Significant Predictors Of Reading Comprehension Research Articles

Examining Relationships Between Sub-Components of Reading in Xitsonga

Reading is developed over time and involves the interaction of both simple and complex skills characterised by a hierarchical sequence of foundational reading skills. However, research has shown that children who do not acquire mastery of foundational reading skills have limited chances of acquiring reading success. This study examines the relations between sub-components of reading in Xitsonga and their impact on Grade 1 learners’ reading ability. It also aims to identify which early reading skills predict later reading accomplishment. Data in this study was obtained from 75 Grade 1 learners in the Limpopo Province. The early-grade reading assessment tool adapted to Xitsonga was used to test the learners’ foundational reading skills: phonological and phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, word reading, oral reading fluency and reading comprehension skills. The results present a compelling relationship between the subcomponents of reading and show that deficits in the development of foundational reading skills negatively impact learners’ ability to read. Regression analysis showed that oral reading fluency was the only significant predictor of reading comprehension. Hence, there is a need for reading to be taught and learned consciously in alphabetic languages to help learners develop their early reading skills, which play important roles in the acquisition of reading.

Early skills that predict English reading ability: A longitudinal study of bilingual children from 5 to 10 years

Despite substantial research, the contribution of oral language skills acquired in Spanish to Spanish–English bilingual children’s acquisition of English reading skill is unclear. The current study addressed this question with data on the oral language and pre-literacy skills of 101 Spanish–English bilingual learners at 5 years of age and their English word reading (i.e., decoding) and reading comprehension skills at 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 years. Separate multilevel models using English language, Spanish language, and pre-literacy skills as predictors of these outcomes identified English phonological awareness, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts of print knowledge as positive predictors of word reading. A final model including all these significant predictors found only Spanish phonological awareness and concept of print to be significant predictors. Significant predictors of reading comprehension in separate models were English vocabulary, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts about print. In the final model, only English vocabulary and Spanish phonological awareness predicted English reading comprehension. These findings provide evidence that phonological awareness is a language-general skill that supports reading across languages, consistent with the common underlying proficiency model of bilingual reading development. The finding that only English vocabulary predicts English reading comprehension suggests that vocabulary knowledge is not part of a common underlying proficiency but is language specific in its value to reading ability.

Predictors of reading comprehension and profiling of poor readers in Croatian: educational and clinical perspectives.

Reading is an important academic skill. Children who exhibit reading difficulties are more likely to experience various negative professional and personal consequences. To successfully identify children with reading problems as early as possible, one must first understand how reading skills can be mastered, as well as the course of reading development in children with typical reading skills from the beginning of their formal reading instruction. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the influence of decoding and language comprehension on reading comprehension ability. In addition, this study aimed to determine types of profiles among poor readers and estimate their frequency in the study sample. Based on the Simple View of Reading model, we developed decoding, language comprehension, and reading comprehension tasks. Participants included 100 typical readers (TR) and 95 poor readers (PR) in the second grade in Croatian schools. Phonemic awareness, phonological working memory, and rapid automatized naming tasks were used to test underlying abilities of decoding skills in both groups of participants. As expected, PRs showed significantly lower performance on all variables than TRs. The correlations between decoding, language comprehension and reading comprehension are significant in the PR group. The linear regression analysis showed that language comprehension was a significant predictor of reading comprehension for TRs, while decoding and language comprehension were significant predictors of reading comprehension for PRs. The profiling of reading difficulties revealed five different profiles, the most common of which was a mixed reading difficulty, i.e., difficulties in both decoding and language comprehension. In line with theoretical expectations, success in reading comprehension in TRs at the end of the second grade depends mainly on language comprehension. To achieve this complex cognitive skill, PRs' language comprehension alone is not sufficient, so they still rely on their decoding skills. Among the poor readers, there was a high prevalence of children with decoding problems (i.e., three out of five profiles). Teachers should be able to identify and monitor decoding difficulties in children, since these difficulties are associated with noticeable manifestations, unlike those associated with comprehension difficulties.

Critical Thinking in Reading Comprehension: Fine Tuning the Simple View of Reading

Critical thinking has been identified as an essential skill for the 21st century, yet little research has investigated its role in reading comprehension. Executive functions (EF) and critical thinking overlap, where the latter often rely on the proficient operation of EF and vice versa. Extending the simple view of reading, the active view of reading considers the contribution of language comprehension and decoding to reading comprehension by including the role of EF. In the present study, we assess 360 seventh-grade English language learners attending schools in three states in India. We gathered measures of reading comprehension, critical thinking and listening comprehension, reading fluency, academic vocabulary, and encoding. Using multiple regression to fit a linear model, the best-fit model explained 59.3% of the total variance in reading comprehension. Two indicators of critical thinking, induction and deduction, were significant predictors of reading comprehension, along with listening comprehension, encoding, and academic vocabulary. Also of interest was the result showing reading fluency to be a non-significant predictor of reading comprehension. Results of this study add empirical support for the role of critical thinking in reading comprehension.

The Importance of Fluency in Reading: A Comparison of English, Swedish, Croatian, and Estonian

We report results from children learning to read in one of four different languages: Croatian, English, Estonian and Swedish. The languages all have an alphabetical script but vary greatly on the dimension deep-shallow (or complexity-simplicity, or opacity-transparency), i.e., how close orthography and phonology are related. These languages also vary in the complexity and type of grammatical structure. We used tasks to measure phonological awareness, morpho-syntactic processing, word and pseudoword identification speed, working memory, and reading comprehension. In English, Swedish, and Croatian, fluency was the most significant predictor of reading comprehension. In Estonian, morpho-syntactic awareness was the most significant predictor, although reading fluency was a close second. Fluency was of primary importance in reading comprehension because the limitations of working memory result in fast decay of input information. Therefore, it is important to read with fluency for proper text comprehension.

Reading fluency as the bridge between decoding and reading comprehension in Chinese children.

Reading fluency has been considered an essential component of reading comprehension, but it is yet to be examined in a reading model in a non-alphabetic writing system. This study investigated whether reading fluency could be identified as a separate construct from decoding and examined the unique role of reading fluency in the Simple View of Reading (SVR). A total of 342 Cantonese-speaking Chinese children in grades 3-5 were recruited to participate in the study. They were assessed on word reading accuracy and fluency, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. The confirmatory factor analysis results confirmed that reading fluency is a separate factor from decoding, linguistic comprehension, and reading comprehension. Furthermore, the structural equation modeling results revealed that reading fluency is a significant predictor of reading comprehension and a mediator between decoding and reading comprehension in the extended SVR model. The findings extended previous research in alphabetic languages and supported reading fluency as the bridge between decoding and reading comprehension. The present study highlighted the importance of reading fluency in Chinese reading acquisition in a theoretical framework.

Simple View of Reading Across the Transition from Kindergarten to Grade 1 in a Transparent Orthography

ABSTRACT Purpose This longitudinal study investigated the simple view of reading (SVR) model and its cognitive basis in a transparent orthography of the Lithuanian across the transition from kindergarten to Grade 1. Method The language and early literacy skills of 229 children (Mage = 6.79, SD = .47) were tested at the end of kindergarten (vocabulary, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and RAN); listening comprehension and word reading fluency were tested at the start of Grade 1; and reading comprehension was measured at the end of Grade 1. Results Together with parental education, word reading fluency and listening comprehension predicted reading comprehension (R2 = 43.2%). The second model, which also included language and early literacy skills, showed that vocabulary and phonological awareness indirectly predicted reading comprehension via listening comprehension, while phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) indirectly predicted reading comprehension via word reading fluency (R2 = 43.6%). However, after allowing the direct paths from language and early literacy skills in kindergarten to reading comprehension, listening comprehension and word reading fluency were no longer significant predictors of reading comprehension, whereas vocabulary and letter knowledge were (R2 = 58.9%). Conclusion The results provided support for the SVR model in transparent Lithuanian orthography in that linguistic and decoding components are important for early reading comprehension. However, the results also suggested that, in the Lithuanian context, kindergarten vocabulary and letter knowledge are stronger measures in predicting reading comprehension than listening comprehension and word reading fluency in Grade 1.

Reading, linguistic, and metacognitive skills: are they reciprocally related past the first school years?

Empirical research has systematically demonstrated the predictive role of reading, linguistic and metacognitive skills on reading comprehension performance. The study of the directionality of these relations and their relative contribution in the more advanced grades of primary school is an important aim for reading research, with practical implications for educational contexts. These issues are of particular relevance in semitransparent orthographies such as European Portuguese, as there is empirical evidence that these relations change over time. The goal of this study was to examine the longitudinal relations between oral reading fluency, listening comprehension, vocabulary, reading strategy use and reading comprehension in Portuguese students across grades 4 to 6. For this purpose, reciprocal-causation models with cross-lagged paths were tested using Mplus. The sample included 110 students who completed at least two assessment time points. The results indicated that there is a reciprocal relation between listening comprehension and reading comprehension, as well as between vocabulary and reading comprehension, in every grade. Oral reading fluency was a significant predictor of reading comprehension across grades 4–6, but the opposite relation was not verified. Reading strategy use in grade 5 was predicted by reading comprehension in grade 4. The results are discussed considering previous studies and their potential impact on psychoeducational practice and research. Limitations of the study and guidelines for future research are pointed out.

The Relative Contribution of Vocabulary Knowledge and Syntactic Knowledge to L2 Reading Comprehension

The purpose of this study was to investigate: 1) the relationship between L2 vocabulary/ L2 syntactic knowledge and L2 reading comprehension and 2) the relative role of vocabulary and syntactic knowledge in L2 reading comprehension. L2 reading comprehension was examined as literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension as well as general reading comprehension. For this study, 47 Korean software high school EFL learners were administered a vocabulary knowledge test, a syntactic knowledge test, and a reading comprehension test. Results revealed that vocabulary as well as syntactic knowledge significantly correlated to general reading comprehension; however, vocabulary knowledge was correlated to literal and inferential comprehension, and syntactic knowledge to inferential and evaluative comprehension. For vocabulary knowledge, all of the frequency bands except 2K and 4K word families of the Vocabulary Size Test (VST) (Nation & Beglar, 2007) significantly correlated to general reading comprehension and inferential comprehension; however, low-frequency vocabulary showed the connection with literal comprehension, and high-frequency vocabulary with evaluative comprehension. Additionally, only syntactic knowledge played a crucial role in general reading comprehension and inferential comprehension, after controlling for other variables. Vocabulary knowledge was not found to be a significant predictor of reading comprehension. The findings imply the need for teaching syntactic knowledge as well as a broad range of vocabulary, in a Korean EFL reading comprehension class.

Online Assessment of Morphological Awareness in Grades 2–4: Its Development and Relation to Reading Comprehension

The aims of the study are to construct an online instrument to assess different aspects of morphological awareness and to examine its development and its relation to reading comprehension in grades 2–4 in Hungarian children. Altogether, 4134 students were tested. The online test evaluated inflectional, derivational, and compound morphological skills with five subtests. The instrument proved to be reliable. CFA examinations revealed that the five subtests were empirically distinguishable dimensions. Inflectional, derivational, and compound morphology as the three main dimensions of morphological awareness were also empirically supported by our data. Morphological awareness skills improved significantly and developed in parallel with reading skills throughout grades 2–4. The increase in the development of morphological awareness from grade 2 to grade 3 tends to be faster than the growth between grade 3 and 4. Positive moderate correlations were found between morphological skills and reading comprehension and the relationships seem to be stable throughout the three grades. The most significant predictor of reading comprehension is the Affix Identification for Nonwords subtest. Our study showed that morphological awareness could be assessed efficiently through online media and drew attention to the importance of morphological awareness in the development of reading comprehension and linguistic intelligence.

The simple view of reading in French second language learners

This longitudinal study examined the relative contributions of word reading accuracy, word reading fluency and linguistic comprehension to reading comprehension from Grade 1 to Grade 2 in Canadian children who speak French as an L2. French is an opaque orthography but it is more consistent in how graphemes are mapped to phonemes than English. A total of 183 Non-Francophone children enrolled in French immersion programs in Canada (M = 80.91, SD = 3.61) were followed for one year from Grade 1 to Grade 2. The participants completed French measures of word reading accuracy, fluency, receptive vocabulary, and reading comprehension in each grade. The results showed that word reading fluency was a significant predictor of reading comprehension in both Grades 1 and 2. Additionally, word reading accuracy, word reading fluency and vocabulary all contributed to reading comprehension in Grades 1 and 2 and the magnitude of the contribution of each component remained similar across the two grades. Our findings provide support to the SVR model in young French L2 learners and highlight the importance of word reading fluency in reading comprehension in French.

Examining the simple view of reading in Kiswahili: Longitudinal evidence from Kenya

The present study examines the applicability of the simple view of reading (SVR) (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) model of reading comprehension in Kiswahili, a language that has a transparent orthography. We examined the developmental relationships among nonword decoding, listening comprehension, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension using longitudinal data from a sample of 628 Kenyan children, enrolled in first and second grade. Children completed eight different tasks. We fit autoregressive cross-lagged path models with maximum likelihood estimation to examine the developmental relationships. Our findings showed support for the SVR model, given that both nonword decoding and listening comprehension were significant predictors of reading comprehension in Kiswahili. Nonword decoding was the stronger predictor. The results further revealed that both accuracy and speed of nonword decoding played significant roles in reading comprehension in Kiswahili for beginning readers. Our findings suggest that oral reading fluency and accuracy were significant predictors of reading comprehension.

Effects of Prior Topic Knowledge and English Language Proficiency on EFL Reading Comprehension of Two Types of Expository Text

Prior knowledge has been proven to be a very influential factor in the reading comprehension of expository texts. Among diverse domains of expository texts, the significant role of prior knowledge in the L1 reading comprehension of science texts has been reported. To examine the role of prior topic knowledge in the L2 reading comprehension of expository texts, 77 Korean high school students read two types of expository texts: two science texts (i.e., chemistry and physics) and two non-science texts (i.e., music and history). We also measured the students’ prior topic knowledge, English proficiency, and reading comprehension to investigate the interaction between prior topic knowledge and English proficiency. According to our multiple regression analyses, both science topic knowledge (β = .48) and English proficiency (β = .43) were significant predictors of reading comprehension in the case of science texts. Additionally, science topic knowledge (β = .53) was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension for the situation model questions that intend for the higher level of comprehension than for the textbase questions that intend for the propositional level of comprehension (β = .36) when reading science texts. In the case of the non-science texts, music and history topic knowledge was not a significant predictor because the readers had generally low prior topic knowledge. The reading comprehension of non-science texts was dominantly explained by English proficiency. Interestingly, science topic knowledge was a significant predictor of reading comprehension of the non-science texts in the case of textbase questions, but not situation model questions.

Kindergarten pre-reading skills predict Grade 9 reading comprehension (PISA Reading) but fail to explain gender difference

One of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children’s skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in reading development has increasingly been documented. Regrettably, there is scant evidence on whether differences between genders (favouring girls) have their roots in pre-reading skills or whether determining mechanisms are related to factors to do with schooling. We examined the extent to which pre-reading skills assessed in Kindergarten (age 6) predict reading comprehension in Grade 9 (age 15) and, whether the gender difference in reading comprehension can be explained by gender differences in the Kindergarten pre-reading skills. A sample of 1010 Finnish children were assessed on letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid naming, vocabulary, and listening comprehension in Kindergarten and on reading comprehension using PISA Reading tasks in Grade 9. Path models showed that gender as well as Kindergarten pre-reading skills except for phonological awareness were significant predictors of reading comprehension in Grade 9 accounting for 28% of the variance. There were gender differences in most of the measures, but the prediction model estimates were similar for boys and girls except that for boys, letter knowledge was a somewhat stronger predictor of reading comprehension than for girls. The gender effect on reading comprehension was only partially mediated via pre-reading skills. The findings suggest that Kindergarten pre-reading skills are powerful predictors of reading comprehension in Grade 9, but the gender difference found in PISA Reading in Finland does not appear to be pronounced in Kindergarten but rather emerges during the school years.

Identifying predictors of reading speed and reading comprehension in Bosnian

The goal of the present study was to examine the predictors of reading speed and reading comprehension in third-grade students from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH). The sample consisted of 168 third-grade students (86 boys, 82 girls) attending regular schools in Canton Sarajevo, BIH. We examined the effects of phonological awareness (phoneme deletion and rhyming), rapid automatized naming (RAN) of letters and objects, semantic fluency, working memory, and processing speed, on three reading speed tasks and a reading comprehension task. For the reading speed tasks, total amount of explained variance was 33% for reading a text passage, 40% for word reading and 36% for pseudoword reading. The most important predictors of reading speed tasks were phoneme deletion task and RAN: Letters. On the other hand, the model explaining reading comprehension was much less predictive and explained about 11% of variance. Significant predictors of reading comprehension were working memory and processing speed. The results of this study are very informative in creating better models of reading. This in turn will help create better reading intervention programs and potentially reduce the number of children with reading disabilities.

Contributions of executive functioning to Chinese and English reading comprehension in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia

The present study investigated the executive functioning of working memory, inhibition, shifting, and planning in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia and how they related to Chinese (L1) and English (L2) reading comprehension. Fifty-seven Hong Kong Chinese students at Grade 7 were compared with 57 typically developing readers of chronological-age-matched controls on their performance on working memory, inhibition, shifting, planning, vocabulary knowledge, rapid naming, and reading comprehension in Chinese and English. Results from the multivariate analysis of variance showed that readers with dyslexia performed worse than the typical readers in executive functioning, vocabulary knowledge, rapid naming, and reading comprehension. Hierarchical regressions indicated that working memory, inhibition, and vocabulary knowledge were significant predictors of reading comprehension in L1 after controlling for age, IQ, and group membership. Furthermore, working memory, inhibition, shifting, vocabulary knowledge, and rapid naming contributed uniquely to reading comprehension in L2. Taken together, these findings suggest executive functioning difficulties in Chinese readers with dyslexia and highlight the differential contributions of executive functioning to Chinese and English reading comprehension; working memory and inhibition appear to play an important role in reading comprehension across different languages.

Relationships among Reading Anxiety, Reading Processing, and Reading Comprehension

Despite the evidence of an association between foreign language (FL) reading anxiety and reading comprehension, only a few studies have investigated how FL reading anxiety interacts with the reading process. This study examined how people with different anxiety levels approach reading tasks differently; that is, the relationships among foreign language reading anxiety, cognitive interference, reading strategy use, and the effects of these constructs on actual reading comprehension. Participants (N=265) were Korean adolescent EFL learners. From analyses of their responses to FL reading anxiety scale, Cognitive Interference Questionnaire (CIQ), a strategy inventory for reading comprehension, and reading comprehension tasks, results suggested that anxiety played a critical role in the interplay of attention and reading strategy use, which were associated with comprehension. Highly anxious students who were occupied with off-task thoughts tended to use more local reading strategies while less anxious students were more focused on completing the reading tasks and employed more global reading strategies. Results also suggested that the significant predictors of reading comprehension were FL reading anxiety as well as the CIQ and Global strategies, which indicated that the less anxious students who were more focused during reading, and those who employed more Global strategy scored higher in reading comprehension.

Social cognition and Reading comprehension in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders or typical development

BackgroundMany individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit social cognitive impairments in the development of theory of mind (ToM), or the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others. ToM has been shown to relate to reading comprehension for children and adolescents with typical development (TD) and with ASD. This study examined the relation between reading comprehension, word recognition, oral language, and ToM for higher-functioning children and adolescents with ASD (HFASD) as compared to those with TD. Method70 children with HFASD and 40 children with TD, aged 9–17 years, participated in the study. In order to describe the HFASD as compared to the TD sample, a series of ANOVAs and ANCOVAs were conducted. Multiple regression analyses were conducted with reading comprehension as the outcome variable. Separate regression models (TD & HFASD) were run with IQ, word recognition, oral language, and two ToM measures (Happé’s Strange Stories and the Silent Films Task) as predictors. ResultsThe TD group performed better than the HFASD group on all standardized and experimental measures. Regression analyses revealed that after controlling for IQ, word recognition, and oral language, both ToM measures predicted unique variance in reading comprehension in the HFASD, but not the TD, sample. Furthermore, the TD and HFASD groups displayed different patterns of significant predictors of reading comprehension. ConclusionsThis study suggests that in addition to oral language and higher-order linguistic comprehension, social cognition is an important factor to consider when designing reading interventions for students with ASD.

Reading Comprehension in Children With and Without ASD: The Role of Word Reading, Oral Language, and Working Memory.

Word reading and oral language predict reading comprehension, which is generally poor, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, working memory (WM), despite documented weaknesses, has not been thoroughly investigated as a predictor of reading comprehension in ASD. This study examined the role of three parallel WM N-back tasks using abstract shapes, familiar objects, and written words in children (8-14years) with ASD (n = 19) and their typically developing peers (n = 24). All three types of WM were significant predictors of reading comprehension when considered alone. However, these relationships were rendered non-significant with the addition of age, word reading, vocabulary, and group entered into the models. Oral vocabulary emerged as the strongest predictor of reading comprehension.

Regulación emocional y habilidades académicas: relación en niños de 9 a 11 años de edad

Academic skills are a specific component of academic success, and many factors influence their acquisition and consolidation. One of these factors is the ability to emotionally regulate distress tolerance, as defined by the ability to withstand negative emotional states in pursuit of a goal. This paper undertook to analyse the relationship between distress tolerance and reading comprehension and mathematical computations in 107 primary school children aged 9 to 11. The results showed that distress tolerance was a significant predictor of reading comprehension of expository texts and mathematical computations, albeit not so for reading comprehension of narrative texts. Distress tolerance is likely to be a relevant factor for academic success in several domains.