Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills predict reading ability: A 9-year longitudinal study.

Selma Babayiğit,Yvonne Wren,Sue Roulstone

doi:10.1111/bjep.12353

Abstract

Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills encapsulate a complex array of grammatical and semantic skills that underpin complex reading comprehension processes. However, most research in this area has focused onchildren with reading difficultiesandnoton typically developing children.Also the research hasmostly focused onshort-term effects of theseskills on reading during the primary school years. Therefore, it remains unclear what specific role linguistic comprehension and narrative skills play in typically developing children's reading beyond the primary school years. With this 9-year prospective longitudinal study, we sought to clarify the independent effects of linguistic comprehension and narrative skill (at 5 years of age) on children's reading ability at 10 and 14 years of age. We examined the data from 716 children (MAge =67 months, SD=2.13 months), which were drawn from a major population cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Children's language skills were assessed at 5 and word reading and reading comprehension skills at 10 years of age. The reading achievement scores at 14 years of age were based on national curriculum test results. Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills at 5 years of age made unique and direct contributions to reading comprehension skills and reading achievement after accounting for general cognitive ability, memory, phonological skills, and mother's education. Moreover, listening comprehension predicted reading achievement even when prior reading skills were taken into account. Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills are related but distinct oral language skills that continue to influence children's reading development beyond the primary school years.

Highlights

Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills encapsulate a complex array of grammatical and semantic skills that underpin complex reading comprehension processes
The results showed that both narrative skills and linguistic comprehension made unique and statistically significant contributions to reading achievement at 14 years over and above general cognitive ability, mother’s education, sex, non-word repetition, and digit forward span, F(7, 421) = 23.99, blinguistic comprehension = .18, bnarrative skills = .16, all ps ≤
Linguistic comprehension and oral narrative skills draw on an array of language skills, which are associated with high-level reading comprehension processes in older and more skilled readers

Summary

Introduction

Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills encapsulate a complex array of grammatical and semantic skills that underpin complex reading comprehension processes. The research has mostly focused on short-term effects of these skills on reading during the primary school years It remains unclear what specific role linguistic comprehension and narrative skills play in typically developing children’s reading beyond the primary school years. Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills at 5 years of age made unique and direct contributions to reading comprehension skills and reading achievement after accounting for general cognitive ability, memory, phonological skills, and mother’s education. The measures of non-word repetition, digit forward span, and non-verbal IQ were included in the data analyses to assess individual differences in phonological, verbal memory, and general cognitive skills, respectively. These measures acted as covariates in this study. The split-half reliability of this test was reported to be .66 (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1996) and test–retest reliability coefficient .77 among a sample of 4- and 5-year-old children (Gathercole, 1995)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion