulties</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reading+Comprehension%22">Reading Comprehension</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22At+Risk+Students%22">At Risk Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reading+Ability%22">Reading Ability</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Monolingualism%22">Monolingualism</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Bilingualism%22">Bilingualism</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Bilingual+Students%22">Bilingual Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Writing+Skills%22">Writing Skills</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reading+Writing+Relationship%22">Reading Writing Relationship</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1007/s11145-025-10662-8
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: We examined associations between preschoolers' levels and growth rates of emergent writing skills and their later reading abilities, including whether being bilingual altered such associations. This study involved 243 preschoolers in 95 early childhood classrooms, who were measured on emergent writing skills across four time points and later word reading and reading comprehension abilities. Results of growth curve modeling showed that children's initial levels of name writing, letter writing, and picture writing, but not consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word spelling, predicted their later reading abilities in both word reading and passage comprehension. The growth rates of letter writing, CVC word spelling, and picture writing skills from preschool to Grade 1 predicted both reading outcomes; the growth rate of name writing skills predicted later word reading only. Being bilingual did not alter the associations. Our findings provide evidence that regardless of children's language status, children's initial emergent writing skills and growth in these skills during early childhood are important in their later acquisition of reading. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Reading and Writing."]
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: Note
  Label: Notes
  Group: Note
  Data: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38663.v1
– Name: CodeSource
  Label: IES Funded
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Yes
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: ED673173
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=ED673173
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s11145-025-10662-8
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 25
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Children
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Beginning Writing
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Beginning Reading
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Reading Skills
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Reading Difficulties
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Reading Comprehension
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: At Risk Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Reading Ability
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Monolingualism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Bilingualism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Bilingual Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Writing Skills
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Reading Writing Relationship
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Emergent Writing Development and Later Reading Abilities for Monolingual and Bilingual Children Identified as At Risk for Reading Difficulties
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Ye Shen
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Shayne B. Piasta
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Alida K. Hudson
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Jessica A. R. Logan
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Kandia Lewis
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Cynthia M. Zettler-Greeley
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 30
              M: 05
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Grantee Submission
              Type: main
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