This funding was used to investigate the changes in Japanese elementary students’ understanding of sound-letter (phoneme-grapheme) connections over time. Paper based and digital tests were used to assess fundamental reading skills among elementary students between 3^rd and 6^th grades. Cross-sectional investigations into differences indicated a stepwise progression in the change in skills; longitudinal follow-ups using paper tests confirmed these results. Results from these investigations indicated that the current course of study does increase students’ learning, albeit with a dosage so low as to require two years of study to see marginal gains. Following this, expanded longitudinal tests were conducted to investigate differences between paper and digital formats. In changing to digital tests, clear differences were observed in student performance. These differences may be attributed to an increasingly fine-grained assessment of students’ answer patterns afforded by digital materials. Results simultaneously indicate how students develop fundamental English reading skills in Japanese schools, as well as ways in which students perform using materials of different media types.