According to the model suggested in Stanovich's 2009 paper, the primary specific mechanism that determines early success in reading is phonological awareness, defined as "conscious access to the phonemic level of the speech stream and some ability to cognitively manipulate representations at this level". The model emphasizes the causal link between this skill and reading acquisition.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

A key factor in determining a child's level of reading achievement is the amount of reading experience. More reading experience contributes to vocabulary growth, and vocabulary development facilitates reading comprehension, an example of reciprocal causation. This reciprocal causation leads to the rise of Matthew effects: children who have strong vocabularies and reading skills read more, and continue to improve their vocabularies/reading skills, whereas children with weak vocabularies and poorer reading skills will read less, hindering the development of their vocabularies/reading skills.

Reciprocal Causation in Reading Achievement underlies Matthew Effects

Phonological Awareness and Reading Achievement

Organism-environment correlations: when an organism selectively shapes its environment, and in turn is affected by the environment's response to that particular organism.
- Specific children may be more likely to seek out environments that improve their reading, such as choosing reading as a hobby over sports, or asking their parents for books as birthday presents.

Passive organism-environment correlations: the relationship between the type of organism and environmental that is not due to the organism’s active selection of the environment.  
- One example is genotypes, as some children may be more genetically inclined to be good readers. Additionally, early school environment greatly affects reading experience, which is (typically) not able to be selected for.  

Organism-Environment Correlations Affecting Reading Experience

- children with high innate verbal aptitudes who have enriching environments have two extra advantages, helping to advance their reading level
- children with low innate verbal aptitudes who come from disadvantaged backgrounds have two disadvantages stacked against them, causing them to fall further behind  


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