Genetic and Environmental Effects of Serial Naming and Phonological Awareness on Early Reading Outcomes

The current study involved 281 early-school-age twin pairs (118 monozygotic, 163 same-sex dizygotic) participating in the ongoing Western Reserve Reading Project ( S. A. Petrill, K. Deater-Deckard, L. A. Thompson, & C. Schatschneider, 2006 ). Twins were tested in their homes by separate examiners on a battery of reading-related skills including phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, word knowledge, and phonological decoding. Results suggested that a core genetic factor accounted for a significant portion of the covariance between phonological awareness, rapid naming, and reading outcomes. However, shared environmental influences related to phonological awareness were also associated with reading skills.