Final answer:
The best predictor of a child's success in learning to read is phonemic awareness and understanding of letters. These foundational skills are crucial for recognizing and decoding words, and predominate over other factors such as oral vocabulary and analytical skills in the initial stages of reading development.
Step-by-step explanation:
The best predictor of a child's success in learning to read is A. phonemic awareness and understanding of letters. Phonemic awareness involves the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Understanding of letters refers to the knowledge of the alphabet and the recognition that letters are symbols that represent the sounds of language. These early literacy skills are foundational for reading and writing development.
Children who possess strong phonemic awareness can discern the sounds in words, which is crucial for sounding out words during reading and for spelling. Similarly, recognizing letters and associating them with their sounds enables children to decode words when they read. These abilities precede the development of oral vocabulary, another important aspect of literacy, but phonemic awareness and letter knowledge are more immediate indicators of a child's readiness to learn to read.
While analytical skills and overall intelligence, as well as creativity, may contribute to a child's success in various aspects of their education, they are not the most direct predictors of early reading success as phonemic awareness and understanding of letters are.