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

Author(s):  
Jamie L. Metsala ◽  
Erin Sparks ◽  
Margaret David ◽  
Nicole Conrad ◽  
S. Hélène Deacon
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1283-1304
Author(s):  
Redab Al Janaideh ◽  
Alexandra Gottardo ◽  
Sana Tibi ◽  
Johanne Paradis ◽  
Xi Chen

AbstractCanada has resettled more than 57,000 Syrian refugees since 2015 (Government of Canada, 2017). However, little is known about refugee children’s language and literacy development. The present study evaluated Syrian refugee children’s performance on language and literacy measures in English and Arabic, and examined whether the simple view of reading model is applicable in both of their languages. Participants consisted of 115 Syrian refugee children 6–13 years of age. They received a battery of language and literacy measures including word reading, vocabulary, oral narratives, and reading comprehension in both English and Arabic. Compared to the normative samples, refugee children performed poorly on English standardized measures. They also demonstrated difficulties in Arabic, as more than half of the children were not able to read in the language. Despite the relatively low performance, there was evidence to support the simple view of reading model in both languages. In addition, oral language skills played a larger role in English reading comprehension in the older group than the younger group. This age-group comparison was not carried out in Arabic due to reduced sample size. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.


Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Theodora Papastefanou ◽  
Theodoros Marinis ◽  
Daisy Powell

The current study aimed at investigating the performance of bilingual children with English as an additional language (EAL) on language and literacy measures compared to monolinguals across the first four years of primary school in the U.K. Moreover, it addressed whether bilinguals and monolinguals’ performance on reading comprehension was consistent with the Simple View of Reading. An additional area of interest was to examine the extent to which use of and exposure to both heritage and majority language affected the development of the children’s reading comprehension in both of their spoken languages. A total of forty bilingual and forty monolingual children were assessed in oral language skills and decoding in Year 1 and Year 3 in primary school. After one school year, they were assessed in oral language skills, decoding, and reading comprehension in Year 2 and Year 4. The results showed that the bilinguals performed better than the monolinguals in decoding in all years, suggesting that exposure to a first language with transparent orthography (Greek) may benefit the development of word reading skills. However, the bilinguals scored lower in oral language skills and reading comprehension than their monolingual peers. This finding underlined the significant role of oral language skills in the development of bilinguals’ reading comprehension. Both oral language skills and decoding contributed to reading comprehension in bilinguals but the effects of oral language skills on reading comprehension were stronger than the effects of decoding. Finally, we found that language use of the minority language outside the home could significantly predict reading comprehension in the minority language, underlining the importance of language exposure through complementary schools and other activities outside the home to the maintenance and development of the heritage language.


2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mercedes Spencer ◽  
Richard K. Wagner

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the comprehension problems of children who have a specific reading comprehension deficit (SCD), which is characterized by poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding. The meta-analysis included 86 studies of children with SCD who were assessed in reading comprehension and oral language (vocabulary, listening comprehension, storytelling ability, and semantic and syntactic knowledge). Results indicated that children with SCD had deficits in oral language (d = −0.78, 95% confidence interval, CI [−0.89, −0.68], but these deficits were not as severe as their deficit in reading comprehension (d = −2.78, 95% CI [−3.01, −2.54]). When compared with reading comprehension age–matched normal readers, the oral language skills of the two groups were comparable (d = 0.32, 95% CI [−0.49, 1.14]), which suggests that the oral language weaknesses of children with SCD represent a developmental delay rather than developmental deviance. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.


Author(s):  
Dacian Dorin Dolean ◽  
Arne Lervåg ◽  
Laura Visu-Petra ◽  
Monica Melby-Lervåg

AbstractThe simple view of reading proposes that the development of reading comprehension in early elementary school is best predicted by children’s fluent decoding and oral language skills. Recent studies challenge this view and suggest that executive functions should also be included in this theoretical model; however, the empirical evidence is not strong enough to clearly support or refute this hypothesis. In this short-term longitudinal study, we used latent variables to test whether executive functions have direct effects on the development of reading comprehension in 184 Romanian second graders, beyond fluent decoding and oral language skills. The results indicated that the initial stages of reading comprehension were associated with executive functions, but only the language skills could independently predict the development of reading comprehension. Our findings show that executive functions do not have a significant direct effect on the development of reading comprehension in early readers beyond fluent decoding and oral language skills in languages with transparent orthography. The results also suggest that once children learn to decode well, their language skills (and not their executive functions) have a strong effect on the development of reading comprehension. Therefore, reading interventions in elementary school should stress on the development of oral language skills.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry W. Larson

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