Kindergarten predictors of dyslexia pathways in Hebrew: a 5-year longitudinal study

While dyslexia is often considered a uniformly persistent condition, research has identified two additional developmental pathways: resolving and late-emerging dyslexia. Yet, most studies have focused on Western languages, and only a few have examined kindergarten predictors of these pathways, with morphological awareness largely overlooked. This five-year longitudinal study examined dyslexia pathways and their kindergarten predictors, including morphological awareness, in Hebrew—a Semitic language with distinct orthographic and morphological features. A cohort of 515 Hebrew-speaking children was followed from kindergarten through Grades 1 and 4. Dyslexia pathways were classified using dual cut-off criteria (≤ 16th percentile for dyslexia, ≥ 25th percentile for typical readers) based on word-reading fluency in Grades 1 and 4. Kindergarten measures included phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid automatized naming, and morphological awareness. Among children with dyslexia, three pathways were identified: persistent (35%), resolving (33%), and late-emerging (32%). Multinomial logistic regression, with typically developing readers as the reference group, revealed distinct kindergarten predictors. Letter knowledge deficits characterized all pathways. Phonological awareness predicted persistent and resolving dyslexia. Rapid naming predicted only persistent dyslexia, distinguishing it from resolving dyslexia. Morphological awareness uniquely predicted late-emerging dyslexia. These findings extend dyslexia pathway research to Semitic languages, showing how typological features shape pathway prevalence. They provide the first evidence that kindergarten morphological awareness deficits uniquely predict late-emerging dyslexia, demonstrating how the universal phonological-to-morphological shift in reading manifests in dyslexia trajectories and underscoring the need for comprehensive early screening approaches.