Reading Comprehension Predictors in European Portuguese Adults

Abstract

Research on the predictors of reading comprehension has been largely focused on school-aged children and mainly in opaque orthographies, hindering the generalization of the results to adult populations and more transparent orthographies. In the present study, we aim to test two versions of the Simple View of Reading (SVR): the original model and an extended version, including reading fluency and vocabulary. Additional mediation models were analyzed to verify if other reading comprehension predictors (rapid automatized naming, phonological decoding, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and working memory) have direct effects or if they are mediated through word reading and reading fluency. A sample of 67 typical adult Portuguese readers participated in this study. The SVR model accounted for 27% of the variance in reading comprehension, with oral language comprehension displaying a larger contribution than word reading. In the extended SVR model, reading fluency and vocabulary provided an additional and significant contribution of 7% to the explained variance. Moreover, vocabulary influenced reading comprehension directly and indirectly, via oral language comprehension. In the final mediation model, the total mediation hypothesis was rejected, and only morphological awareness showed a direct effect on reading comprehension. These results provide preliminary evidence that the SVR (with the possible addition of vocabulary) might be a reliable model to explain reading comprehension in adult typical readers in a semitransparent orthography. Furthermore, oral language comprehension and vocabulary were the best predictors in the study, suggesting that remediation programs addressing reading comprehension in adults should promote these abilities.

Text Reading Fluency and Text Reading Comprehension Do Not Rely on the Same Abilities in University Students With and Without Dyslexia

“…However, in an experiment which was more similar to our own, Ransby and Swanson (2003) found very little additional contribution of lower-level factors such as word reading and decoding (about 5% but significant) to explained variance. With skilled adult readers, Gonçalves et al (2021) also reported the influence of both high-level factors such as vocabulary and listening comprehension and low-level factors (such as word reading) on explaining text reading comprehension performance although the authors observed a greater explanatory power of the former. In our study, the questions used in the text reading comprehension test are implicit and explicit questions.…”

Early predictors of reading success in first grade

“…As far as the authors’ knowledge goes this is a pioneer study exploring early predictors of (un)success in reading acquisition with Portuguese-speaking children first graders that include sociodemographic, cognitive, and reading-related variables. Even the scarce literature focusing on reading predictors in Portuguese that previously exist does not focus on the early predictors of reading acquisition, instead focusing on the reading and cognitive variables in second grade ( Ziegler et al, 2010 ) or the precursors for reading comprehension with an adult population ( Gonçalves et al, 2021 ). This study is also a contribution to filling this gap and to the early identification of at-risk children (in this specific case right at the beginning of 1st grade).…”