Decoding as a Component of Reading Comprehension among Secondary Students

To examine concurrently and retrospectively the language abilities of children with specific reading comprehension deficits ("poor comprehenders") and compare them to typical readers and children with specific decoding deficits ("poor decoders"). In Study 1, the authors identified 57 poor comprehenders, 27 poor decoders, and 98 typical readers on the basis of 8th-grade reading achievement. These subgroups' performances on 8th-grade measures of language comprehension and phonological processing were investigated. In Study 2, the authors examined retrospectively subgroups' performances on measures of language comprehension and phonological processing in kindergarten, 2nd, and 4th grades. Word recognition and reading comprehension in 2nd and 4th grades were also considered. Study 1 showed that poor comprehenders had concurrent deficits in language comprehension but normal abilities in phonological processing. Poor decoders were characterized by the opposite pattern of language abilities. Study 2 results showed that subgroups had language (and word recognition) profiles in the earlier grades that were consistent with those observed in 8th grade. Subgroup differences in reading comprehension were inconsistent across grades but reflective of the changes in the components of reading comprehension over time. The results support the simple view of reading and the phonological deficit hypothesis. Furthermore, the findings indicate that a classification system that is based on the simple view has advantages over standard systems that focus only on word recognition and/or reading comprehension.

Reading comprehension is vital for academic success and active engagement in society. However, persistent challenges in reading comprehension have been observed across educational levels, underscoring the need for deeper research. While linguistic and cognitive components have been traditionally studied, the impact of motivational aspects on comprehension difficulties remains underexplored. This dissertation aimed to address this gap by investigating the effects of various dimensions of reading motivation on specific types of reading comprehension difficulties among Chilean Primary Education students. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the research comprised three studies. Study 1 developed and tested a comprehensive reading motivation scale. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses validated the scale's structure and assessed its reliability. Study 2 explored the relationship between reading motivation dimensions and reading profiles (mixed deficit, poor decoders, poor comprehenders, and good readers). Cluster analysis identified distinct reading profiles, and multivariate analyses examined differences in motivation dimensions among these profiles. Study 3 employed qualitative methods to delve into students' perceptions of reading value and self-concept, particularly among those with reading difficulties. Students' reasons for engagement or disengagement with reading activities were explored through interviews. The participants were 172 students from 2nd to 6th grade from three public schools in Santiago. Quantitative assessments included reading comprehension, word reading, language comprehension, and a reading motivation questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with a subsample of 75 students. Findings from this dissertation include differences in motivation between groups of readers, especially for undermining reading motivations and the distinction of readers’ self-concept and value. The studies offer insights into the nuanced relationship between reading motivation and comprehension difficulties and the need for further research on this population.

In this study we investigate the role of linguistic knowledge, fluency and meta‐cognitive knowledge in Dutch reading comprehension of monolingual and bilingual adolescent academic low achievers in the Netherlands. Results show that these components are substantially associated with reading comprehension. However, their role appears to be different for the monolingual and bilingual low achievers. There are interactions between knowledge and fluency components with membership of the monolingual or bilingual group of low achievers, indicating that knowledge is more important in explaining reading comprehension of bilinguals, whereas fluency is more important in explaining the monolinguals’ reading comprehension. Explanations of this difference between monolingual and bilingual low achievers are discussed.

Purpose This study examined resilience mechanisms influencing Grade 9 reading fluency and reading comprehension skills. Performance in reading fluency and comprehension in Grade 1 (age 7–8 years) was considered a risk factor for Grade 9 (age 15–16 years) reading performance. We focused on the potential promotive and protective effects of cognitive skills, motivational and parental factors, and gender on reading. Promotive factors benefit all individuals regardless of their level of risk, while protective factors generate more benefit for individuals at higher risk compared with those at lower risk. Method Data from a longitudinal Finnish sample of approximately 2,000 individuals were analyzed. Promotive and protective factors were examined separately for reading fluency and comprehension. Promotive factors were identified as main effects while controlling for Grade 1 performance. Protective factors were identified based on significant interactions with the risk factor, i.e. Grade 1 reading fluency and comprehension skills, and the signaling of gap-closing effects between those at lower and higher risk. Results Most examined skills and factors were identified as promotive factors for reading fluency and comprehension. Four protective factors emerged for reading fluency: pre-literacy skills, arithmetic fluency, oral language, and homework persistence. Oral language was identified as a protective factor for reading comprehension. Two additional significant interactions emerged for reading fluency: parental teaching of reading and parental support with reading-related homework, but they did not conform to the classic protective factor model. Conclusion This study advances the application of constructs indicating resilience in reading research and sheds light on factors that provide promotive and protective support for early reading skills development.

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.

Reading comprehension is among the essential reading skills students must acquire before advancing to the next stage of their education in the current technological era. Despite its importance, many students still struggle with the said macro skill. This study utilized a pre-experimental research design, specifically a group pre-test and post-test research design, to examine further the effect of the Free Translated Passages using the Free Translation Method as a guide to uncover possible improvements in the reading comprehension level of the Grade 9 learners under frustration level. The content-validated and adapted-modified instrument was administered in every class discussion of each topic. Scores from 30 students were analysed using a paired sample t-test to determine the significant differences in reading comprehension levels before and after the intervention. The results revealed that the Free Translated Passages using the Free Translation Method had both positive and negative impacts on the components of the students’ reading comprehension. These concluded that the Free Translated Passages using the Free Translation Method had significantly improved students’ vocabulary, literal comprehension, and inferential comprehension. However, in terms of inferential comprehension, more practice and drills are expected to be executed to help them improve in inferencing. Hence, administration and teachers of secondary schools may consider the use of other Free Translated Passages using the Free Translation Method to also improve students’ other reading comprehension components. They may also employ other ways of crafting a new set of passages that students might be more interested and engaged in reading.

This study focuses on first year biology students at Stockholm University who are assumed by the Swedish university system to be able to read textbooks in English. These students are compared with first year biology students at two British universities, all of whom were first language (L1) readers of English. Several components of reading comprehension are compared. The Swedish readers are subdivided on the basis of a reading comprehension test into two subgroups, referred to as the ‘very’ advanced and the ‘less’ advanced second language (L2) groups. Other measures of reading skill are then used to compare the two Swedish groups with each other and with the L1 group. The results indicate that the very advanced Swedish readers of English are fully comparable to the L1 readers on reading comprehension and inferencing tasks. However, these very advanced L2 students were nonetheless somewhat weaker on vocabulary, recall, and word recognition (lexical decision) tasks when compared to the L1 students. It is speculated that the L2 readers generally use inferencing, in the form of general world knowledge and bridging inferences, as a means of compensating for lack of automaticity in low level processing. The less advanced Swedish readers, who comprise the majority of the L2 students, were considerably weaker than the very advanced students on all tests, suggesting that these students may in fact be considerably disadvantaged in having to read course material (in this case biology) in English. A coefficient of variation was calculated for the word recognition speed test and the sentence coherence recognition speed test as an indicator of automaticity for the L1 group and the L2 group as a whole. For word recognition there was a clear difference, but for sentence coherence the difference was less apparent. A possible explanation is that some of the sentence coherence test items were contrary to expectation and forced the L1 subjects to slow down and consciously work out whether the sentence was coherent or not. The general conclusions are (1) that the majority of Swedish students do not meet the English reading expectations of the university system, and (2) a minority of the Swedish students, although they had lower scores on vocabulary and recall tasks and less automaticity on the response-time tasks than the L1 readers, seemed to compensate for these weaknesses with inferencing skills, allowing them to achieve comparable reading comprehension product to the L1 readers.

ABSTRACTIn the present study, we used latent variable structural equation modeling to investigate relations between oral language, decoding, and two components of executive function (cognitive flexibility and working memory) and reading comprehension in a sample of 271 native English-speaking 9.00- to 14.83-year-olds. Results of the mediation analyses indicated that both oral language and decoding fully mediated the relations between working memory and cognitive flexibility and reading comprehension. These findings suggest that executive function is likely associated with reading comprehension through its relation with decoding and oral language and provide additional support for the role of executive function in reading comprehension as a potentially crucial precursor to skilled reading.

The focal point of this research is to gauge the relationship between the reading comprehension level, problem-solving skills and academic performance of Grades 6 pupils of all the elementary schools in Carmen West District, Division of Bohol, Philippines. Specifically, this study sought to determine the academic performance of the elementary pupils in terms of four key subjects, namely: English, Science, Mathematics and other subjects such as Filipino, HEKASI, EPP and MAPEH. Further, this study presented also the profile of the pupils’ reading comprehension based on the following levels: Literal, Interpretative, Critical-Analysis and Application and their problem-solving skills’ profile. Pearson Moment Product Correlation Coefficient was employed to determine the correlation between the level of reading comprehension and the two identified variables, namely: academic performance and problem-solving skills of the respondents. To prove the validity and reliability of the obtained Pearson r, it was checked against the Table of Critical Values of the Pearson r at .05 level of significance. On the reading comprehension level and academic performance, results unfolded that there is a significant correlation between reading comprehension and academic performance and this finding implies that the reading comprehension is a contributory factor to improve pupils’ academic performance. Moreover, on the reading comprehension level and problem-solving skills, the result indicates that there is a significant correlation between reading comprehension and problem-solving skills. This study concludes that reading comprehension is a contributory factor to the improvement of pupils’ academic performance and problem-solving performance. The researcher recommends that school administrators look into the possibilities of providing more supplementary materials in the form of books and other reading materials so that pupils can use it for further learning and to organize seminars and workshops, special trainings in order to fully equip the teachers with more knowledge and skills in teaching reading strategies. Teachers may organize functional educational programs, remedial classes and enrichment activities to improve pupils’ comprehension skills through systematic comprehension instruction.

Based on data from 156 typically developing 10–12-year-olds from Sweden, reading comprehension skills were studied in three subgroups: those classified with specific poor word decoding skills (n = 10), those with specific poor language comprehension (n = 12), and those with mixed difficulties in word decoding and language comprehension (n = 11). The mixed poor group achieved significantly lower scores than both specific groups in reading comprehension, and was the only group displaying poor reading comprehension test results relative to the performance of the full sample. Results are indicative of the necessity of a combined effect of poor word decoding and language in reading comprehension difficulties for this group. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Introduction: In recent years, it has been evidenced in the university environment that students have difficulties in reading comprehension of different types of texts.Objective: The objective of this study is to analyze the performance of reading comprehension in 1st year health education students in southern Chile. Method: The research has a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional and descriptive design approach with a non-probabilistic convenience sampling obtaining a total of 88 students from the careers of Dentistry, Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy. The LECTUM 7 instrument was applied to assess reading comprehension. The performance of reading comprehension and according to sociodemographic covariates is described. Results: The results reveal that 65% of the students present an average performance. Performance was better in explicit reading comprehension than implicit reading comprehension and better in textual comprehension than pragmatics and criticism. Finally, significant differences are evident according to sex and type of educational establishment and a greater trend in the averages by career and age. Conclusions: These findings emphasize the importance of enhancing implicit, pragmatic, and critical reading comprehension in university health students.

The purpose of this review was to introduce readers of Child Development to the meta-analytic structural equationmodeling (MASEM) technique. Provided are a background to the MASEM approach, a discussion of its utility in the study of child development, and an application of this technique in the study of reading comprehension (RC) development. MASEM uses a two-stage approach: first, it provides a composite correlation matrix across included variables, and second, it fits hypothesized a priori models. The provided MASEM application used a large sample (N=1,205,581) of students (ages 3.5-46.225) from 155 studies to investigate the factor structure and relations among components of RC. The practical implications of using this technique to study development are discussed.

Despite many previous studies on reading fluency (measured by a maze task) as a screening measure, our understanding is limited about the utility of silent reading fluency in predicting later reading comprehension and contextual influences (e.g., schools and districts) on reading comprehension achievement. In the present study we examined: (1) How much variance in reading comprehension scores exist between students, classes, schools, and districts for children in grades 3–10; and (2) whether silent reading fluency measured by a maze task adds a unique contribution to the prediction of spring reading comprehension after accounting for fall spelling and reading comprehension. Results showed that a substantial amount of variance in reading comprehension is attributable to differences among classrooms (21–46 %), particularly in grades 6–10. In addition, approximately 3–5 % of variance in reading comprehension was attributable to differences among schools and districts. Silent reading fluency also explained a unique amount of variance in spring reading comprehension after accounting for students’ performance in reading comprehension and spelling in the fall. Unique variance (pseudo-R 2) varied from 2 to 10 % at the student, class, school, and district levels. These results suggest that a maze task has potential utility as a screening measure of reading comprehension for students in grades 3–10. Furthermore, differences among classrooms, schools, and districts matter for students’ reading comprehension achievement.

SummaryThe present study analyzed the joint predictive role of verbal working memory (WM), verbal short‐term memory (STM), fluid intelligence, and intelligence mindset in reading comprehension, controlling for prior reading comprehension performance, in typically developing Spanish‐speaking school‐aged children. A sample of 83 children aged 9–10 years old were evaluated at fourth grade of primary school, with measures of verbal WM, verbal STM, fluid intelligence, intelligence mindset and reading comprehension; then with the measure of reading comprehension after 1 year, during fifth grade. Results showed that controlling for prior performance, verbal WM and fluid intelligence significantly predicted reading comprehension after 1 year, whereas verbal STM and intelligence mindset did not make a significant contribution. These results indicate that when jointly considered, a higher level of verbal WM and fluid intelligence in fourth grade is related to a better performance in reading comprehension in fifth grade. Possible explanations and implications of these results are discussed.

For many years, ESL educators have placed significant emphasis on improving the reading abilities of primary and secondary education students. Nonetheless, despite these efforts, many university students still encounter difficulties in comprehending academic reading materials. This inadequacy in reading comprehension may be ascribed, at least in part, to the insufficient development of metalinguistic competence, which includes a set of linguistic skills, such as morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. Previous empirical studies have provided compelling evidence of the role of morphological awareness, syntactic awareness, and lexical knowledge in reading comprehension across various age groups such as children and adolescents. Notwithstanding these findings, the precise role and contributions of each determinant remains inconclusive and contradictory, particularly for university students. Hence, this pilot study aimed to validate the adapted instruments used and to bridge the existing scientific lacunae on the linguistic determinants that could predict reading comprehension among Malaysian ESL undergraduates. This study draws upon three prominent theoretical underpinnings: the Reading Systems Framework, the Vocabulary Knowledge-Reading Comprehension Model, and the Automaticity Reading Theory. This study adopted a quantitative approach with a correlational design and recruited ESL undergraduates (n=35) from a public university. Five tests were administered, which included Morphological Awareness Test, Syntactic Awareness Test, Vocabulary Levels Test, Word Associates Test, and Reading Comprehension Test. Data were analysed using statistical techniques, such as descriptive statistics, normality testing, reliability, and Pearson product-moment correlation analysis. The findings revealed significant correlations between all linguistic determinants and reading comprehension, establishing promising groundwork for further large-scale study. This preliminary work not only contributes to the validation of measurement instruments in the Malaysian ESL context but also offers valuable insights into the metalinguistic dimensions of academic reading at the tertiary level so as to address a crucial scientific lacunae in the literature on L2 reading comprehension.