Children's Reading Comprehension Research Articles

Is There a Genetic Confound in the Relation of Home Literacy Environment with Children's Reading Skills? A Familial Control Method Approach

AbstractWe examined the relation between home literacy environment (HLE), parents' reading skills, and children's emergent literacy skills (pinyin letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and vocabulary) and reading (word reading and reading comprehension) in a sample of 168 Chinese children (Mage = 74.26 months) followed from kindergarten to Grade 1. Results of structural equation modeling showed that code‐related HLE activities and access to literacy resources continued to predict children's emergent literacy skills after controlling for the effects of family's socioeconomic status and both parents' reading skills. Parents' reading skills also exerted a direct effect on children's reading comprehension. These findings suggest that HLE exerts a true environmental effect on children's reading skills that is not due to a genetic confound.

The Role of Theory of Mind, Executive Functions, and Central Coherence in Reading Comprehension for Children with ASD and Typical Development.

Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have challenges in reading comprehension, especially when implicit information in narrative texts is involved. Three interrelated factors influencing reading comprehension have been proposed to explain these challenges: Theory of Mind - ToM; executive functions - EF; and central coherence - CC. This study investigated the differential contribution of these cognitive abilities to reading comprehension among cognitively able children with ASD compared to matched peers with typical development (TD).28 third-grade children with ASD and 28 third-grade children with TD participated in the study. Four measures were administered: ToM, CC, EF (working memory, planning, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility), and reading comprehension. One-way ANOVAs were computed to examine group differences in cognitive characteristics (ToM, CC, EF) and reading comprehension. Regressions were performed to examine the contribution of cognitive characteristics (ToM, CC, EF) to reading comprehension abilities (explicit, implicit, and general score) in ASD and TD.The TD group outperformed the ASD group in ToM and various EF measures but not in CC or reading comprehension. Positive main effects were found for ToM, and EF measures (planning - 3rd level, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility), demonstrating their contribution to reading comprehension abilities in both groups. Interactions revealed positive main effects for EF planning and CC for the ASD group only, showing the contribution of EF planning and CC for better reading comprehension.Our findings suggest different processing mechanisms regarding reading comprehension in each group.

Penerapan Sistem Informasi Untuk Identifikasi Literasi Pada Siswa Disabilitas Taman Kanak-Kanak dan Siswa Sekolah Dasar

Students with disabilities are students who experience physical, intellectual, mental and/or sensory limitations for a long period of time, who in interacting with the environment can experience obstacles and difficulties in participating fully and effectively with the people around them. Students with disabilities need special ways and methods to determine children's development, especially in their reading literacy. Children's reading comprehension levels need to be measured and tested to make it easier to group study groups. The grouping of children's reading comprehension is grouped based on the child's level of understanding, namely basic level, letter level, word level, sentence level, paragraph level and description level. Grouping can be done by testing and measuring children's level of understanding based on these levels. This can be done quickly and accurately if supported by an information system that answers these needs. The aim of this research is to create an information system for mapping the reading literacy of students with disabilities against student difficulties. The system also makes it easier for teachers or agencies to identify children's reading abilities so that they can be grouped based on level and difficulty

The Relationship of Text Inference Abilities and Reading Comprehension in Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder

Objectives: Reading comprehension in school-age children is an essential ability facilitates acquisition of information from general education. Yet, even with average or above cognitive and word recognition abilities, children with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HF-ASD) demonstrate difficulties with reading comprehension. The purpose of the this study was to investigate that identifying the reading comprehension competence with a focus on text inference abilities (coherence processing, metalinguistic, theory of mind) in children with HF-ASD in the lower grades of elementary school.Methods: 15 HF-ASD and 15 age matched typically developing peers (TD) participated in this study. The participants performed reading comprehension tasks and text inferencing tasks (coherence processing, metalinguistic, theory of mind).Results: First, the reading comprehension accuracy of the HF-ASD group was significantly lower than the TD group. Second, the text inference accuracy of the HF-ASD group was significantly lower compared with the TD group. Third, in the TD group, there was a significant correlation between all text inference abilities (coherence processing, metalinguistic, theory of mind) and reading comprehension competence. In contrast, in the HF-ASD group, there was a positive correlation between coherence processing, metalinguistic and reading comprehension competence; however no significant relationship was found between theory of mind and reading comprehension competence. Finally, the coherence processing task predicted reading comprehension competence of children with HF-ASD by 52.2% and TD children by 42.1%.Conclusion: This study suggests that supporting connecting information within a text, local inferencing, and focusing on the coherence processing intervention is necessary for reading comprehension of children with HF-ASD in the lower grades of elementary school.

Improving Children’s Reading Motivation and Skills Through Read Aloud: A Mixed-Method Study in Orphanage Context

Generally speaking, children's reading motivation and skills are low, notably those in orphanages requiring solution, one of which is through reading activities applying read-aloud method. Most studies on the read-aloud method were qualitative. This study attempted to address the gap by employing a mixed-methods design with 10 foster children from an orphanage chosen using purposive sampling technique. Observations, tests, and interviews were used to collect the data. Quantitative data from observations and tests were statistically analyzed and reported in frequency and percentage to determine the difference in the number of children who improved following the program. Additionally, interviews were conducted to obtain qualitative data on children's and orphanages' perspectives of the program and its impacts, and the results were assessed using qualitative data analysis including data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered and analyzed concurrently. They were then merged and interpreted through a side-by-side comparison approach. Finally, convergence or divergence between the two sources of data was determined. The findings show that quantitative and qualitative data confirm each other, demonstrating that the read-aloud method improved children's reading motivation by significantly increasing the length of time for reading and the number of books read, as well as a slight increase in children's reading comprehension and confidence. In addition, the children's reading fluency improved substantially, while their reading accuracy and clarity improved slightly. Future research should focus on areas that need the most improvement and entail a larger sample size. Additionally, reading assistance for foster children is always recommended.

Understanding variation in children's reading comprehension: A dynamic approach

AbstractBackgroundReading comprehension is an interactive process. Yet, instructional needs are usually identified with isolated componential tests. This study examined whether a dynamic approach, in which componential abilities are measured within the same text and global text comprehension is facilitated via feedback, can help in understanding variation in children's reading comprehension.ObjectivesWith a pretest‐posttest control group design, componential abilities before and after feedback were related to growth in global text comprehension within the same text.MethodsAt pretest, third to fifth graders read 30 short texts, each followed by one global text comprehension question. This was repeated at posttest, but additional questions were asked with feedback prior to each global text comprehension question. The vocabulary group received two vocabulary questions with feedback (n = 97). The vocabulary plus integration group received two vocabulary questions and one sentence‐integration question with feedback (n = 98). The control group (n = 98) only answered the global text comprehension questions.Results and ConclusionParticipants in the experimental conditions who needed feedback (i.e., lower‐skilled) experienced a decrease in global text comprehension, whereas this was not found for the control group and participants in the experimental groups who did not need feedback (i.e., higher‐skilled). There was also less decrease among those lower‐skilled participants who had profited from the feedback.ImplicationsIt is concluded from explorative analyses that not feedback but the overall design caused the decrease. Conceptually, the dynamic approach is worth further research.

The Influence of Illustrations in Literary Texts on Children's Reading Comprehension

This study investigates the influence of illustrations in childrens literature on reading comprehension. The research addresses the existing lack of standardized experimental designs in the field and focuses on enhanceable aspects, such as excluding previously exposed subjects, fixing reading time for students, selecting high-quality classic childrens literature texts, conducting the experiment within real classroom settings, and observing students attention span during reading. The subjects consist of fifth-grade students from representative elementary schools in urban and rural areas in China. The experimental materials include different book types: mere text, text with original illustrations, and text with secondary illustrations. Through multiple-choice questionnaire and data on reading comprehension scores, preference, willingness to continue reading, and distraction levels, the study aims to provide valuable insights for educators, authors, and publishers to enhance childrens literary engagement and comprehension. The results of the study suggest that the presence of illustrations and differences in the quality of illustrations do not significantly affect childrens reading comprehension but do influence childrens first impressions and choices when selecting books. The results provide useful insights for childrens book publishers and childrens book illustrators when providing illustrations for childrens books.

A large-scale database of Chinese characters and words collected from elementary school textbooks.

Lexical databases are essential tools for studies on language processing and acquisition. Most previous Chinese lexical databases have focused on materials for adults, yet little is known about reading materials for children and how lexical properties from these materials affect children's reading comprehension. In the present study, we provided the first large database of 2999 Chinese characters and 2182 words collected from the official textbooks recently issued by the Ministry of Education (MOE) of the People's Republic of China for most elementary schools in Mainland China, as well as norms from both school-aged children and adults. The database incorporates key orthographic, phonological, and semantic factors from these lexical units. A word-naming task was used to investigate the effects of these factors in character and word processing in both adults and children. The results suggest that: (1) as the grade level increases, visual complexity of those characters and words increases whereas semantic richness and frequency decreases; (2) the effects of lexical predictors on processing both characters and words vary across children and adults; (3) the effect of age of acquisition shows different patterns on character and word-naming performance. The database is available on Open Science Framework (OSF) ( https://osf.io/ynk8c/?view_only=5186bd68549340bd923e9b6531d2c820 ) for future studies on Chinese language development.

How does spelling contribute to reading comprehension in Chinese beginning readers? Testing the mediating role of word reading fluency

BackgroundSpelling is a prevalent strategy to teach children to read. However, research on the mechanism underlying the contribution of spelling to reading comprehension in Chinese children is limited.MethodsThe primary aim of this study was to investigate the concurrent and longitudinal associations between spelling and reading comprehension and further test the mediating role of word reading fluency with 127 Chinese children (Mage = 76.01 months). Children were required to perform the tasks of nonverbal intelligence, expressive vocabulary, morphological awareness, phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, spelling, word reading fluency and reading comprehension at Grade 1. Then, reading comprehension was measured again 1 year later at Grade 2. The concurrent and longitudinal mediation models were fitted to the data by structural equation modelling.ResultsThe results showed that spelling was related to reading comprehension concurrently, and it predicted reading comprehension 1 year later while controlling for nonverbal intelligence, age, expressive vocabulary, metalinguistic awareness and the autoregressive effect of reading comprehension. Moreover, word reading fluency played mediating roles in the influence of spelling on reading comprehension in the concurrent and longitudinal models.ConclusionsThese findings provided evidence that spelling is an important factor of reading comprehension and shed light on the nature of this association, highlighting the role of word reading fluency in linking spelling and Chinese children's reading comprehension.

The Effects of Using Flashcard Learning Media to Improve Reading Comprehension in Children with Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties in reading. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of flashcard learning media in improving reading comprehension between ages 8 and 11 in the group of children identified with dyslexia. The current research used one group experimental design with five children as participants. Based on the results of the study, showed that there was an influence of flashcard learning media on improving the reading ability of dyslexic children. The results of data analysis using t-test showed that the post-test score (M=20,8) was significantly higher than the pre-test score (M=10,4). Analyses of the whole sample indicated that levels of reading comprehension had improved. The finding of this study could be discussed that using flashcard learning media had a positive effect on reading comprehension in dyslexia children. The Flashcard media were designed to be colourful and easy to understand could stimulate children’s willingness to learn and read.

Evaluating the Simple View of Reading for Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

The 'simple view of reading' is an influential model of reading comprehension which asserts that children's reading comprehension performance can be explained entirely by their decoding and language comprehension skills. Children with ADHD often exhibit difficulty across all three of these reading domains on standardized achievement tests, yet it is unclear whether the simple view of reading is sufficient to explain reading comprehension performance for these children. The current study was the first to use multiple indicators and latent estimates to examine the veracity of key predictions from the simple view of reading in a clinically-evaluated sample of 250 children with and without ADHD (ages 8-13, Mage=10.29, SD=1.47; 93 girls; 70% White/Non-Hispanic). Results of the full-sample structural equation model revealed that decoding and language comprehension explained all (R2=.99) of the variance in reading comprehension for children with and without ADHD. Further, multigroup modeling (ADHD, Non-ADHD) indicated that there was no difference in the quantity of variance explained for children with ADHD versus clinically-evaluated children without ADHD, and that the quantity of explained variance did not differ from 100% for either group. Sensitivity analyses indicated that these effects were generally robust to control for monomethod bias, time sampling error, and IQ. These findings are consistent with 'simple view' predictions that decoding and language comprehension are both necessary and together sufficient for explaining children's reading comprehension skills. The findings extend prior work by indicating that the 'simple view' holds for both children with ADHD and clinically-evaluated children without ADHD.

Heterogeneity in children's reading comprehension difficulties: A latent class approach.

Poor comprehenders are traditionally identified as having below-average reading comprehension, average-range word reading, and a discrepancy between the two. While oral language tends to be low in poor comprehenders, reading is a complex trait and heterogeneity may go undetected by group-level comparisons. We took a preregistered data-driven approach to identify poor comprehenders and examine whether multiple distinct cognitive profiles underlie their difficulties. Latent mixture modelling identified reading profiles in 6846 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, based on reading and listening comprehension assessments at 8-9years. A second mixture model examined variation in the cognitive profiles of weak comprehenders, using measures of reading, language, working memory, nonverbal ability, and inattention. A poor comprehender profile was not identified by the preregistered model. However, by additionally controlling for overall ability, a 6-class model emerged that incorporated a profile with relatively weak comprehension (N=947, 13.83%). Most of these children had weak reading comprehension in the context of good passage reading, accompanied by weaknesses in vocabulary and nonverbal ability. A small subgroup showed more severe comprehension difficulties in the context of additional cognitive impairments. Isolated impairments in specific components of reading are rare, yet a data-driven approach can be used to identify children with relatively weak comprehension. Vocabulary and nonverbal ability were most consistently weak within this group, with broader cognitive difficulties also apparent for a subset of children. These findings suggest that poor comprehension is best characterised along a continuum, and considered in light of multiple risks that influence severity.

Pre-school Skills and School-Age Reading Comprehension in Children on the Autism Spectrum: A Preliminary Investigation

We explored reading comprehension development in children on the spectrum from pre-school to the first (YOS1) and third year of schooling (YOS3). Children were first assessed on meaning-related skills in pre-school. Forty-one children completed follow-up assessments of reading comprehension, reading accuracy, and listening comprehension in YOS1. Nineteen returned for assessments of reading accuracy, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension in YOS3. Children showed poorer reading comprehension than reading accuracy at both timepoints. Reading comprehension, reading accuracy, and listening comprehension were significantly concurrently correlated. Pre-school receptive vocabulary was a significant predictor of YOS3 reading comprehension. Results from this preliminary investigation highlight the potential for early identification of children on the spectrum at risk for reading comprehension difficulties.

Reading Comprehension of Chinese-Speaking Children With Hearing Loss: The Roles of Metalinguistic Awareness and Vocabulary Knowledge.

This study aims to explore the contributions of phonological awareness (PA) and morphological awareness (MA) to the reading comprehension skills of Chinese-speaking children with hearing loss (HL) and examine the possible mediation effect of vocabulary knowledge on the relationships of PA and MA with their reading comprehension. The participants were 28 Chinese-speaking children with HL, who were followed from Grade 1 through Grade 2. They were administered a series of tests that measured their PA and MA at the beginning of Grade 1, vocabulary knowledge at the end of Grade 1, and reading comprehension at the end of Grade 2. MA significantly accounted for additional variance in reading comprehension beyond the effect of PA but not vice versa. Both PA and MA contributed uniquely to vocabulary knowledge, which completely mediated the relationships of PA and MA with reading comprehension. PA and MA are both essential to the development of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in Chinese-speaking children with HL; however, MA seems to be more important than PA in their reading comprehension. PA and MA significantly affect children's reading comprehension through their influence on vocabulary knowledge. This study has replicated previous evidence on the importance of PA, MA, and vocabulary knowledge in the reading comprehension of children with typical hearing, and has extended its significance to children with HL. In addition, the findings have the potential to inform educational practitioners regarding the importance of teaching essential reading skills to Chinese-speaking children with HL.

The roles of motivation and engagement in computer-based assessment of children's reading comprehension

The present study investigates whether task engagement mediates the effects of reading-related self-efficacy and motivation on reading comprehension. Finnish-speaking students from Grades 3 and 4 performed a computer-based reading comprehension task. Engagement was measured by two indicators retrieved from log files: time-on-task (behavioral engagement) and response strategy (cognitive engagement). Two studies were conducted. Study 1 included mostly fluent readers (N = 108), and Study 2, which served as a conceptual replication of Study 1, included both fluent and dysfluent readers (N = 308). The results of both studies suggest that cognitive engagement mediates the effect of reading enjoyment on reading comprehension. In Study 2, the effect of self-efficacy on reading comprehension was mediated by both types of engagement but only when the effect of reading enjoyment was not controlled for. Overall, the results provide further clarification of the mechanism by which motivation affects children's task-oriented reading.

Anxiety and depression among Chinese children with and without reading disabilities.

This study aims to compare anxiety and depression among male and female Chinese children with and without reading disabilities (RDs) and to examine the diverse impacts of anxiety and depression on children's reading comprehension. A total of 132 Chinese children from third to sixth grade living in Taiwan were recruited; half had RD, and the other half were typically developing children. Our results from the first analysis revealed that the anxiety level of female children with RD was significantly higher than that of the other three groups of participants, while the depression level of typically developing children was significantly lower than that of children with RD in general. Additionally, our results regarding the predictive abilities of gender and anxiety for reading comprehension as well as the moderating effect of gender on the ability of anxiety to predict reading comprehension were all statistically significant for the typically developing group but not the RD group. These differences between these two groups were further confirmed by multi-group analysis. Our results enhance the existing knowledge on Chinese children with RD and can increase practitioners' awareness of the possibility of higher levels of anxious and depressive symptoms among these children.

A meta-analysis of the association of aircraft noise at school on children's reading comprehension and psychological health for use in health impact assessment

Whilst the effects of aircraft noise on children's cognition are well-accepted, their application in Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and methodologies to monetise the effects of noise on health have been limited. This paper presents the first meta-analysis of the effect of aircraft noise at school on children's reading comprehension and psychological health assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Data from three methodologically similar studies carried out in 106 schools near London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol, and Madrid Barajas airports (the Schools Environment and Health Study, the West London Schools Study, and the RANCH study) were analysed finding that a 1 dB increase in aircraft noise exposure at school was associated with a −0.007 (95%CI −0.012 to −0.001) decrease in reading score and a 4% increase in odds of scoring well below or below average on the reading test. The analyses also found that a 1 dB increase in aircraft noise exposure at school was associated with a 0.017 (95%CI 0.007–0.028) increase in hyperactivity score. No effects were observed for emotional symptoms, conduct problems or Total Difficulties Score. Meta-analyses confirm existing evidence for effects of aircraft noise exposure on children's reading comprehension, providing a pooled estimate and exposure-effect relationship, as well as additional estimates and relationships for effects on scoring ‘well below or below average’ on the reading test offering flexibility for taking reading comprehension into account in HIA and monetisation methodologies in a wide-range of contexts.

ProVoc: An app to train vocabulary depth in order to foster children's reading comprehension

AbstractMany studies have demonstrated the crucial role of vocabulary in predicting reading performance in general. More recent work has indicated that one particular facet of vocabulary (its depth) is more closely related to language comprehension, especially inferential comprehension. On this basis, we developed a training application to specifically improve vocabulary depth. The objective of this study was to test the effectiveness of a mobile application designed to improve vocabulary depth. The effectiveness of this training was examined on 3rd and 4th grade children's vocabulary (breadth and depth), decoding and comprehension performances. A randomized waiting‐list control paradigm was used in which an experimental group first received the intervention during the first 4 weeks (between pretest and post‐test1), thereafter, a waiting control group received the training for the next 4 weeks (between postest1 and posttest2). Results showed that the developed application led to significant improvements in terms of vocabulary depth performance, as well as a significant transfer effect to reading comprehension. However, we did not observe such a beneficial effect on either vocabulary breadth or written word identification. These results are discussed in terms of the links between vocabulary depth and comprehension, and the opportunities the app presents for remedying language comprehension deficits in children.

What is the best way to characterise the contributions of oral language to reading comprehension: listening comprehension or individual oral language skills?

Educators and researchers agree that oral language is fundamental to students' reading acquisition. It is not clear how best to conceptualise oral language within models of reading – as one's overall understanding of spoken language, or as individual skills, each with unique contributions to children's reading comprehension. In our longitudinal study of children in Grades 2 and 3, we examined the unique contributions of three oral language skills – vocabulary, syntactic awareness, and morphological awareness – to gains in reading comprehension assessed later that academic year (N = 116) and in the spring of the following academic year (N = 87). In our most conservative analyses, we controlled for children's listening comprehension in addition to prior reading achievement. Each language skill predicted variance in later reading comprehension beyond that accounted for by initial word reading and reading comprehension. In analyses with listening comprehension also controlled, each of syntactic awareness and morphological awareness retained their predictive power. Morphological awareness emerged as the most robust predictor and was associated with greater increases in reading comprehension for students in third versus second grade. Results support theoretical models that identify and differentiate contributions from individual oral language skills to reading comprehension. Our findings suggest that increasing each of these oral language skills within the elementary classroom may lead to advances in children's reading comprehension.

Comics and Children’s Literacy Skills: A Focus Group Analysis from Preschool Teacher’s Perspective

Comics is amongst the educational learning tools which offer children an opportunity to understand and interpret the narrative by themselves. Like most studies conclude, through the characteristics and features that comics provide to the reader, it offers many advantages on how literacy skills develop for children's development, as well as specific skills associated with recognizing reading skills and value-added benefit.This study was discussed extensively on how comics could improve the literacy skills of children particularly for pre-school children's reading comprehension. By conducting focus group discussion, data were qualitatively collected from six pre-school teachers who used comics for their learning and teaching sessions as their pedagogical approach and aids. The finding found that comics showed considerable contribution to enhance pre-school children's literacy skills not only for reading comprehension, but also provided added value that comics needed to improve children's critical thinking. Eventually, comics will be adapted to improve the learning of children in the classroom, and even the issue of implementation would be discussed together as well. The research indicates that teachers are urged to use comics in classroom learning sessions as one of the alternative teaching materials in teaching young children.