Phonological Processing and Literacy in a Transparent Orthography: Grade-Related Patterns in Turkish Second- and Fourth-Grade Children

This cross-sectional study examined how phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN) and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) relate to word reading, text reading fluency and spelling in 58 typically developing Turkish second- and fourth-grade children, and whether these associations differ by grade. Controlling for nonverbal ability, reading was most strongly associated with PA in Grade 2 and with letter-naming speed in Grade 4, while PSTM showed limited direct associations with literacy. No grade difference survived correction for multiple comparisons, and several PA subtests showed ceiling effects. The pattern is consistent with a change in the relative weight of phonological processing components in a transparent orthography, but it is exploratory. The document includes the full method, descriptive statistics, grade-specific partial correlations with bootstrap confidence intervals, tests of grade differences, and references.