Some children spontaneously invent spellings for words before they can read. Discusses two experiments which explore the possibility that the preconventional spelling skills of kindergarten children can serve as a measure of phonological awareness and thereby predict first-grade reading ability. (Author/NH)

Twenty-nine first grade monolingual English speaking children and 59 English second language children (given the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Raven Matrices in kindergarten) were tested via the Metropolitan Achievement Test to determine achievement levels of Italian children and the predictive relationship between measures of ability…

Results of the study indicate that the 3-choice, selected-response tests often utilized in programs of this type do not provide an accurate indication of end-of-year achievement for many children, and their continued use is not recommended. (Authors)

This research is part of a longitudinal study designed to compare measures of first-grade oral language with reading achievement at various grade levels. The original study constructed ten measures for oral language from interviews with 100 first graders and compared those measures to the reading achievement of the subjects at the end of first…

The relationship of the Progressive Matrices Test (PM) to the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test (LTIQ) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) is examined. Predictive power of these measures with respect to a number of achievement measures was also investigated. The initial sample consisted of 242 first graders and 281 second…