Children’s text comprehension
From theory & research to support & intervention
This paper first considers what is meant by good reading comprehension and makes a distinction between the product of reading comprehension and the processes that are required to attain that product. It goes on to consider how less-skilled comprehenders can be identified and provides a summary of the research into how less-skilled and skilled comprehenders differ in terms of the skills and processes that they apply during text comprehension. Finally, the implications of these research findings for instruction are considered, and generalizable research-based recommendations for teaching reading comprehension strategies are considered.
Keywords: reading comprehension, specific reading comprehension problems, teaching reading comprehension
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1The simple view of reading
- 2.What constitutes good comprehension and how are skilled and less-skilled comprehenders selected?
- 3.In what ways do skilled and less-skilled comprehenders differ?
- 3.1Inference and integration
- 3.2Vocabulary and word meanings
- 3.3Monitoring comprehension
- 3.4Understanding of text structure
- 4.Pedagogical applications: Implications for teaching reading comprehension
- 5.Teaching reading comprehension
- 5.1Teaching vocabulary
- 5.1.1Teaching specific words
- 5.1.2Teaching children to acquire new vocabulary
- 5.2Teaching inference making
- 5.2.1What about knowledge and vocabulary in inference making?
- 5.3Teaching comprehension monitoring
- 5.4Teaching awareness and use of text structure
- 5.1Teaching vocabulary
- 6.Strategies working together
- 7.Moving to independence
- Note
-
References
Published online: 14 September 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.21015.oak
https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.21015.oak
References
Barzillai, M., Morris, R., Lovett, M. & Wolf, M.
(2010) Poster
presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Scientific Studies in Reading.
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L.
(2005) Choosing
words to teach. In A. Hiebert & M. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching
and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to
practice (pp. 209–222). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Beck, I., Perfetti, C., & McKeown, M.
(1982) Effects
of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension. Journal of
Educational
Psychology, 741, 506–521. 
Biemiller, A.
(2005) Size
and sequence in vocabulary development: Implications for choosing words for primary grade vocabulary
instruction. In A. Hiebert & M. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching
and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to
practice (pp. 223–242). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Biemiller, A., & Boote, C.
(2006) An
effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 98(1), 44–62.
Bowers, P. N., & Kirby, J. R.
(2010) Effects
of morphological instruction on vocabulary acquisition. Reading and
Writing, 23(5), 515–537.
Bowers, P. N., Kirby, J. R., & Deacon, S. H.
(2010) The
effects of morphological instruction on literacy skills A systematic review of the
literature. Review of Educational
Research, 80(2), 144–179.
Bransford, J. D., & Franks, J. J.
(1971) Abstraction
of Linguistic Ideas. Cognitive
Psychology, 2(4), 331–350.
Bransford, J. D., & Johnson, M. K.
(1972) Contextual
prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of
Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behavior, 11(6), 717–726.
Cain, K.
(1999) Ways
of reading: how knowledge and use of strategies are related to reading comprehension. British
Journal of Developmental
Psychology, 17(2), 293–309.
(2003) Text
comprehension and its relation to coherence and cohesion in children’s fictional
narratives. British Journal of Developmental
Psychology, 21(3), 335–351.
Cain, K., & Oakhill, J. V.
(1999) Inference
making and its relation to comprehension failure. Reading and Writing. An Interdisciplinary
Journal, 11(5–6), 489–503.
(2011) Matthew
effects in young readers reading comprehension and reading experience aid vocabulary
development. Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 44(5), 431–443.
(2014) Reading
comprehension and vocabulary: Is vocabulary more important for some aspects of
comprehension? L’Année Psychologique/ Topics in Cognitive Psychology.
Cain, K., Oakhill, J. V., Barnes, M. A., & Bryant, P. E.
(2001) Comprehension
skill, inference making ability and their relation to knowledge. Memory and
Cognition, 29(6), 850–859.
Cain, K., Oakhill, J. V., & Bryant, P. E.
(2004) Children’s
reading comprehension ability: Concurrent prediction by working memory, verbal ability, and component
skills. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 96(1), 671–681.
Carney, J. J., Anderson, D., Blackburn, C., & Blessing, D.
(1984) Preteaching
vocabulary and the comprehension of social studies materials by elementary school
children. Social
Education, 48(3), 195–196.
Carroll, J. B.
(1993) Human
Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Catts, H. W., Compton, D., Tomblin, J. B., & Bridges, M. S.
(2012) Prevalence
and nature of late-emerging poor readers. Journal of Educational
Research, 104(1), 166–181.
Coyne, M. D., McCoach, D. B., & Kapp, S.
(2007) Vocabulary
intervention for kindergarten students: Comparing extended instruction to embedded instruction and incidental
exposure. Learning Disability
Quarterly, 30(2), 74–88.
Cunningham, A. E.
(2005) Vocabulary
growth through independent reading and reading aloud to
children. In E. H. Hiebert & M. L. Kamhi (Eds.), Teaching
and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to
practice (pp. 45–68). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.
Davis, F. B.
(1944) Fundamental
factors of comprehension in
reading. Psychometrika, 9(3), 185–197.
(1968) Research
in comprehension in reading. Reading Research
Quarterly, 3(4), 499–545.
de Sousa, I., & Oakhill, J. V.
(1996) Do
levels of interest have an effect on children’s comprehension monitoring performance? British
Journal of Educational
Psychology, 66(4), 471–482.
de Jong, P. F., & van der Leij, A.
(2002) Effects
of phonological abilities and linguistic comprehension on the development of
reading. Scientific Studies of
Reading, 6(1), 51–77.
Dunn, L. M., Dunn, L. M., Whetton, C., & Pintilie, D.
(1992) British
Picture Vocabulary
Scale. London: NFER-Nelson.
Elbro, C., & Buch-Iversen, I.
(2013) Activation
of background knowledge for inference making: Effects on reading comprehension. Scientific
Studies of
Reading, 17(6), 435–452.
Englert, C. S., & Thomas, C. C.
(1987) Sensitivity
to text structure in reading and writing: A comparison between learning-disabled and non-learning disabled
students. Learning Disability
Quarterly, 10(2), 93–105.
Gambrell, L. B., & Bales, R. J.
(1986) Mental
imagery and the comprehension-monitoring performance of fourth- and fifth-grade poor
readers. Reading Research
Quarterly, 21(4), 454–464.
Gough, P. B., & Tunmer, W. E.
(1986) Decoding,
reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special
Education, 7(1), 6–10.
Johnson-Laird, P. N.
(1983) Mental
models: Towards a cognitive science of language, inference, and consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kintsch, W.
(1998) Comprehension:
A paradigm for cognition. New York: Cambridge university press.
Markman, E. M.
(1979) Realizing
that you don’t understand: Elementary school children’s awareness of inconsistencies. Child
Development, 501, 643–655.
McMaster, K. L., van den Broek, P., Espin, C. A., White, M. J., Rapp, D. N., Kendeou, P., Bohn Gettler, C. M., & Carlson, S.
(2012) Making
the right connections: Differential effects of reading intervention for subgroups of
comprehenders. Learning and Individual
Differences, 22(1), 100–111.
Medo, M. A., & Ryder, R. J.
(1993) The
effects of vocabulary instruction on readers’ ability to make causal connections. Literacy
Research and
Instruction, 33(2), 119–134.
Melby-Lervåg, M., & Hulme, C.
(2013) Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology, 491, 270–291.
Meyer, B. J., & Freedle, R. O.
(1984) Effects
of discourse type on recall. American Educational Research
Journal, 21(1), 121–143.
Nagy, W. E., & Scott, J.
(2000) Vocabulary
processes. In M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook
of reading research. Vol.
III (pp. 269–284). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
National Reading Panel
(2000) Teaching
children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for
reading instruction. Washington, DC: The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/smallbook.htm).
Oakhill, J. V.
(1984) Inferential
and memory skills in children’s comprehension of stories. British Journal of Educational
Psychology, 541, 31–39.
(2020) Four
Decades of Research into Children’s Reading Comprehension: A Personal Review, Discourse
Processes.
Oakhill, J. V., & Cain, K.
(2012) The
precursors of reading ability in young readers: Evidence from a four-year longitudinal
study. Scientific Studies of
Reading, 16(2), 91–121.
Oakhill, J. V., Cain, K., & Bryant, P. E.
(2003) The
dissociation of word reading and text comprehension: Evidence from component skills. Language
and Cognitive
Processes, 18(4), 443–468.
Oakhill, J. V., Hartt, J., & Samols, D.
(2005) Levels
of comprehension monitoring and working memory in good and poor comprehenders. Reading and
Writing, 181, 657–686.
Oakhill, J. V. and Patel, S.
(1991) Can imagery training help children who have comprehension problems? Journal of Research in Reading, 141, 106–115.
Oakhill, J. V., Cain, K. E. and Elbro, C.
(2014) Understanding Reading Comprehension: A Handbook. London: Routledge.
Ouellette, G. P.
(2006) What’s
meaning got to do with it: The role of vocabulary in word reading and reading
comprehension. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 98(3), 554–566.
Palinscar, A. S., & Brown, A. L.
(1984) Reciprocal
teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and
Instruction, 1(2), 117–175.
Paris, A. H., & Paris, S. G.
(2003) Assessing
narrative comprehension in young children. Reading Research
Quarterly, 38(1), 36–76.
Perfetti, C. A.
(2007) Reading
ability: Lexical quality to comprehension. Scientific Studies of
Reading, 111, 357–383.
Perfetti, C. A., Yang, C.-L., & Schmalhofer, F.
(2008) Comprehension
skill and word-to-text integration processes. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 221, 303–318.
Pressley, G. M.
(1976) Mental
imagery helps eight-year-olds remember what they read. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 68(3), 355–359.
Rumelhart, D. E., & Ortony, A.
(1977) The
representation of knowledge in memory. In R. C. Anderson, R. J. Spiro & W. E. Montague (Eds.), Schooling
and the acquisition of
knowledge (pp. 99–135). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Seigneuric, A., & Ehrlich, M. F.
(2005) Contribution
of working memory capacity to children’s reading comprehension: A longitudinal
investigation. Reading and
Writing, 18(7–9), 617–656.
Shapiro, B. K., & Hudson, J. A.
(1997) Coherence
and cohesion in children’s stories. In J. Costermans & M. Fayol (Eds.), Processing
interclausal relationships: studies in the production and comprehension of
text (pp. 23–48). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Stahl, S. A., & Fairbanks, M. M.
(1986) The
effects of vocabulary instruction: A model-based meta-analysis. Review of Educational
Research, 56(1), 72–110.
Stanovich, K. E.
(1993) Does
reading make you smarter? Literacy and the Development of Verbal Intelligence Advances in Child Development and
Behavior
, 241, 133–180.
(1986) Matthew
effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of
literacy. Reading Research
Quarterly, 21(4), 360–407.
Stetter, M. E., & Hughes, M. T.
(2010) Using
story grammar to assist students with learning disabilities and reading difficulties improve their
comprehension. Education & Treatment of
Children, 33(1), 115–151.
Tannenbaum, K. R., Torgesen, J. K., & Wagner, R. K.
(2006) Relationships
between word knowledge and reading comprehension in third-grade children. Scientific Studies of
Reading, 10(4), 381–398.
Thorndike, R. L.
(1973) Reading
as reasoning. Reading Research
Quarterly, 9(2), 135–147.
Tomesen, M., & Aarnoutse, C.
(1998) Effects
of an Instructional Programme for Deriving Word Meanings 1. Educational
Studies, 24(1), 107–128.
van den Broek, P. W.
(1997) Discovering
the cement of the universe: The development of event comprehension from childhood to
adulthood. In P. W. van den Broek, P. J. Bauer & T. Bourg (Eds.), Developmental
Spans in Event Comprehension and
Representation (pp. 321–342). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
van den Broek, P. W., Lorch, R. F., Linderholm, T., & Gustafson, M.
(2001) The
effects of readers’ goals on inference generation and memory for text. Memory and
Cognition, 29(8), 1081–1087.
Weekes, B. S., Hamilton, S., Oakhill, J. V., & Holliday, R. E.
(2008) False
recollection in children with reading comprehension
difficulties. Cognition, 106(1), 222–233.
Williams, J. P., Nubla-Kung, A. M., Pollini, S., Stafford, K. B., Garcia, A., & Snyder, A. E.
(2007) Teaching
cause–effect text structure through social studies content to at-risk second graders. Journal
of Learning
Disabilities, 40(2), 111–120.
Williams, J. P., Stafford, K. B., Lauer, K. D., Hall, K. M., & Pollini, S.
(2009) Embedding
reading comprehension training in content-area instruction. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 101(1), 1–20.
Yuill, N. M., & Oakhill, J. V.
(1988) Effects
of inference awareness training on poor reading comprehension. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 2(1), 33–45.
(1991) Children’s
problems in text comprehension: An experimental
investigation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.