Differences in the Components and Relations of a Multidimensional Model of Reading Comprehension in Low and Average 8-to 11-Year-Old French Readers (original) (raw)

The Role of Reading Fluency in Children’s Text Comprehension

Frontiers in Psychology, 2015

Understanding a written text requires some higher cognitive abilities that not all children have. Some children have these abilities, since they understand oral texts; however, they have difficulties with written texts, probably due to problems in reading fluency. The aim of this study was to determine which aspects of reading fluency are related to reading comprehension. Four expositive texts, two written and two read by the evaluator, were presented to a sample of 103 primary school children (third and sixth grade). Each text was followed by four comprehension questions. From this sample we selected two groups of participants in each grade, 10 with good results in comprehension of oral and written texts, and 10 with good results in oral and poor in written comprehension. These 40 subjects were asked to read aloud a new text while they were recorded. Using Praat software some prosodic parameters were measured, such as pausing and reading rate (number and duration of the pauses and utterances), pitch and intensity changes and duration in declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative sentences and also errors and duration in words by frequency and stress. We compared the results of both groups with ANOVAs. The results showed that children with less reading comprehension made more inappropriate pauses and also intersentential pauses before comma than the other group and made more mistakes in content words; significant differences were also found in the final declination of pitch in declarative sentences and in the F0 range in interrogative ones. These results confirm that reading comprehension problems in children are related to a lack in the development of a good reading fluency.

Developmental relations between reading fluency and reading comprehension: A longitudinal study from Grade 1 to Grade 2

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2012

From a developmental framework, relations among list reading fluency, oral and silent reading fluency, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension might be expected to change as children's reading skills develop. We examined developmental relations among these constructs in a latent-variable longitudinal study of first and second graders. Results showed that list reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension in Grade 1, but not in Grade 2, after accounting for text reading fluency (oral or silent) and listening comprehension. In contrast, text reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension in Grade 2, but not in Grade 1, after accounting for list reading fluency and listening comprehension. When oral reading fluency and silent reading fluency were compared, oral reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension after accounting for silent reading fluency in Grade 1, whereas silent reading fluency was uniquely related to reading comprehension after accounting for oral reading fluency in Grade 2.

The Relations between Reading Comprehension and Reading Fluency: Their Reciprocal Roles as an Indicator and Predictor

In the current research, we aimed to explore the relations between reading comprehension and reading fluency and their connections with each other as an indicator and a predictor. For this overall aim, a total of 100 students from the seventh-grade level were enrolled. This research took place in fall semester, 2015, in Turkey's Denizli province. The participants from all grade levels were willing and available to take part in the present study. Informed consent letters were obtained from all of the participants and their parents or guardians. The participants were relatively homogenous and of middle socioeconomic (SES) status. They ranged in age from 13 through 15 years. For the measures of fluency, components were taken from students' oral reading of the same texts including narrative and expository according to grade levels. After then, the students' reading comprehension levels were assessed. Every comprehension test for the grade levels included a narrative text and an expository text, and 12 questions were prepared for every text, six of which were literal and another five of which were inferential. The path analyses were used to identify the relations between reading fluency and reading comprehension. According to the results of the research, some recommendations were given.

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension Skills in Second-Grade Children

Reading & Writing Quarterly, 2014

Fluent readers can read connected text with accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. Without practice, automaticity cannot develop in reading, and readers must focus their attention on decoding, limiting their ability to simultaneously comprehend. Researchers have traditionally assumed that fluency and comprehension have a unidirectional relationship whereby fluency affects comprehension. However, a recent study by Klauda and Guthrie suggests that the relationship between fluency and comprehension may be reciprocal over time; that is, comprehension may also predict fluency. In the present study we examine this reciprocal relationship using structural equation modeling. We test various models that measure the relationship between fluency and comprehension over 3 time points spanning an academic year. The results indicate that compared to the traditional model in which fluency predicts concurrent comprehension, models

What oral text reading fluency can reveal about reading comprehension

Journal of Research in Reading, 2014

Text reading fluency-the ability to read quickly, accurately and with a natural intonationhas been proposed as a predictor of reading comprehension. In the current study we examined the role of oral text reading fluency, defined as text reading rate and text reading prosody, as a contributor to reading comprehension outcomes in addition to decoding efficiency and language comprehension. One hundred-and-six Dutch primary school children from fourth grade participated in this study and were assessed on decoding efficiency, vocabulary, syntactic ability, reading fluency performance and reading comprehension skills.

The Complex Nature of Reading Fluency: A Multidimensional View

Reading & Writing Quarterly, 2008

Reading fluency is commonly defined as reading accurately at a quick rate with appropriate prosody-a simple sounding definition. In fact, this definition hides complex processes and skills needed to produce the seemingly effortless performance of a fluent reader. Using both theory and empirical research, the presence and role of underlying processes and knowledge such as decoding fluency, processing speed, vocabulary, letter sound fluency, and sight word fluency are discussed. In doing this, we explain the elements needed for fluent reading and how they relate to each other in a multilayered fashion in young readers, and discuss the implications of this model in the development and assessment of reading fluency.

Sources of Individual Differences in Reading Comprehension and Reading Fluency

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2003

This study examined the common and distinct contributions of context-free and context reading skill to reading comprehension and the contributions of context-free reading skill and reading comprehension to context fluency. The 113 4th-grade participants were measured in reading comprehension, read aloud a folktale, and read aloud the folktale's words in a random list. Fluency was scaled as speed (words read correctly in 1 min) and time (seconds per correct word). Relative to list fluency, context fluency was a stronger predictor of comprehension. List fluency and comprehension each uniquely predicted context fluency, but their relative contributions depended on how fluency was scaled (time or speed). Results support the conclusion that word level processes contribute relatively more to fluency at lower levels while comprehension contributes relatively more at higher levels.

Developmental profiles of reading fluency and reading comprehension from grades 1 to 9 and their early identification

Developmental Psychology, 2021

This study examined developmental profiles of reading fluency and reading comprehension in Grades 1 to 9 (ages 7 to 15) in a large Finnish sample (N = 2,518). In addition, early predictors of the profiles were analyzed with respect to kindergarten cognitive skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid automized naming [RAN], number counting, word reading, vocabulary, and listening comprehension), parental factors (level of education, reading difficulties), and gender. Four different profiles of reading fluency and reading comprehension development were identified using latent profile analysis. These comprised one profile with persistent reading difficulties across the grades, one with early poor reading skills but with a resolving tendency, one with average reading skills, and one with good readers who started with very high reading fluency but scored average over time. Of the kindergarten measures, parental reading difficulties, being male, low paternal level of education, slow RAN, difficulty in reading easy words, and low scores in phonological skills, letter knowledge, number counting, and vocabulary predicted reading difficulties. The children belonging to the profile with the resolving tendency showed an increased rate of family risk and multiple cognitive deficits but managed to resolve their reading difficulties. Being female, and good number counting and vocabulary skills predicted a tendency to resolve early reading difficulties. The results confirm the previous findings on the early predictors of reading difficulties and add to the literature by identifying skills that predict resolving patterns.

Children’s Reading Comprehension and Oral Reading Fluency in Easy Text

Reading and Writing, 2006

This study explored third-graders’ oral reading fluency (ORF) in easy text in relation to their third- and fourth-grade reading comprehension. It also examined the children’s performance on two different measures of text exposure, a self-report questionnaire and a title-recognition test. Although third-graders’ ORF related significantly to their reading comprehension, oral language comprehension accounted for most of the variance in reading comprehension, whereas single word reading speed accounted for most of the variance in ORF. Third-grade reading comprehension and ORF each predicted unique variance in children’s scores on a fourth-grade state-mandated reading comprehension assessment. Scores on the self-report questionnaire correlated significantly with third-grade ORF and fourth-grade reading; the self-report accounted for reliable variance in ORF even with all of the other reading ability variables entered first. Results are consistent with the viewpoint that text exposure affects reading fluency. They also demonstrate that ORF is a valuable predictor of middle-elementary children’s reading comprehension, even when the ORF measure employs very easy text in which children achieve near-perfect word accuracy.

Text (Oral) Reading Fluency as a Construct in Reading Development: An Investigation of its Mediating Role for Children from Grades 1 to 4

Scientific studies of reading : the official journal of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading

In the present study we investigated a developmentally changing role of text reading fluency in mediating the relations of word reading fluency and listening comprehension to reading comprehension. We addressed this question by using longitudinal data from Grades 1 to 4, and employing structural equation models. Results showed that the role of text reading fluency changes over time as children's reading proficiency develops. In the beginning phase of reading development (Grade 1), text reading fluency was not independently related to reading comprehension over and above word reading fluency and listening comprehension. In Grades 2 to 4, however, text reading fluency completely mediated the relation between word reading fluency and reading comprehension whereas it partially mediated the relation between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. These results suggest that text reading fluency is a dissociable construct that plays a developmentally changing role in reading...