The study is a part of a larger project that has its focus on the early development of reading skills, on the precursors of reading, and on the mechanisms of development of cognitive abilities and educational achievement. It is based on theoretical notions and empirical results from two main areas of research: (1) research showing that phonological abilities provide a necessary foundation for development of early reading skills; and (2) research on the structure and development of cognitive abilities. While these areas in previous research have only been superficially connected, we propose a theory which specifies the mechanisms through which cognitive abilities influence development of early reading skills, and the mechanisms through which these processes later on influence the structure and development of cognitive abilities.

Several studies have shown that training of PA prior to the beginning of reading instruction has positive effects on early reading acquisition (e. g., Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1995; Lundberg, Frost & Petersen, 1988; Melby-Lervåg, Lyster & Hulme, 2012). However, most studies have focused children around the age of 5 or 6, who are in the process of spontaneously developing the basics of PA. Furthermore, studies have usually been carried out in English-speaking countries, where formal teaching of reading and writing has already begun. Thus, to our knowledge, no study has previously been performed with phonological training three years prior to formal reading instruction.

de Jong and van der Leij (1999) showed that Gf was related to early acquisition of reading skills, but that the correlation decreased over time. PA was related to acquisition of early reading skills as well, but the importance of PA decreased when Gf was controlled for. One possible interpretation of this pattern of results is that Gf is related to development of PA.

A large literature has also demonstrated a strong effect of SES on reading (e. g., Hecht, Burgess, Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 2000; Myrberg & Rosén, 2009; Raz & Bryant 1990; White 1982), but it has not been obvious how this effect is to be explained. However, Bowey (1995) has presented results which support the idea that SES differences in decoding skills are strongly mediated by SES differences in the acquisition of PA. Hecht et al. (2000) too found that social class differences could partly be accounted for by PA and they also found that levels of print knowledge to a larger extent accounted for SES differences. These results make it a reasonable hypothesis that the SES effect on reading skills to a large extent is due to differences in experiences of language and text in different social groups, which cause differences in PA (cf. Noble, McCandliss & Farah, 2007). 

There is reason, however, to take the analysis of SES, PA and early reading skills one step further. Tunmer, Chapman & Prochnow (2006) present evidence which suggests that low SES students benefit from instructional strategies which make explicit letter-sound relations and which focus word-level skills and strategies, while they learn poorly under whole-language approaches. This suggests that we may expect an interaction between systematic training of PA and SES, such that the effect on development of reading skills will be stronger for low SES students than for high SES students. 

The main aim of the present study is to examine the effects of an early phonological intervention and SES, and specifically to examine the interaction effects between these factors.

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