Relative Contribution of Reading Fluency and Vocabulary Knowledge in Predicting Korean EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension

Poor literacy achievement among English learners has contributed significantly to their high dropout rates, poor job prospects, and high poverty rates. The National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth has suggested that English learners benefit from the same direct, systematic instruction in the five essential components of reading shown effective for native-English-speaking students: phonemic awareness, phonics, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Implementing effective reading instructional practices for English learners may reduce the literacy achievement gap between English learners and native English speakers. In this study, we used multiple regression to examine data for 1,376 third-grade Latino English learners to determine the strength of oral English proficiency, oral reading fluency, and academic vocabulary knowledge as predictors of reading comprehension proficiency. Findings of this study indicate a mismatch between English learners’ instructional needs and a widely used reading program component, assessment of words correct per minute (as a measure of oral reading fluency). Significant conclusions of this study suggest that educators seeking to promote the reading comprehension proficiency of Latino English learners consider using WCPM assessments and activities cautiously and strive to allocate more time for instruction and assessment of the prosodic dimension of oral reading fluency and academic vocabulary knowledge and skills.

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A Study on the Relationship between English Reading Comprehension and English Vocabulary Knowledge

Education Research International ◽

10.1155/2015/209154 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2015 ◽

pp. 1-14 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Yu-han Ma ◽

Wen-ying Lin

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Self Efficacy ◽

Word Association ◽

Attitude Scale ◽

Vocabulary Knowledge ◽

Future Research ◽

Vocabulary Size ◽

Morphological Knowledge ◽

Relative Contribution ◽

English Reading

The present study aimed to investigate the overall and relative contribution of four subcomponents of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension. The four vocabulary subcomponents were vocabulary size, word association knowledge, collocation knowledge, and morphological knowledge. The participants were 124 college students from a university in Taipei, Taiwan. Six instruments were employed: (1) a reading comprehension test, (2) a vocabulary size test, (3) a test on word association knowledge and collocation knowledge, (4) a test of morphological knowledge, (5) motivation attitude scale, and (6) a self-efficacy scale. The results can be summarized as follows. First, after the effects of motivation and self-efficacy have been controlled, the four vocabulary subcomponents altogether contributed significantly (20%) to reading comprehension performance. Moreover, depth of vocabulary knowledge (including word association knowledge, collocation knowledge, and morphological knowledge) provided an additional explained variance (6%) in reading comprehension performance over and above vocabulary size. Finally, among the three subcomponents of depth of vocabulary knowledge, collocation knowledge explained the most proportion of variance (5.6%) in contributing to performance on reading comprehension. Based on these findings, some implications and suggestions for future research were provided.

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Does Reading Fluency Predict Reading Comprehension of Korean Middle School EFL Learners?

Modern English Education ◽

10.18095/meeso.2018.19.4.50 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 50-58

Author(s):

Junhee Park

Keyword(s):

Middle School ◽

Reading Comprehension ◽

Reading Fluency ◽

Efl Learners

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Repeated Reading Effect on Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension in Monolingual and Bilingual EFL Learners

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences ◽

10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.253 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 70 ◽

pp. 1778-1786

Author(s):

Maryam Tafaroji Yeganeh

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Reading Fluency ◽

Repeated Reading ◽

Efl Learners

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Exploring the importance of vocabulary for English as an additional language learners’ reading comprehension

Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching ◽

10.14746/ssllt.2021.11.3.3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 351-376

Author(s):

Gavin Brooks ◽

Jon Clenton ◽

Simon Fraser

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Language Learners ◽

Reading Fluency ◽

English Learners ◽

Text Comprehension ◽

Vocabulary Knowledge ◽

Linguistic Knowledge ◽

Word Decoding ◽

Decoding Skills ◽

General Linguistic

This exploratory study represents an attempt to investigate the factors that may affect the reading comprehension abilities of English as an additional language (EAL) learners. For this study, we examined a participant group of 31 (25 EAL and 6 first language English) learners studying at an international school in Japan. We assessed the participants according to four factors shown to influence reading comprehension: vocabulary knowledge, word decoding skills, reading fluency, and general linguistic ability. Our results show that differences in vocabulary knowledge show more variance in reading comprehension scores than the other factors examined in this study, highlighting the importance of vocabulary knowledge for reading comprehension. However, other factors such as reading fluency and general linguistic knowledge are also shown to be moderate to strong predictors of reading comprehension. Based on these results, we suggest that EAL learners need targeted language support to enhance academic text comprehension.

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