Subjects: Psychology >> Educational Psychology submitted time 2023-09-27
Abstract： Reading is important for children’s future academic success. Clarifying the mechanisms underlying reading ability has been a heated issue in reading research for decades. Most previous studies have focused solely on reading comprehension but scarcely paid attention to the mechanisms underlying reading fluency throughout elementary school. Reading fluency at the text level has been acknowledged as one of the indicators of children’s overall reading competence. Therefore, the present study aimed to clarify the shareability and specificity of the mechanisms underlying Chinese children’s reading comprehension and reading fluency across different developmental stages.
We recruited a total of 416 Chinese children in grades 2, 4 and 6 (lower, middle and upper stages) of elementary school and were then followed up for half a year. In the fall semester (Time 1), a series of tasks, including general cognitive ability; working memory; phonological, orthographic and morphological awareness; rapid automatized naming (RAN); word recognition accuracy; word recognition fluency and vocabulary knowledge, were administered. In the second or spring semester (Time 2), reading comprehension and reading fluency were administered. Three mediation models were fitted to the data with T1 morphological awareness and RAN as predictors, T1 word recognition accuracy, word recognition fluency, and vocabulary knowledge as mediators and T2 reading comprehension and reading fluency as outcomes. The remaining variables were controlled in all the three models.
Results indicated that morphological awareness and RAN significantly predicted reading comprehension and reading fluency at T2 via word recognition accuracy among children in the lower stage after controlling for the effects of T1 general cognitive ability, T1 working memory and T1 phonological and orthographic awareness. The mediating effect of T1 word recognition fluency in the contribution of T1 RAN to T2 reading fluency was also significant. However, in the middle and upper stages, the indirect effects of T1 morphological awareness and T1 RAN on T2 reading comprehension were not significant; for T2 reading fluency, the mediating role of T1 word recognition accuracy in the effect of T1 morphological awareness was significant in both stages, but the mediated role of T1 word recognition fluency was only significant in the middle stage. Moreover, T1 RAN contributed to it via T1 word recognition accuracy and fluency.
These findings attest to both the shareability and specificity in the mechanisms underlying reading comprehension and reading fluency across different developmental stages. These findings suggest that reading fluency should be incorporated as a legitimate index of children’s reading ability. They further imply that the developmental stages require consideration when exploring the mechanisms underlying the effects of morphological awareness and RAN on reading abilities (comprehension and fluency). This study provides empirical evidence for understanding the science of reading development among Chinese children and has important implications for future reading research and educational intervention.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The auditory channel is disabled for people who are deaf and hard of hearing, so they have to rely heavily on visual language — lip-reading and sign language — to develop their reading ability. Lip-reading can help deaf and hard-of-hearing people to form phonological representation, develop vocabulary knowledge, and promote word reading and reading comprehension. Oral and written language processing activates sign language, which affects all levels of reading ability for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Future research should explore the role of reading skills such as phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in the effect of visual language on reading ability, and develop a theoretical model that explains the mechanisms underlying reading acquisition by visual language for Chinese people who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Subjects: Psychology >> Educational Psychology submitted time 2020-01-10
Abstract： The auditory channel is disabled for people who are deaf and hard of hearing, so they have to rely heavily on visual language — lip-reading and sign language — to develop their reading ability. Lip-reading can help deaf and hard-of-hearing people to form phonological representation, develop vocabulary knowledge, and promote word reading and reading comprehension. Oral and written language processing activates sign language, which affects all levels of reading ability for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Future research should explore the role of reading skills such as phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in the effect of visual language on reading ability, and develop a theoretical model that explains the mechanisms underlying reading acquisition by visual language for Chinese people who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-05-13
Abstract： " Vocabulary knowledge is one of the most important predictors of reading comprehension. According to the DVC (decoding, vocabulary, comprehension) reading skill triangle model (Perfetti, 2010), reading comprehension is dependent on knowing the meanings of words being read. At the same time, readers can infer the meanings of unfamiliar words encountered in reading. Therefore, a reciprocal relationship may exist between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, which is not documented in previous research. The aim of the present study is to examine the relation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in different grades of elementary school. A total of 399 students from first, third and fifth grades were tested on vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension tasks at two time points over one year, along with phonological awareness, morphological awareness and nonverbal reasoning at Time 1 (the fall semester in grade 1, 3 and 5) as control variables. A cross-lagged model was used to investigate the relation between vocabulary and reading comprehension in each grade span. The results showed that, after controlling for phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and nonverbal reasoning, the relation between vocabulary and comprehension varied in different developmental stages. Vocabulary knowledge did not significantly predict later reading comprehension in primary grades (grade 1 to grade 2). Bidirectional predictive relation was found between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in middle grades (grade 3 to grade 4). Vocabulary knowledge in grade 5 did not predict later reading comprehension in grade 6, while reading comprehension in grade 5 significantly predicted later vocabulary knowledge in grade 6. The results support reading stage theory (Chall, 1983) and supplement the DVC reading skill triangle model (Perfetti, 2010). The relation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension among Chinese elementary children changes over time. The primary grades are in the stage of “learning to read”, children’s vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension are mainly affected by the basic cognitive and linguistic skills. The reciprocal relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension is evident in middle grades. The enrichment of vocabulary knowledge enables children to read skilled, and the comprehension of texts can also help children learn new words from texts. Reading comprehension plays an increasingly important role in vocabulary development from middle to upper elementary grades. These findings have implications for reading instruction in Chinese at different developmental stages.
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