This Campbell systematic review examines the relationships between skills in preschool and later reading comprehension. The review summarizes evidence from 64 longitudinal studies that have observed these relationships. Code‐related skills in preschool (e.g., phoneme awareness and letter knowledge) are indirectly related to reading comprehension via word decoding. Linguistic comprehension is directly related to reading comprehension skills. Code‐related skills and linguistic comprehension were strongly related. Moreover, language comprehension was more important for reading comprehension in older readers than in younger readers. Plain language summary Preschool language skills are associated with better reading comprehension at schoolThe evidence suggests that successful instruction for reading comprehension should target a broad set of language skills. The review in briefA variety of language skills related to both language comprehension (e.g., vocabulary and grammar) and code‐related skills (e.g., phonological awareness and letter knowledge) is important for developing decoding skills and, in turn, reading comprehension in school. Thus, reading comprehension instruction is more likely to be successful if it focuses on a broad set of language skills. What is this review about?Determining how to provide the best instruction to support children's reading comprehension requires an understanding of how reading comprehension actually develops. To promote our understanding of this process, this review summarizes evidence from observations of the development of language and reading comprehension from the preschool years into school. The main outcome in this review is reading comprehension skills.Understanding the development of reading comprehension and its precursors can help us develop hypotheses about what effective instruction must comprise to facilitate well‐functioning reading comprehension skills. These hypotheses can be tested in randomized controlled trials.What studies are included?This review includes studies that observe the relationship between preschool language and code‐related skills and later reading comprehension. A total of 64 studies were identified, all of which were included in the analysis. However, several of them suffered from considerable attrition, used convenience sampling, included a selected sample and failed to report on important study and sample characteristics.The studies spanned 1986 to 2016 and were mostly performed in the USA, Europe and Australia. What are the main findings of this review?Code‐related skills in preschool (e.g., phoneme awareness and letter knowledge) are indirectly related to reading comprehension via word decoding. Linguistic comprehension is directly related to reading comprehension skills. Code‐related skills and linguistic comprehension were strongly related. Moreover, language comprehension was more important for reading comprehension in older readers than in younger readers. What do the findings of this review mean?These results show that a broad set of langu...

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Previous studies of individual differences have revealed strong correlations between children's vocabulary and grammatical abilities, and these data have been used to support theoretical accounts positing direct developmental relations between these two areas of language. However, between-person differences do not necessarily reflect intra-individual dynamics. Thus, in the present study, we analysed longitudinal data from three annual assessments of vocabulary and grammar in 217 children (M = 4 years and 3 months at first assessment) using a modelling strategy with some utility in distinguishing relations at the between- and within-person levels. The results revealed strong correlations between grammar and vocabulary at the between-person level, but the evidence of direct dependencies between the variables at the within-person level was rather limited. Specifically, we found a small direct contribution from grammar to vocabulary for children between the ages of 4 and 5, but there was no evidence of any direct contributions from vocabulary to grammar. Further analyses suggested that the home literacy environment may represent a common source of individual differences in children's vocabulary and grammatical skills. In light of these results, we argue that the evidence of direct relations between vocabulary and grammatical development in preschool-aged children may not be as strong as previously assumed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the hypothesis that teaching students knowledge of word forms and meanings supports the development of decoding and linguistic comprehension, which are fundamental components of reading comprehension. We examined this hypothesis by investigating the effects of a comprehensive word knowledge intervention on the language and literacy skills of poor readers. The participants included 118 monolingual third‐ and fourth‐grade students from 12 Norwegian elementary schools. A quasi‐experimental approach was employed with students in the treatment and control groups matched on grade and reading comprehension level. The intervention was delivered by teachers in small groups for 60 minutes three times per week over a period of 10 weeks. At the end of the intervention, the treatment group showed significantly greater gains than the control group on researcher‐created and transfer measures of language and a transfer measure of reading comprehension. There were no statistically significant effects of the intervention on two measures of decoding. The results support the hypothesis that comprehensive word knowledge instruction is effective in improving language abilities underpinning reading comprehension. The utility of this approach for improving decoding abilities remains unclear.

Knowledge about the smallest meaningful units of language, morphemes, is crucial for vocabulary and reading comprehension. This meta-analysis of 43 studies examined differences in morphological knowledge in the societal language between language-minority and language-majority children. There was a moderate to large mean group difference in morphological knowledge in favor of the language-majority children. Studies that examined inflectional knowledge (walk–walked, rose–roses) reported larger differences than studies that examined knowledge of derivations (coexist, serious) and compounds (bluebird, highlight). Studies that used oral tests and tests of expressive language reported larger differences than studies that used written tests and tests of receptive language. These findings show that morphology is an area of weakness in language-minority children. Paired with the evidence that morphological instruction improves general language ability and reading comprehension, the results suggest that morphology could be an essential component in language interventions for language-minority children.

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Objectives:The vocabulary of children with cochlear implants is often smaller than that of their peers with typical hearing, but there is uncertainty regarding the extent of the differences and potential risks and protective factors. Some studies indicate that their receptive vocabulary develops well at first, but that they fail to keep up with their typical hearing peers, causing many CI users to enter school with a receptive vocabulary that is not age-appropriate. To better understand the receptive vocabulary abilities of children with cochlear implants this study explored age-related differences to matched children with typical hearing and associations between vocabulary skills and child-level characteristics.Design: A retrospective cross-sectional study with matched controls was conducted at the Norwegian national cochlear implant center at Oslo University Hospital. Eighty-eight children (mean age 8.7 years; range 3.2 to 15.9; 43 girls, 45 boys) who had received bilateral cochlear implants before 3 years of age were compared with two groups of children with typical hearing. One group was matched for maternal education, sex, and chronological age, the other group was matched for maternal education, sex, and hearing age. Receptive vocabulary performance was measured with the British Picture Vocabulary Scale.Results: Cochlear implant users' receptive vocabulary was poorer than that of age-matched children with typical hearing (M = 84.6 standard points, SD = 21.1; children with typical hearing: M = 102.1 standard points, SD = 15.8; mean difference −17.5 standard points, 95% CI [−23.0 to −12.0], p < 0.001; Hedges's g = −0.94, 95% CI [−1.24 to −0.62]), and children with cochlear implants were significantly more likely to perform below the normative range (risk ratio = 2.2, 95% CI [1.42 to 3.83]). However, there was a significant nonlinear U-shaped effect of age on the scores of cochlear implant users, with the difference to the matched typical hearing children being largest (23.9 standard points, on average) around 8.7 years of age and smaller toward the beginning and end of the age range. There was no significant difference compared with children with typical hearing when differences in auditory experience were accounted for. Variability was not significantly different between the groups. Further analysis with a random forest revealed that, in addition to chronological age and hearing age, simultaneous versus sequential implantation, communication mode at school, and social integration were predictors of cochlear implant users' receptive vocabulary. Conclusions:On average, the receptive vocabulary of children with cochlear implants was smaller than that of their typical hearing peers. The magnitude of the difference was changing with age and was the largest for children in early primary school. The nonlinear effect of age might explain some of the ambiguity in previous research findings and could indicate that better intervention is required around school entry. The results emphasize that continuous monitoring and...

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