Linguistic and Cognitive Profiles of 8- to 15-Year-Old Children With Specific Reading Comprehension Difficulties

This article presents two studies investigating the role of executive functioning in written text comprehension in children and adolescents. In a first study, the involvement of executive functions in reading comprehension performance was examined in normally developing children in fifth grade. Two aspects of text comprehension were differentiated: literal and inferential processes. The results demonstrated that while three aspects of executive functioning (working memory, planning, and inhibition processes) were significantly predictive of the performance on the inferential questions of the comprehension test, these factors did not predict the scores on the literal tasks of the test. In a second experiment, the linguistic and cognitive profiles of children in third/fifth and seventh/ninth grades with a specific reading comprehension deficit were examined. This analysis revealed that the deficits experienced by the less skilled comprehenders in both the linguistic and the executive domains could evolve over time. As a result, linguistic factors do not make it possible to distinguish between good and poor comprehenders among the group of older children, whereas the difficulties relating to executive processing remain stable over development. These findings are discussed in the context of the need to take account of the executive difficulties that characterize less skilled comprehenders of any age, especially for remediation purposes.

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Age- and ability-related differences in young readers' use of conjunctions

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000905007014 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 32 (4) ◽

pp. 877-892 ◽

Cited By ~ 39

Author(s):

KATE CAIN ◽

NIKOLE PATSON ◽

LEANNE ANDREWS

Keyword(s):

Text Comprehension ◽

Poor Performance ◽

Older Children ◽

Young Readers ◽

Poor Comprehenders ◽

Sentence Level ◽

Comprehension Skills ◽

Different Types ◽

Children's Speech

Two studies investigating young readers' use of conjunctions are reported. In Study One, 145 eight- to ten-year-olds completed one of two narrative cloze tasks in which different types of conjunction were deleted. Performance for additive conjunctions was not affected by age in this study, but older children were more likely to select the target conjunction than were younger children for temporal, causal, and adversative terms. Performance was superior in the cloze task in which they were given a restricted choice of responses (three vs. seven). In Study Two, 35 eight- and nine-year-old good and poor comprehenders completed the three-choice cloze task. The poor comprehenders were less likely to select the target terms in general. Sentence-level comprehension skills did not account for their poor performance. The results indicate that understanding of the semantic relations expressed by conjunctions is still developing long after these terms are used correctly in children's speech. The findings are discussed in relation to the role of conjunctions in text comprehension.

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INVESTIGATING READING COMPREHENSION PROCESSES IN ESP EDUCATION

Nasledje Kragujevac ◽

10.46793/naskg2149.091sg ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (49) ◽

pp. 91-105

Author(s):

Maja Stanojević Gocić ◽

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Text Comprehension ◽

Strategic Behavior ◽

Progress Monitoring ◽

Text Processing ◽

Main Idea ◽

Schema Theory ◽

Specific Information ◽

World Knowledge ◽

Specific Reading

Reading is regarded as a cognitive process of meaning construction, or an interactive process that comprises low-level processes of word recognition and high-level processing of ideas. Schema theory implies the meaning of а text is not embedded in the text itself; it is actually created in an active manner through interaction between the reader and the text, in which readers use their world knowledge to decode text meaning. Accordingly, readers bring their ideas, experience and previously gained knowledge into reading comprehension processes. The attainment of specific reading goals, including main idea comprehension and extracting specific information from the text, requires the employment of various reading strategies. In that sense, strategic behavior is deployed by proficient readers; it enables them to facilitate and improve text comprehension, which is the ultimate aim of the reading skill. 10 ESP students of the College of Applied Professional Studies in Vranje took part in this research as respondents. After completing their reading comprehension assignments, students reported on those tasks by virtue of think-aloud protocols. This type of research may provide an insight into specific problems students encounter during text processing activities, as well as strategies they employ to resolve them, which would facilitate the evaluation of reading performance and progress monitoring. The results imply that strategic training would enable ESP students to efficiently attain both general and specific reading goals.

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The role of working memory in speciﬁc reading comprehension diﬃculties

Working Memory and Neurodevelopmental Disorders ◽

10.4324/9780203013403-9 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 103-126

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Reading Comprehension ◽

Specific Reading

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Prevalence of Reading Comprehension Difficulties in Spanish

European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education ◽

10.1989/ejihpe.v3i2.28 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 113-123

Author(s):

Eduardo García ◽

Juan E. Jiménez ◽

Desirée González ◽

Elisabeth Jiménez-Suárez

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Secondary Education ◽

Learning Disability ◽

Canary Islands ◽

Second Grade ◽

Decoding Skills ◽

Large Sample ◽

Specific Reading ◽

Poor Comprehenders ◽

Poor Comprehension

The main purpose of this research was to analyze the prevalence and diversity of reading comprehension difficulties in Spanish students of primary and secondary schools. We evaluated a large sample of students from the Canary Islands region that stretched from second grade of primary until the final year of secondary education. Once the percentage of students with reading comprehension difficulties was determined, we classified them in different categories: students with low intelligence, students with specific reading comprehension (poor comprehenders), students with deficit on reading words/pseudowords, absentee students and inmigrants. The results show that 20.2% of the student population present serious problems in understanding a text and 6.7% of the total is included in the category of poor comprehenders. Also we found a group of students with difficulties in decoding skills but whose performance on comprehension tasks was normal, showing that not all learning disability students have poor comprehension.

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The Development of Integrated Thematic Learning Devices Based on Interactive Compensatory Model to Improve Students’ Reading Comprehension in Islamic Elementary School

Jurnal Pendidikan Islam ◽

10.15575/jpi.v6i2.8305 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 127-144

Author(s):

Ryan Dwi Puspita ◽

Susanti Agustina ◽

Asep Deni Gustiana ◽

Duhita Savira Wardani

Keyword(s):

Elementary School ◽

Reading Comprehension ◽

Text Comprehension ◽

Fifth Grade ◽

Learning Tools ◽

Literature Study ◽

Compensatory Model ◽

Stage Of Development ◽

Information Text ◽

Thematic Learning

This study aims to examine the effect of using interactive compensatory model (ICM)-based integrated thematic learning tools to improve students’ reading comprehension of information text comprehension for fifth grade elementary school. This research was conducted in three stages. The first phase of the preliminary study included a literature study, field surveys and expert-validated initial product preparation. The second stage of development included limited trials and extensive trials through experimental methods. The third stage was product testing and socialization of the results to try out its efficacy. Data were obtained through observation, interviews, questionnaires and test (pre-test and post-test). This study used a sample of 504 grade fifth students in 12 elementary schools in Bandung Regency. The results of this study indicate that the use of ICM-based integrated thematic learning tools has a significant effect on students’ improvement for reading comprehension on information text for fifth grade elementary school. This is evidenced by the difference in students’ reading comprehension ability before and after learning using ICM-based integrated thematic learning tools. This research has implications for the ease with which teachers can achieve learning objectives with the support of teaching materials, media, worksheets and interesting and practical activities that can stimulate students to improve their reading comprehension skills.

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Short-term training on working memory updating and metacognition in primary school: The effect on reading comprehension

School Psychology International ◽

10.1177/0143034319881671 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 40 (6) ◽

pp. 641-657

Author(s):

Caterina Artuso ◽

Barbara Carretti ◽

Paola Palladino

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Reading Comprehension ◽

Text Comprehension ◽

Text Processing ◽

Transfer Effects ◽

Memory Updating ◽

Written Text ◽

Effective Strategies ◽

Text Structures ◽

Working Memory Updating

This study analyzed the potential transfer effects on reading comprehension skills of two different training programs administered to 9- to 10-year-old children attending fourth grade classes. One training program was based on a working memory updating paradigm (i.e., words, digits, sentence and text updating working memory tasks). The other program was based on metacomprehension activities focused on text structures, genres, text sensitivity, and text comprehension strategies. Performance was compared pre and post training on running memory, text updating, and reading comprehension tasks. The results showed that significant gains were obtained in both text updating and reading comprehension tasks, with a far transfer effect for both types of training. Limited nearest transfer effects suggest that gains could be due to acquisition of effective strategies in both programs, with training suitable for improving written text processing; however, performance did not differ between programs.

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Language in science performance: do good readers perform better?

European Journal of Psychology of Education ◽

10.1007/s10212-019-00453-5 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Nadine Cruz Neri ◽

Karin Guill ◽

Jan Retelsdorf

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Scientific Literacy ◽

Word Count ◽

Linguistic Features ◽

Good Readers ◽

Written Text ◽

Family Language ◽

Science Performance

AbstractScience performance is highly affected by students’ reading comprehension. Recently, there has been a growing attention to the role of linguistic features for science performance, but findings are ambivalent, especially when looking into item word count. The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction of students’ reading comprehension and item word count of given science measures on performance, controlling for students’ cognitive abilities, gender, family language, and school track. The sample consisted of N = 2051 German students in grades 10 and 11. Students completed (scientific) literacy measures. We then applied a multilevel logistic regression to investigate the hypothesized interaction effect of reading comprehension and word count on students’ science performance. The results showed a significant interaction of students’ reading comprehension and word count on science performance, controlling for several covariates. Particularly students with high reading comprehension benefit from science items with increasing word count. Our findings empirically support previous research, showing that reading comprehension is crucial for science performance and enhances the interaction between reading comprehension and linguistic features of written text in science subjects. Finally, theoretical and practical implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

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The role of accessibility of semantic word knowledge in monolingual and bilingual fifth-grade reading

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716412000203 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 34 (6) ◽

pp. 1195-1217 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

M. CREMER ◽

R. SCHOONEN

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Reading Proficiency ◽

Semantic Knowledge ◽

Path Model ◽

Fifth Grade ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Word Knowledge ◽

Word Decoding ◽

Language Background

ABSTRACTThe influences of word decoding, availability, and accessibility of semantic word knowledge on reading comprehension were investigated for monolingual (n = 65) and bilingual children (n = 70). Despite equal decoding abilities, monolingual children outperformed bilingual children with regard to reading comprehension and availability of semantic word knowledge. Individual differences in reading comprehension were accounted for by differences in availability of semantic word knowledge and to a lesser extent by speed of access to this semantic knowledge. Speed of access accounted for variance in reading comprehension beyond the variance accounted for by decoding and availability of semantic knowledge. A path model suggests that reading comprehension differences between monolinguals and bilinguals are mediated by availability of semantic knowledge. Analyses showed no significant interaction between predictor variables and language background. A multigroup analysis distinguishing proficient and less proficient comprehenders showed a small difference between the two proficiency groups, suggesting that the lexical–semantic variables are more predictive of reading proficiency in the proficient group than in the less proficient group.

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