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Background: Research has shown that paired associate learning (PAL) plays an important role in children's word reading across different languages. However, little is known about the construct of PAL and its relationship with word reading in Chinese children. Methods: A total of 204 second‐year kindergarten children from Mainland China were assessed on measures of PAL, including the four mapping conditions of PAL: visual–verbal, verbal–verbal, visual–visual and verbal–visual PAL. Tasks of working memory (WM), inhibitory control, visual‐motor integration (VMI), phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge and Chinese word reading were also administered to these children. Results: Our results showed that WM, VMI and phonological awareness were unique predictors of PAL, whereas inhibitory control and orthographic knowledge were not. Furthermore, PAL showed an independent contribution to Chinese word reading after controlling for phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge. The mediation analysis showed that PAL was a significant mediator of the association between different cognitive‐linguistic skills and Chinese word reading. Conclusion: Paired associate learning contributes to Chinese word reading over and above phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge. Findings underscore the potential importance of PAL, as distinct from other cognitive‐linguistic skills, for understanding variability in early reading development. Highlights: What is already known about this topicStudies have shown the significant role of PAL in predicting word reading in Chinese.The association between PAL and word reading has been typically interpreted within the phonological processing framework. What this paper addsPAL is a complex construct that involves a wide range of cognitive‐linguistic skills: working memory (WM), visual‐motor integration and phonological awareness.PAL showed a unique contribution to Chinese word reading after controlling for phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge.PAL was found to be a significant mediator of the association between different cognitive‐linguistic skills and Chinese word reading. Implications for theory, policy or practicePAL may be an important aspect of sound and symbol learning for its relationship with word reading in Chinese, suggesting that PAL is an important contributing factor to word‐level reading development.It is possible that using PAL tasks such as mapping sounds with novel animals and/or characters and word games may promote children's word reading development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is emerging evidence that individuals with developmental dyslexia show deficits in visual–spatial attention. This study focused on visual searches and examined whether visual search deficits would be found in Chinese children with dyslexia. More importantly, we examined the associations between dyslexia and distinct types of visual searches, to determine whether deficits are specific to some visual searches but not others. Methods: The dyslexic children and their age‐matched typical peers completed both the inefficient and relatively efficient search tasks. Results: The dyslexic children were generally impaired in visual searches, although the deficit in inefficient searches was more severe than in efficient searches. After phonological awareness, working memory and nonverbal IQ were considered; inefficient searches were found to be selectively impaired. Conclusions: These findings suggest that visual search deficits in dyslexia are universal across alphabetic and logographic writing systems. They highlight the importance of further study on the role of top‐down attention on reading. Highlights: What is already known about this topicReading difficulties are related to impairment of visual–spatial attention.Dyslexic readers of alphabetic orthographies show deficits in visual searches, especially inefficient searches.Visual skills are particularly important for reading in Chinese, a logographic writing system known for visual complexity and lacking of grapheme–phoneme correspondence. What this paper addsChinese children with dyslexia showed impaired visual searches compared with typically developing children.Deficits of dyslexic children were more severe in inefficient searches than in efficient ones.After phonological awareness and working memory were considered, visual search dysfunction of dyslexic Chinese children was specific to the inefficient searches. Implications for theory, policy or practiceInefficient visual search skill is uniquely related to dyslexia in Chinese beyond phonological awareness, supporting sensory‐cognitive accounts of dyslexia.Selective impairment in inefficient searches underscores the importance to study top‐down attentional mechanism in reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]