How Well Do Phonological Awareness and Rapid Automatized Naming Correlate With Chinese Reading Accuracy and Fluency? A Meta-Analysis

Previous meta-analyses on the relationship between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and reading have been conducted primarily in English, an atypical alphabetic orthography. Here, we aimed to examine the association between phonological awareness, RAN, and word reading in a nonalphabetic language (Chinese). A random-effects model analysis of data from 35 studies revealed a moderate relationship of phonological awareness with reading accuracy (r = .36) and reading fluency (r = .39). RAN also correlated significantly with reading accuracy (r = –.38) and reading fluency (r = –.51), but its relationship varied as a function of test type (graphological RAN correlated more strongly with reading than nongraphological RAN) and reading outcome (RAN correlated more strongly with reading fluency than reading accuracy). Age/grade and dialect (Mandarin vs. Cantonese) did not influence the size of the correlations. Taken together, the findings of this meta-analysis suggest that phonological awareness and RAN are universal correlates of word reading.