Profiles of Oral and Reading Comprehension in Poor Comprehenders

Abstract

This study aimed to profile the sublexical, lexical, and text level language skills, and cognitive processes of a sub-group of children with poor reading comprehension known as poor comprehenders. An assessment protocol was developed to assess each of the components from Perfetti and Stafura’s Reading Systems Framework. A comprehensive profile was obtained for 17 poor comprehenders in School Years 3–6 (aged 8–11 years), each assessed individually. Consistent with previous research, and irrespective of age, the poor comprehenders in this study did not have difficulty with sublexical and word reading skills overall. Unexpectedly, only two children had difficulty with the lower-level language tasks at the Lexicon and sentence sub-level of the Reading Systems Framework. In contrast, 15 poor comprehenders had difficulty with higher-level comprehension processes. All children had weak verbal working memory, supporting previous research findings. The study provides direction for clinical assessment tasks for use with this population.