The role of the working memory in the early phases of learning to read

Several studies have revealed that the working memory and its components are involved in the process of learning to read and Baddeley’s model (1986) best grasps this process as a whole. The first aim of this study is to carry out a longitudinal study on typical developed children, in order to assess the temporal evolution of the working memory process in relation to the transcoding process. The second purpose of this study is to compare the development of typical working memory process in children speaking two different languages characterized by different orthographic consistency. Methods. 134 children, 93 Italian and 41 English, are evaluated twice through a test battery during a 12 months period. The effects of gender and age are assessed on each variable of the test. The ANOVA test is used to assess notable discrepancies between sub-groups of children and a series of distinct correlation and regression analyses are carried out on both samples in the two administration times in order to assess the relation between working memory and decoding functions in both lexical and sub-lexical components. The Italian sample, in the preschool phase, shows that the decoding abilities particularly activates the short-term visuospatial component and only in minor part the verbal elements. During the first learning phases, instead, the verbal parts prevail on the visuospatial ones. In the English sample, during the preschool phase, the phonological decoding seems to be predicted by the short-term verbal memory, whereas the direct lexical access by the visuospatial memory ability. Instead, during the first learning phases, the English children show to employ more visuospatial resources in phonological decoding and more cognitive resources in lexical access. Pupils reading in English employ mainly logographic strategies in word recognition, whereas Italian children seem to principally adopt serial decoding strategies. This research proves that a developmental modification of the working memory system, consonantly with the native language, occurs after the beginning of an intentional and regular exposure to education. Moreover it is proved that various systems participate in the acquisition of the reading abilities, depending on the developmental stage.