Variance In Reading Comprehension Research Articles

Dissociating reading and auditory comprehension in persons with aphasia.

Language comprehension is often affected in individuals with post-stroke aphasia. However, deficits in auditory comprehension are not fully correlated with deficits in reading comprehension and the mechanisms underlying this dissociation remain unclear. This distinction is important for understanding language mechanisms, predicting long-term impairments and future development of treatment interventions. Using comprehensive auditory and reading measures from a large cohort of individuals with aphasia, we evaluated the relationship between aphasia type and reading comprehension impairments, the relationship between auditory versus reading comprehension deficits and the crucial neuroanatomy supporting the dissociation between post-stroke reading and auditory deficits. Scores from the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised from 70 participants with aphasia after a left-hemisphere stroke were utilized to evaluate both reading and auditory comprehension of linguistically equivalent stimuli. Repeated-measures and univariate ANOVA were used to assess the relationship between auditory comprehension and aphasia types and correlations were employed to test the relationship between reading and auditory comprehension deficits. Lesion-symptom mapping was used to determine the dissociation of crucial brain structures supporting reading comprehension deficits controlling for auditory deficits and vice versa. Participants with Broca's or global aphasia had the worst performance on reading comprehension. Auditory comprehension explained 26% of the variance in reading comprehension for sentence completion and 44% for following sequential commands. Controlling for auditory comprehension, worse reading comprehension performance was independently associated with damage to the inferior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, posterior inferior temporal gyrus, inferior occipital gyrus, lingual gyrus and posterior thalamic radiation. Auditory and reading comprehension are only partly correlated in aphasia. Reading is an integral part of daily life and directly associated with quality of life and functional outcomes. This study demonstrated that reading performance is directly related to lesioned areas in the boundaries between visual association regions and ventral stream language areas. This behavioural and neuroanatomical dissociation provides information about the neurobiology of language and mechanisms for potential future treatment interventions.

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.

Assessing Executive Function Influences on Reading Comprehension in French Immersion

This study examined whether the assessment of executive function (EF) added a unique contribution to second language (L2) reading comprehension in children in French immersion. Participants were 8- to 9-year old children who completed a collection of measures assessing French reading (i.e., word reading, decoding, and reading comprehension ) and EF (working memory, inhibition, and shifting). After controlling for word-level reading, measures of shifting explained the most variance in reading comprehension compared to the variance accounted for by working memory and inhibition. The results add to the growing evidence of EF’s contribution—especially shifting—to reading comprehension within the context of early literacy learning in the L2.

Explaining Variation in Reading Comprehension in Northern Sotho-English Bilingual Readers: A Simple View of Reading Perspective on Longitudinal Data

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) proposes that successful reading comprehension depends on proficient decoding and on linguistic comprehension. Some have found the SVR too simplistic and argue that other skills, such as reading fluency, explain unique variance in reading comprehension. Using longitudinal data from a sample of 103 children, our aim was to assess the validity of the SVR in Northern Sotho-English bilingual children in South Africa. Learners were assessed on various language and literacy skills, including word decoding, reading fluency, linguistic comprehension (in Grade 2), and reading comprehension (in Grade 3), in both Northern Sotho and English. Regression analyses indicated that decoding, linguistic comprehension and fluent reading were critical component skills of reading comprehension in English, but that only decoding and fluent reading, and not linguistic comprehension, were unique predictors of reading comprehension in Northern Sotho. Our data partially support the SVR, emphasizing the importance of implementing teaching strategies in South Africa that facilitate the development of underlying reading comprehension skills. However, the SVR is not an exhaustive model of reading comprehension in this population, as below-threshold levels in decoding suppressed the relationship between linguistic comprehension and reading comprehension in the L1.

What's format got to do with it? A comparison of three syntactic comprehension measures

BackgroundStudies of syntactic comprehension and reading comprehension use a wide range of syntactic comprehension tests that vary considerably in format. The goal of this study was to examine to which extent different formats of syntactic comprehension tests measure the same construct.MethodsSixty‐nine Grade 4 students completed multiple tests of decoding, vocabulary, fluid‐reasoning skill, reading comprehension and three tests of syntactic comprehension: the TROG‐2, a sentence repetition test and a whodunnit test.ResultsThere was limited shared variance between the syntactic comprehension tests, indicating that they only partially tapped into the same construct. Furthermore, the TROG‐2 was more highly correlated with fluid‐reasoning skill than the other syntax tests. Finally, the TROG‐2 and the whodunnit test explained additional variance in reading comprehension after controls, while sentence repetition did not.ConclusionsThere are important differences between syntactic comprehension tests. This has consequences both for the interpretation of previous studies of syntactic comprehension and reading comprehension and for the design of future studies as the choice of syntactic comprehension measure may directly influence the results of the study.

Oral language comprehension of young adults with low-level reading comprehension.

Significant difficulties in reading comprehension, despite attendance of compulsory schooling, are a worldwide phenomenon. While previous research on adults with low literacy skills focused primarily on their reading ability, less is known about their oral language skills. In this Brief Research Report, we present an investigation of the listening comprehension skills of a selected group of German-speaking young adults, whose reading comprehension is at a primary school level (n = 32, ages 16 to 19 years). In addition, the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension, beyond word reading skills, was tested. Standardized tests of reading and listening comprehension in the German language were administered. The average performance of the group in the listening comprehension tasks was below the level expected by age and educational level. In addition, when entered into a stepwise regression equation, listening comprehension, but not word reading, explained a significant amount of variance in reading comprehension. This pattern of relationship differs from previous findings in studies of adults struggling to read the opaque English orthography. Whether orthographic transparency explains this discrepancy should be further tested in cross-orthography studies with larger samples of adults with low literacy skills.

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.

Cognitive flexibility explains unique variance in reading comprehension for elementary students

The goal was to determine the extent to which cognitive flexibility measured by category switching predicted unique variance in reading comprehension for elementary students after accounting for vocabulary and oral reading fluency. One hundred and one second through fifth grade students completed curriculum-based measures of reading comprehension and oral reading fluency, as well as vocabulary and cognitive flexibility (category switching) measures. As predicted, hierarchical linear regression showed that vocabulary and oral reading fluency were associated with reading comprehension, though only the association with oral reading fluency was significant. Importantly, cognitive flexibility (category switching) predicted unique variance after accounting for the other variables, demonstrating the relevance of category switching flexibility for reading comprehension. Exploratory analyses revealed that the unique role of cognitive flexibility was evident for older elementary students, but not for younger elementary students. These findings support the active view of reading, especially the importance of cognitive flexibility in supporting reading comprehension.

Exploring moderational and mediational relations among word reading, vocabulary, sentence processing and comprehension for struggling adult readers

BackgroundA significant portion of adults struggle to read at a basic level. Word reading (defined here as decoding and word recognition) appears to play a pivotal role for this population of readers; however, less is known about how word reading relates to other important semantic processes (e.g., vocabulary, sentence processing) known to account for a large portion of variance in reading comprehension. This study used the Reading Systems Framework to explore the extent that moderational and mediational relations existed between word reading and semantic processing abilities in predicting reading comprehension.MethodsParticipants (N = 169) completed the Reading Inventory and Scholastic Evaluation, which consists of a series of subtests intended to measure decoding/word recognition, vocabulary, sentence processing and reading comprehension.ResultsA moderated mediation model was constructed to assess the extent to which moderational and mediational relations between word reading and semantic processing were predictive of comprehension. Results suggested that word reading moderated the effect of vocabulary knowledge on comprehension among struggling adult readers. Additionally, semantic processing at the word (i.e., vocabulary) and sentence level both significantly mediated the relation between word reading and comprehension.ConclusionsWord reading moderated the relation between vocabulary and comprehension for struggling adult readers. Readers with greater word reading ability benefited most from having a higher degree of vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary and sentence processing mediated the relation between word reading and comprehension. Thus, word reading appears to serve as an important gateway for struggling readers, and, as such, interventions targeting component skills of reading may have a limited impact on reading literacy tasks until word reading skills are developed.

Research Note: Testing the Simple View of Reading in Adolescents and Adults With Down Syndrome.

The Simple View of Reading is a well-supported framework in typical development that proposes that reading comprehension is predicted by word identification and language comprehension abilities. Although there has been some research examining relations between reading comprehension, word identification, and language comprehension, there has been little research directly testing the Simple View in individuals with Down syndrome, a population that often has difficulties with reading comprehension. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the Simple View model in English-speaking readers with Down syndrome and examine the contributions of word identification and language comprehension abilities to their reading comprehension success. Twenty-one adolescent and adult readers with Down syndrome (16-36 years of age) completed standardized reading, language, and IQ assessments. Multiple regression assessed the contribution of word identification/phonological decoding and language comprehension skills to reading comprehension outcomes. The full model explained 59% of the variance in reading comprehension. However, language comprehension emerged as the only significant unique predictor, explaining 29% of that variance. Together then, word identification and language comprehension explained approximately 30% of the variance in reading comprehension. The pattern of results suggests that language comprehension is particularly important to reading comprehension success for individuals with Down syndrome, at least those who can already identify printed words. To support reading comprehension development for individuals with Down syndrome, practitioners, educators, and parents should support language comprehension processes.

Examining the Role of Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge in Reading Comprehension of English Language Learners

This study explored the effect of English language learners’ breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge on their understanding and grades of reading English texts. Sixty-one Jordanian EFL undergraduates were assigned three tests, which were the Vocabulary Levels Test Version 2 (VLT), the Word Associates Test (WAT), and Academic International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The collected data was analysed utilizing Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. According to the empirical outcomes, breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge correlated positively with each other and with reading comprehension. Further, the significant predictor of the overall variance of reading comprehension was vocabulary depth, while the breadth of vocabulary knowledge was the less significant one. The results demonstrate the importance of expanding and deepening EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge in classrooms. Keywords: Vocabulary Depth, Vocabulary Breadth, Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge, Vocabulary Levels Test, Reading Comprehension.

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.

Reading comprehension precursors: Evidence of the simple view of reading in a transparent orthography

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) proposes that reading comprehension depends on two general processes –language comprehension and word recognition– and that the contribution of these known processes to reading comprehension varies in time. Specifically, the contribution of word recognition decreases, and the contribution of language comprehension increases with student progress. The purpose of this study was to test the SVR in a large sample of 4,750 Dominican public-school students from second (n = 2,399) and fourth grade (2,351) and determine the contribution of phonological awareness within the SVR. The study found that word recognition and language comprehension explained 80% of the variance in reading comprehension regardless of grade. A quantile regression showed that, as reading comprehension progresses, language comprehension’s predictive power increases, and word recognition’s predictive power decreases. A structural equation model conducted on each grade separately showed that the contribution of word recognition toward reading comprehension remained stable between second and fourth grade. This means that, although the dynamism of the SVR components follows the same pattern reported in the literature, the students evaluated here might reach reading automaticity later than expected. Therefore, more attentional resources need to be allocated toward decoding. The study found that the contribution of phonological awareness toward word recognition increases from second to fourth grade, confirming that students are taking longer than expected to obtain reading automaticity and still going through an overt effortful decoding stage rather than a covert phonological recoding stage, making reading more effortful.

The Mediating Role of Text Reading Fluency in Reading Comprehension in English and Kiswahili: Evidence from Multilingual Contexts in Kenya

The present study examined the mediating role of text reading fluency in reading comprehension in English and Kiswahili utilizing longitudinal data from 628 first- and second-grade children from multilingual contexts in Kenya. We employed path analysis to explore the mediating role of text reading fluency on decoding and reading comprehension in English and Kiswahili. The results demonstrated that decoding and text reading fluency bridges the gap between word recognition skills and reading comprehension in English and Kiswahili. Over time, as children improve their reading skills, the direct influence of decoding on reading comprehension diminishes; hence, text reading fluency explains the unique variance in reading comprehension. The present findings highlight the importance of text reading fluency in the developmental phases of reading comprehension among multilingual children learning to read across multiple languages.

Simple view of reading in Spanish: A longitudinal study

ObjectivesTest the validity of the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) in Spanish and analyze the contributions of decoding and linguistic abilities to reading comprehension. MethodThis longitudinal study assessed a sample of 71 Spanish speaking children at Grade 1 and Grade 3. At each time point, a battery of tests assessed children's linguistic abilities, decoding and reading comprehension. The authors used the classic model of SVR: model 0 (pseudoword accuracy reading and listening comprehension) and a complex model: Model 1 (linguistic abilities and decoding). ResultsResults of regression analyses showed that the original model of the SVR, explained little variance of reading comprehension in Spanish in comparison with the results obtained in English. However, a complex model explained 51% and 55% of the variance of reading comprehension in first and third grade respectively. The unique contribution of linguistic abilities increased from 27% in first grade to 43% in third grade and the contribution of decoding decreased from 24% in first grade to 2% in third grade. ConclusionsThe results are explained in terms of the transparent nature of Spanish orthography and educational implications are discussed.

Reading Self-Concept and Reading Comprehension: The Possible Effect of the Transition from Transparent to Deep Orthography

ABSTRACT The contribution of reading self-concept (RSC) to reading comprehension in Hebrew elementary school students was examined with respect to grade level (second, fifth, and sixth graders) and students’ level of reading comprehension (poor, average, and good). RSC questionnaire and reading measures were delivered to 49 second graders and 48 fifth and sixth grade students. Results showed correlations between RSC, language and reading measures. Young readers showed higher RSC than older students and poor comprehenders showed lower RSC than average and good comprehenders. Overall, RSC accounted for variance in reading comprehension after controlling for language and word-level reading measures. The results suggest that the transition from transparent to deep orthography may also affect RSC and cause a decline in the later stages of reading acquisition.

Longitudinal Predictors of Bilingual Language Proficiency, Decoding, and Oral Reading Fluency on Reading Comprehension in Spanish and in English

This study examined the longitudinal prediction of decoding, oral reading fluency (ORF), and bilingual language proficiency (BLP) on student reading comprehension (RC) outcomes in Spanish and in English. Participants were first-grade Latinx students attending bilingual programs. Findings indicated that BLP initial status and gains were significant predictors of Spanish and English RC at the end of second grade. English and Spanish decoding in first grade, in addition to BLP, explained 27 percent of the variance in English reading comprehension. However, only Spanish decoding was a significant predictor of Spanish reading comprehension. Once English and Spanish second grade ORF scores were added to the model, decoding no longer explained any of the variance in RC. BLP, English ORF initial status and gains, and Spanish gains explained 47 percent of the variance in English reading comprehension. BLP and Spanish ORF initial status explained 46 percent of the variance in Spanish RC. IMPACT STATEMENT The findings from this study provide school psychologists and teachers relevant information on the importance of measuring bilingual student decoding and oral reading fluency in Spanish and in English as well as bilingual language proficiency to ensure students are comprehending what they read in both languages. There are differences between the predictive utility of these variables on Spanish and English reading comprehension that should be considered when making instructional decisions for bilingual students. For researchers, more measures are needed that can assess student bilingual language proficiency briefly, efficiently, and reliably, as well as additional studies examining how bilingualism can benefit and enrich bilingual student reading comprehension.

Reading Comprehension Predictors in European Portuguese Adults

Research on the predictors of reading comprehension has been largely focused on school-aged children and mainly in opaque orthographies, hindering the generalization of the results to adult populations and more transparent orthographies. In the present study, we aim to test two versions of the Simple View of Reading (SVR): the original model and an extended version, including reading fluency and vocabulary. Additional mediation models were analyzed to verify if other reading comprehension predictors (rapid automatized naming, phonological decoding, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and working memory) have direct effects or if they are mediated through word reading and reading fluency. A sample of 67 typical adult Portuguese readers participated in this study. The SVR model accounted for 27% of the variance in reading comprehension, with oral language comprehension displaying a larger contribution than word reading. In the extended SVR model, reading fluency and vocabulary provided an additional and significant contribution of 7% to the explained variance. Moreover, vocabulary influenced reading comprehension directly and indirectly, via oral language comprehension. In the final mediation model, the total mediation hypothesis was rejected, and only morphological awareness showed a direct effect on reading comprehension. These results provide preliminary evidence that the SVR (with the possible addition of vocabulary) might be a reliable model to explain reading comprehension in adult typical readers in a semitransparent orthography. Furthermore, oral language comprehension and vocabulary were the best predictors in the study, suggesting that remediation programs addressing reading comprehension in adults should promote these abilities.

Unraveling Adolescent Language & Reading Comprehension: The Monster’s Data

ABSTRACT Purpose: This study explores the roles of morphological skills (Morphological Awareness, Morphological-Syntactic-Knowledge,Morphological-Semantic-Knowledge, and Morphological-Orthographic/Phonological-Knowledge),vocabulary (knowledge of definitions, relationshipsbetween words, and polysemous meanings), and syntax in contributing toadolescent reading comprehension.Specifically, we identify the relative importance of these languageskills. Methods: A racially diverse sample of 1,027 students grades 5 to 8 were studied. Dominance Analysis was used, which allows arank ordering of the contribution of predictors. Results: Results suggest unique roles for each language area with particularly important roles forvocabulary and morphological awareness. Considering just morphology, fourmorphology skills each explained meaningful variance (13-17%) in readingcomprehension, together explaining halfthe variance in standardized reading comprehension. Considering eachlanguage area, vocabulary, the four morphology skills, and syntax were shown toeach explain meaningful variance, ranging from 9-13%, together explaining 62.9%of the variance in reading comprehension. Conclusions: Findings are interpreted within the Reading Systems framework. Findings confirm the role ofvocabulary, morphology, and syntax in supporting reading comprehension andsuggest a relatively stronger role for vocabulary and morphological awareness.The meaningful role of the four morphological skills also suggests a broad rolefor morphology. Implications for theory, research, and practice are shared.

Investigating Reading Comprehension in Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities: Evaluating the Simple View of Reading.

Reading comprehension difficulties are common in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID), but the influences of underlying abilities related to reading comprehension in this group have rarely been investigated. One aim of this study was to investigate the Simple View of Reading as a theoretical framework to describe cognitive and linguistic abilities predicting individual differences in reading comprehension in adolescents with non-specific ID. A second aim was to investigate whether predictors of listening comprehension and reading comprehension suggest that individuals with ID have a delayed pattern of development (copying early grade variance in reading comprehension) or a different pattern of development involving a new or an unusual pattern of cognitive and linguistic predictors. A sample of 136 adolescents with non-specific ID was assessed on reading comprehension, decoding, linguistic, and cognitive measures. The hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation models. The results showed that the Simple View of Reading was not applicable in explaining reading comprehension in this group, however, the concurrent predictors of comprehension (vocabulary and phonological executive-loaded working memory) followed a delayed profile.