Contributions of Cognitive and Linguistic Factors to Reading Comprehension in Chinese Primary Students

Abstract

Reading comprehension (RC) ability plays an important role in children’s development because it influences various spheres of their life, including knowledge acquisition, career development and psychological well-being. Previous studies have identified important cognitive and linguistic factors in RC. However, they have certain limitations. Firstly, the relative contribution of each skill in RC remains unclear. Secondly, most of the previous studies were conducted on children who read alphabetic scripts, and limited knowledge is available about their counterparts who read non-alphabetic scripts such as Chinese. Lastly, the links between cognitive skills and RC in poor comprehenders (i.e., those with poor RC despite adequate word decoding) remain unclear because past studies have focused on poor decoders and general poor readers. This thesis aims to bridge the research gaps by examining the contributions of different cognitive and linguistic factors to Chinese RC in Chinese primary students through four studies. It is grounded on four main theoretical frameworks of reading, which are simple view of reading (SVR), direct and indirect effects model of reading (DIER), lexical quality hypothesis (LQH) and reading stage theory (RST).

Study 1 is a meta-analysis study that has synthesized correlations between different cognitive and linguistic factors and RC in 140 papers. The results showed that the effect sizes were large for Chinese inference, word reading, morphological awareness (MA), vocabulary and grammatical knowledge, and moderate for Chinese working memory, phonological awareness (PA) and orthographic skills (OS). Grade group and language scripts were significant moderators in some of these relationships.

Study 2 is a correlational study that has used structural equation modelling to test the hierarchical relationships among decoding and linguistic comprehension factors on RC. This study included 6,256 Chinese primary students. The results showed that both Chinese decoding and linguistic comprehension factors are important in Chinese RC. Moreover, Chinese MA had greater contribution to Chinese RC than PA and OS.

Study 3 is a longitudinal study that used latent growth modelling to investigate the effect of decoding and linguistic comprehension factors on RC. This study included 6,256 primary students who were tested at three time points. The result showed the initial and the rate of growth of both decoding and linguistic comprehension skills significantly predicted later RC among Chinese primary students. In addition, students exhibited faster development of decoding if the initial level of decoding was lower, while they had faster development of linguistic comprehension if the initial level of linguistic comprehension was higher.

Study 4 is an intervention study that tested the effects of an online game-based MA intervention on RC. This study included 176 Chinese poor comprehenders in grade 2 . Results showed that the Chinese MA intervention was an effective approach to improve their performance in Chinese MA, PA, word reading and RC.

This thesis has demonstrated the relative importance of various cognitive and linguistic factors in Chinese RC. It has also demonstrated the developmental trajectories of decoding and linguistic comprehension skills and their relations with RC ability in Chinese children. In addition, it has informed a potentially effective intervention method to facilitate RC in poor comprehenders.

Date of Award	21 Jul 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Wing Yin CHOW (Supervisor)