Predictor Of Reading Comprehension Research Articles

The role of word recognition, oral reading fluency and listening comprehension in the simple view of reading: a study in an intermediate depth orthography

Empirical research has provided evidence for the simple view of reading across a variety of orthographies, but the role of oral reading fluency in the model is unclear. Moreover, the relative weight of listening comprehension, oral reading fluency and word recognition in reading comprehension seems to vary across orthographies and schooling years. This study aims to examine the direct effects of these three variables on reading comprehension and to test for the existence of indirect effects of word recognition and listening comprehension on reading comprehension via oral reading fluency in European Portuguese, an orthography of intermediate depth. A sample of 264 students was assessed at the end of grades 2 and 4. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that listening comprehension, word recognition and oral reading fluency predicted reading comprehension in both grade 2 and grade 4. Moreover, the three variables measured in grade 2 predicted later reading comprehension in grade 4. Listening comprehension was always the strongest predictor. Oral reading fluency mediated the relationship between word recognition and reading comprehension, but it was not a mediator variable in the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. These findings indicate that, similarly to what has been found for other orthographies, the simple view of reading is a valid framework to account for reading comprehension variability in European Portuguese and that interventions to increase reading comprehension levels should focus on word recognition, fluency, and, especially, listening comprehension.

Differential lexical predictors of reading comprehension in fourth graders

The mental lexicon plays a central role in reading comprehension (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). It encompasses the number of lexical entries in spoken and written language (vocabulary breadth), the semantic quality of these entries (vocabulary depth), and the connection strength between lexical representations (semantic relatedness); as such, it serves as an output for the decoding process and as an input for comprehension processes. Although different aspects of the lexicon can be distinguished, research on the role of the mental lexicon in reading comprehension often does not take these individual aspects of the lexicon into account. The current study used a multicomponent approach to examine whether measures of spoken and written vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and semantic relatedness were differentially predictive of individual differences in reading comprehension skills in fourth-grade students. The results indicated that, in addition to nonverbal reasoning, short-term memory, and word decoding, the four measures of lexical quality substantially added (30 %) to the proportion of explained variance of reading comprehension (adding up to a total proportion of 65 %). Moreover, each individual measure of lexical quality added significantly to the prediction of reading comprehension after all other measures were taken into account, with written lexical breadth and lexical depth showing the greatest increase in explained variance. It can thus be concluded that multiple components of lexical quality play a role in children’s reading comprehension.

Longitudinal relations between reading motivation and reading comprehension in the early elementary grades

Although previous research has documented significant and substantial relations between reading motivation and reading comprehension for late elementary and secondary school students, there is a lack of studies involving students in the early elementary grades and applying longitudinal designs. Accordingly, we conducted a longitudinal study with 1051 second- and third-grade students and measured their reading motivation and reading comprehension performance at two different time points one year apart. The results confirmed reciprocal relations between involvement (a component of intrinsic reading motivation) and reading comprehension at the word and sentence levels but not at the passage level. Competition-oriented reading motivation (a component of extrinsic reading motivation) did not predict reading comprehension but was itself negatively affected by reading comprehension. In sum, the findings suggest that even at early stages of learning to read, intrinsic reading motivation contributes to students' development of reading competence.

Is the Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts? Modeling the Contributions of Language Comprehension Skills to Reading Comprehension in the Upper Elementary Grades

ABSTRACTLanguage comprehension is crucial to reading. However, theoretical models and recent research raise questions about what constitutes this multifaceted domain. We present two related studies examining the dimensionality of language comprehension and relations to reading comprehension in the upper elementary grades. Studies 1 (Grade 6; N = 148) and 2 (Grade 3–5; N = 311) contrasted factor models of language comprehension using item level indicators of morphological awareness and vocabulary (Studies 1 and 2) and syntactic awareness (Study 2). In both studies, a bifactor model—including general language comprehension and specific factors for each language component—best fit the data, and general language comprehension was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. In Study 2, the morphology-specific factor also uniquely predicted reading comprehension above and beyond general language comprehension. Results suggest the value of modeling the common proficiency underlying performance on tasks designed to tap theoretically distinct language comprehension skills.

Early Identification of Reading Comprehension Difficulties

Most research on early identification of reading disabilities has focused on word reading problems and little attention has been given to reading comprehension difficulties. In this study, we investigated whether measures of language ability and/or response to language intervention in kindergarten uniquely predicted reading comprehension difficulties in third grade. A total of 366 children were administered a battery of screening measures at the beginning of kindergarten and progress monitoring probes across the school year. A subset of children also received a 26-week Tier 2 language intervention. Participants’ achievement in word reading was assessed at the end of second grade, and their performance in reading comprehension was measured as the end of third grade. Results showed that measures of language ability in kindergarten significantly added to the prediction of reading comprehension difficulties over and above kindergarten word reading predictors and direct measures of word reading in second grade. Response to language intervention also proved to be a unique predictor of reading comprehension outcomes. Findings are discussed in terms of their relevance for the early identification of reading disabilities.

Test-Taking Skills of High School Students With and Without Learning Disabilities

This study assessed the test-taking skills of 776 high school students, 35 of whom were diagnosed with learning disabilities (LD). Students completed a computerized battery of timed reading tests as well as scales that assess test anxiety and test-taking perceptions. Students with LD obtained lower scores than the nondisabled group on all of the reading tasks (speed, comprehension, vocabulary, and decoding), spent more time reviewing comprehension questions, and were less active in looking for answers in the passages. Both groups favored the same comprehension strategy of reading the entire passage and then answering questions. The groups did not differ in their levels of test anxiety or confidence in taking tests under timed conditions. Vocabulary score best discriminated between groups and best predicted reading comprehension performance, suggesting a potential target for intervention.

Imitated Prosodic Fluency Predicts Reading Comprehension Ability in Good and Poor High School Readers.

Researchers have established a relationship between beginning readers' silent comprehension ability and their prosodic fluency, such that readers who read aloud with appropriate prosody tend to have higher scores on silent reading comprehension assessments. The current study was designed to investigate this relationship in two groups of high school readers: Specifically Poor Comprehenders (SPCs), who have adequate word level and phonological skills but poor reading comprehension ability, and a group of age- and decoding skill-matched controls. We compared the prosodic fluency of the two groups by determining how effectively they produced prosodic cues to syntactic and semantic structure in imitations of a model speaker's production of syntactically and semantically varied sentences. Analyses of pitch and duration patterns revealed that speakers in both groups produced the expected prosodic patterns; however, controls provided stronger durational cues to syntactic structure. These results demonstrate that the relationship between prosodic fluency and reading comprehension continues past the stage of early reading instruction. Moreover, they suggest that prosodically fluent speakers may also generate more fluent implicit prosodic representations during silent reading, leading to more effective comprehension.

Growth of Compounding Awareness Predicts Reading Comprehension in Young Chinese Students: A Longitudinal Study From Grade 1 to Grade 2

AbstractUsing a longitudinal sample of young Chinese students (fall and spring in grades 1 and 2: times 1–4, respectively) and growth curve analysis, this study examined whether the initial status and growth rates of compounding awareness from time 1 to time 4 uniquely contribute to reading comprehension at time 4 and whether word‐reading efficiency at time 4 mediates the association between initial status and growth in compounding awareness and reading comprehension at time 4. The results indicated that initial status and growth rates of compounding awareness made a significant direct contribution to reading comprehension at the end of second grade after controlling for IQ, phonological awareness, and vocabulary knowledge. The relationship between initial status and growth rates of compounding awareness and reading comprehension were fully mediated by word‐reading efficiency. The findings underscore the importance of growth in compounding awareness for reading comprehension and add to the literature about the nature of the morphological awareness and reading comprehension relationship in Chinese.

Role of executive functioning and home environment in early reading development

We examined the role of executive functioning (EF) and home environment in the prediction of early reading development. In a longitudinal design, we followed 101 Dutch children from kindergarten to second grade. EF (attentional control, action control, short-term memory (STM)) and home factors (reading frequency, reading climate, parent education) were measured in kindergarten. Path analyses showed that EF predicted reading comprehension via decoding. STM predicted reading comprehension both directly as well as via vocabulary. We also found a significant relation between home environment factors and reading comprehension via phonological awareness, word decoding, and vocabulary. Combining the impact of EF and home environment on early reading development showed the role of EF to reduce that of home environment. The data show executive control to be essential in early reading development with additional impact from the home environment, especially when it comes to vocabulary learning in relation to reading comprehension.

How working memory relates to children\u2019s reading comprehension: the importance of domain-specificity in storage and processing

Working memory is considered a well-established predictor of individual variation in reading comprehension in children and adults. However, how storage and processing capacities of working memory in both the phonological and semantic domain relate to reading comprehension is still unclear. In the current study, we investigated the contribution of phonological and semantic storage, and phonological and semantic processing to reading comprehension in 123 Dutch children in fifth grade. We conducted regression and mediation analyses to find out to what extent variation in reading comprehension could be explained by storage and processing capacities in both the phonological and the semantic domain, while controlling for children’s decoding and vocabulary. The analyses included tasks that reflect storage only, and working memory tasks that assess processing in addition to storage. Regression analysis including only storage tasks as predictor measures, revealed semantic storage to be a better predictor of reading comprehension than phonological storage. Adding phonological and semantic working memory tasks as additional predictors to the model showed that semantic working memory explained individual variation in reading comprehension over and above all other memory measures. Additional mediation analysis made it clear that semantic storage contributed indirectly to reading comprehension via semantic working memory, indicating that semantic storage tapped by working memory, in addition to processing capacities, explains individual variation in reading comprehension. It can thus be concluded that semantic storage plays a more important role in children’s reading comprehension than previously thought.

Does the Component Processes Task Assess Text-Based Inferences Important for Reading Comprehension? A Path Analysis in Primary School Children.

Using a component processes task (CPT) that differentiates between higher-level cognitive processes of reading comprehension provides important advantages over commonly used general reading comprehension assessments. The present study contributes to further development of the CPT by evaluating the relative contributions of its components (text memory, text inferencing, and knowledge integration) and working memory to general reading comprehension within a single study using path analyses. Participants were 173 third- and fourth-grade children. As hypothesized, knowledge integration was the only component of the CPT that directly contributed to reading comprehension, indicating that the text-inferencing component did not assess inferential processes related to reading comprehension. Working memory was a significant predictor of reading comprehension over and above the component processes. Future research should focus on finding ways to ensure that the text-inferencing component taps into processes important for reading comprehension.

The contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension in early stages of reading

The contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension in Hebrew was studied in 298 second grade students who practiced two types of inflections, plural and possessive. Reading tasks at the beginning and end of the school year indicated that all improved on all tests in that period. Orthographic word recognition and morphological awareness predicted reading comprehension at the end of year. Students with low (LPD) and high (HPD) phonological decoding skills clearly differed qualitatively in reading comprehension. In the HPD students it was predicted by awareness of possessive inflections; in the LPD students it was predicted by orthographic word recognition ability. The results highlight the importance of examining the different components of morphological awareness in readers with different levels of phonological decoding ability.

Beyond word recognition, fluency, and vocabulary: The influence of reasoning on reading comprehension

ObjectiveWord recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and working memory have been established as predictors of reading comprehension in the first elementary school grades. However, the additional role of reasoning is not so clear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, working memory, verbal, and non‐verbal reasoning on reading comprehension, focusing on the additional effect of reasoning when the effects of the other variables are controlled.MethodA group of 159 students from the second and fourth grades was assessed.ResultsThe results indicated that all variables are correlated with reading comprehension and that the effect size varies according to the school grade. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses revealed that in second grade, fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension and that reasoning had no effect on reading comprehension, after controlling for the previous variables. However, in the fourth grade, non‐verbal reasoning was the only significant unique predictor of reading comprehension, after accounting for the influence of the other variables.ConclusionsThese results highlight the importance of promoting the mastery of accurate and fluent reading in the lower grades while promoting reasoning abilities in the higher grades.

Investigating profiles of lexical quality in preschool and their contribution to first grade reading

This longitudinal study investigated profiles of lexical quality domains in preschool children and the extent to which profile membership predicted reading comprehension in first grade. A latent profile analysis was conducted to classify 420 preschool children on lexical quality domains, including orthography, phonology, morphosyntax, and vocabulary. Regression analysis was used to determine whether profile membership was associated with first grade outcomes across reading comprehension and its components (i.e., listening comprehension and word recognition). Results revealed five profiles of lexical quality which were predictive of all three outcomes in first grade. Children in low lexical quality profiles performed more poorly on the outcome measures than children in the higher lexical quality profiles. Additionally, profile membership did differentially predict later reading outcomes. These results suggest that lexical quality profiles are associated with reading and therefore may offer a means of early identification of children who are susceptible to future reading difficulties.

Implicit and Explicit Grammatical Knowledge in Predicting Reading Comprehension of Vietnamese EFL Learners

This study explored the predictive power of implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge in explaining the reading comprehension of Vietnamese EFL students and examined how these two types of grammatical knowledge could differently predict for students having dissimilar reading abilities. The participants of the study comprised 51 Vietnamese adult learners of English having different proficiency levels. They completed three English tests including a timed grammatical judgment tests, an untimed grammatical judgment test, and a reading comprehension test. Correlational and regression analyses were conducted, and the results indicated that both implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge significantly correlated with and significantly predicted reading comprehension. However, the two types of grammatical knowledge lost their correlation and predictive power when it came to the more proficient reading group. In the case of the lower level group, explicit grammatical knowledge did not correlate with or contribute to reading, but implicit grammatical knowledge remained as a significant contributor.

Oral morphosyntactic competence as a predictor of reading comprehension in children with specific language impairment.

Children with a diagnosis of specific language impairment (SLI) present impaired oral comprehension. According to the simple view of reading, general amodal linguistic capacity accounts for both oral and reading comprehension. Considering this, we should expect SLI children to display a reading comprehension deficit. However, previous research regarding the association between reading disorders and SLI has yielded inconsistent results. To study the influence of prior oral comprehension competence over reading comprehension during the first years of reading acquisition of bilingual Catalan-Spanish children with SLI (ages 7-8). We assessed groups of bilingual Catalan-Spanish SLI and matched control children at ages 7 and 8 with standardized reading comprehension tasks including grammatical structures, sentence and text comprehension. Early oral competence and prior non-verbal intelligence were also measured and introduced into regression analyses with the participants' reading results in order to state the relation between the comprehension of oral and written material. Although we found no significant differences between the scores of our two participant groups in the reading tasks, data regarding their early oral competence, but not non-verbal intelligence measures, significantly influence their reading outcome. The results extend our knowledge regarding the course of literacy acquisition of children with SLI and provide evidence in support of the theories that assume common linguistic processes to be responsible for both oral and reading comprehension.

The Interplay between Text-based Vocabulary Size and Reading Comprehension of Turkish EFL Learners

Recently, there has been a burgeoning interest in relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge, and this emanates from fact that academic achievement is closely related to reading performance (Adamson, 1993; Collier, 1989). As might be expected, best way to learn new vocabulary items is considered to read, and knowing extensive vocabulary is a prerequisite to understand a text (Eskey, 2005). Therefore, it is necessary to scrutinize breadth of a person's vocabulary as a predictor of reading comprehension on a regular basis to reach a consensus about amount of vocabulary needed by an L2 learner for a reasonable comprehension of expository texts. However, although there have been several studies evaluating relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge in general, these studies do not include Turkish learners of English as participants whose native language is not etymologically related to English. Scholars, on other hand, acknowledge that English as a foreign language (EFL) learners feel burden of reading in an L2 twice as much as their counterparts, L1 readers, do, and success is difficult to come by without being a skilled reader (Carrell & Grabe, 2002). For that reason, present article aims to investigate a perennial concern, that is, relationship between vocabulary coverage and reading comprehension of a group of Turkish EFL learners because first reading is an indispensable skill for academic achievement and second reading comprehension is directly linked to learners' vocabulary knowledge. After a brief summary about reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge as a reciprocal process, article aims to discuss what percent of vocabulary items should be known in an expository text to comprehend it, and corresponding vocabulary size will be discussed by analyzing sizes suggested in studies of Nation (2006), and Laufer and Ravenhorst-Kalovski (2010).A Reciprocal Process: Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary SizeReading is delineated as the process of receiving and interpreting information encoded in language form via medium of print (Urquhart & Weir, 1998, p. 22). As stated by Linan-Thompson and Vaughn (2007), and Grabe and Stoller (2002), reading comprehension is main purpose for reading, and this purpose underlies and supports most of other purposes for reading. However, since reading involves cognitive processes, reading comprehension is an invisible concept that can only be inferred (Bernhardt, 2011). Moreover, reading comprehension presents some challenges for learners as many students consider reading a boring and difficult task. When complexity of reading is considered together with its purposes and properties, it becomes clear that reading is complex for both teaching and learning.In addition to complexity of reading, it is unarguably clear that relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension is reciprocal. While some scholars focus on effects of vocabulary size on reading comprehension in their studies, some others study effects of reading comprehension on vocabulary size (Eskey, 2005; Hu & Nation, 2000; Nation, 2001; Nation & Angell, 2006). According to Rumelhart (1977) and Stanovich (1980), in evidence-based reading models, bottom-up processes such as word recognition and lexical access go hand in hand with top-down processes such as integrating background knowledge and processing strategies. Readers need automaticity in both word recognition and lexical access (Walter, 2003). From a lexical perspective, Anderson (2009) and DeKeyser (2007) summarize this long learning process as a path from understanding a word's meaning to learning a major meaning of a word, and then learning many aspects of a word's meaning and use. Therefore, faster a reader recognizes a word, which is linked to learners' vocabulary knowledge and automaticity, better reading comprehension will take place. …

Examining the Simple View of Reading in a Transparent Orthography: A Longitudinal Study From Kindergarten to Grade 3

This study examined the dynamic relationships among the components of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and the predictive value of cognitive skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid naming, and vocabulary) on the SVR components. Altogether, 1,815 Finnish children were followed from kindergarten to Grade 3. Their cognitive skills were assessed in kindergarten, listening comprehension and reading fluency in Grades 1 and 2, and reading comprehension in Grades 1–3. Reading fluency and listening comprehension accounted for 37% of the variance in reading comprehension in Grade 2 and 28% in Grade 3. The direct effect of reading fluency on reading comprehension disappeared after Grade 1, whereas the effect of listening comprehension remained significant across time. Cognitive skills predicted reading comprehension mainly indirectly via listening comprehension and reading fluency in Grade 1. These findings support the validity of the SVR model in the context of a transparent orthography, but they also show that the direct effect of reading fluency on reading comprehension wanes after the early school years.

EFL Young Adolescents' Reading Motivation and Reading Comprehension in Their First and Second Languages

The purpose of this study is to examine how reading motivation varies in its prediction of reading comprehension in Korean (L1) and English (L2) (with parental involvement being controlled for), and how reading motivation in each language is associated with language proficiency. Participants consisted of 289 EFL middle school students in South Korea. Three questionnaires and four language tests were employed to measure learners' reading motivation, parental involvement, language proficiency, and reading comprehension in their L1 and L2. Results indicated that L2 reading performance was positively predicted by both intrinsic motivation and grades/utility, whereas the only positive predictor of L1 reading comprehension was intrinsic motivation. Moreover, in both L1 and L2, the high-proficiency group was found to exhibit significantly stronger intrinsic and extrinsic motivation than the low group; the high group's intrinsic motivation was significantly stronger than the middle group; and the middle and low groups differed significantly in extrinsic motivation.

Exploring the Role of Phraseological Knowledge in Foreign Language Reading

Foreign language (FL) knowledge has been shown to contribute significantly to FL reading performance. Studies have contrasted the contribution of FL vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, following a dichotomous view of these components, producing mixed results. Despite the increasingly recognized formulaic nature of language, the contribution made by phraseological knowledge to reading ability has not been investigated systematically. This study examines the impact of a broader construct definition of linguistic knowledge—which includes a phraseological component—in explaining variance in reading performances. Test scores of 418 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) were modeled in a structural equation model, showing that a phraseological knowledge measure outperformed traditional syntactic and vocabulary measures in predicting reading comprehension variance. Additional insights into the role of phraseological knowledge were gained through verbal protocol analysis of 15 EFL learners answering reading comprehension items that targeted the understanding of phrasal expressions within written context. The findings hint at an underestimated, but critical, role of phraseological knowledge in FL reading, and are relevant to both the assessment and the teaching of EFL ability.