Individual differences in working memory (WM) influence reading skills. We aim to
identify how different domains of WM explain reading performance, and how this association
changes with age and reading expertise. Hungarian children from first to sixth grade
took part in our study. The decoding skills of all children were assessed with 1‐min
word reading and pseudoword reading tasks. Furthermore, children participated in one
of three WM tasks: a visuospatial, a verbal, and a phonological WM task, yielding
three groups. Moderation analyses examined how the relationship between reading and
WM changes with increasing school grades. We observed a decreasing role of visuospatial
and verbal WM in predicting reading. No age‐related change was detected in the prediction
of reading skills from phonological WM. Our study suggests that visuospatial and verbal
WM are crucial at the beginning of reading, while the role of phonological WM in reading
does not change during the elementary school years. Implications for reading instruction
are discussed.
