The relationship between reading skills and intelligence level of elementary school students

The tangible effects of intelligence can be seen at the beginning of students' academic lives. One of the biggest indicators is the development of reading skills. Within the scope of the study, the prediction of students' intelligence scores on the development of reading skills was examined. A total of 261 first and second-grade students participated in the study. ASIS was used to determine the intelligence scores of the participants, and SOBAT was used to evaluate their reading skills. Findings revealed that first-grade reading scores were homogeneous, whereas second-grade reading score averages were higher. According to the results of the correlation analysis, significant correlation coefficients were found between intelligence and reading scores. Among the intelligence index scores, Memory Capacity Index at the first-grade level and Memory Capacity Index along with Verbal Potential Index at the second-grade level were identified as significant predictors of reading ability. Additionally, Visual Intelligence Index was found to be the most influential predictor of reading at the first-grade level, while Verbal Intelligence Index was the most influential at the second-grade level. Memory capacity is associated with the encoding skill, the initial stage of reading, while Verbal Intelligence Index represents crystallized intelligence. Therefore, it can be stated that as the grade level advances, there is a strong relationship between the developing crystallized intelligence and reading skills.