In an ERP experiment we investigated how the recruitment and integration of world knowledge information relate to the integration of information within a current discourse context. Participants were presented with short discourse contexts which were followed by a sentence that contained a critical word that was correct or incorrect based on general world knowledge and the supporting discourse context, or was more or less acceptable based on the combination of general world knowledge and the specific local discourse context. Relative to the critical word in the correct world knowledge sentences following a neutral discourse, all other critical words elicited an N400 effect that began at about 300 ms after word onset. However, the magnitude of the N400 effect varied in a way that suggests an interaction between world knowledge and discourse context. The results indicate that both world knowledge and discourse context have an effect on sentence interpretation, but neither overrides the other. IntroductionAlmost everyday we read or listen to new information. Listening to the news, speaking with a family member or coworker, overhearing a conversation or watching a television show will likely all involve encountering some new information, such as an anecdote of something that happened that day. Deriving the meaning of each of these utterances involves, at the least, retrieving the meanings of the individual words and facts about the world and combining them in a way that is licensed by the grammar and the prior discourse context. However, we sometimes hear new facts that may or may not be congruent with what we already know, for example, when speaking with a friend (e.g., Mary says to Bob, "John can't make it to the party", when Bob thought John was coming to the party) or watching a television show (e.g., "The pigs are flying low today, eh", John Cleese, 1969 in Monty Python's Flying Circus). When this occurs, do we initially just incorporate the current discourse for understanding the sentence or do we also integrate our world knowledge, creating a conflict? The purpose of the current study is to investigate how the recruitment and integration of world knowledge information relate to the integration of information within a current discourse context. When the discourse information does not fit with our previous world knowledge, is the default world knowledge overwritten? Models of language comprehension disagree on how and when discourse information and world knowledge are

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The mental lexicon plays a central role in reading comprehension (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). It encompasses the number of lexical entries in spoken and written language (vocabulary breadth), the semantic quality of these entries (vocabulary depth), and the connection strength between lexical representations (semantic relatedness); as such, it serves as an output for the decoding process and as an input for comprehension processes. Although different aspects of the lexicon can be distinguished, research on the role of the mental lexicon in reading comprehension often does not take these individual aspects of the lexicon into account. The current study used a multicomponent approach to examine whether measures of spoken and written vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and semantic relatedness were differentially predictive of individual differences in reading comprehension skills in fourth-grade students. The results indicated that, in addition to nonverbal reasoning, short-term memory, and word decoding, the four measures of lexical quality substantially added (30 %) to the proportion of explained variance of reading comprehension (adding up to a total proportion of 65 %). Moreover, each individual measure of lexical quality added significantly to the prediction of reading comprehension after all other measures were taken into account, with written lexical breadth and lexical depth showing the greatest increase in explained variance. It can thus be concluded that multiple components of lexical quality play a role in children’s reading comprehension.

This study examined the effects of an intervention with a multicomponent reading game on the development of reading skills in 60 Dutch primary school children with special educational needs. The game contains evidence‐based reading exercises and is based on principles of applied gaming. Using a multiple baseline approach, we tested children's word, pseudoword and text reading fluency, as well as their reading motivation, at three test occasions. The results indicated that the short intervention (9 × 15 min) enhanced children's pseudoword reading fluency as well as their text reading fluency. Interestingly, the early intervention group showed a sustained intervention effect (i.e., also during retention), which shows that using this reading game has a long‐term effect on early text reading development. Intervention did not affect reading motivation, which suggests that the multicomponent reading game can be used to facilitate early reading development without compromising reading motivation.

In a longitudinal study, we investigated how cognitive precursors (short-term memory, working memory, and nonverbal reasoning) influence the developmental relation between lexical quality (decoding and vocabulary) and reading comprehension skill in 282 Dutch students in the intermediate elementary grades (mean age at start Grade 4 was 9; 7 years) as these grades mark an important transition point in the development of reading comprehension skill. Analyses revealed strong autoregressive effects for the linguistic measures. Moreover, evidence was found for a reciprocal relation between vocabulary and reading comprehension. Direct concurrent relations were evidenced between short-term memory and decoding, and between working memory and reasoning, on the one hand, and reading comprehension and vocabulary, on the other hand. Finally, we found direct and indirect influences of nonverbal reasoning and working memory capacity on reading comprehension and vocabulary development. The results highlight the importance of both lexical and cognitive factors in reading comprehension development.