The authors examined the development of oral language and decoding skills from preschool to early elementary school and their relation to beginning reading comprehension using a cross-sequential design. Four-and 6-year-old children were tested on oral language and decoding skills and were retested 2 years later. In all age groups, oral language and decoding skills formed distinct clusters. The 2 clusters were related to each other in preschool, but this relation became weaker in kindergarten and 2nd grade. Structural equation modeling showed that both sets of skills in 2nd grade independently predicted a child's reading comprehension. These findings confirm and extend the view that the 2 clusters of skills develop early in a child's life and contribute to reading comprehension activities in early elementary school, with each cluster making a considerable, unique contribution.
In this two‐year longitudinal study, we sought to examine the developmental relationships among early narrative listening comprehension and language skills (i.e., vocabulary knowledge, sentence memory, and phonological awareness) and the roles of these factors in predicting narrative listening comprehension at the age of 6 years. We also sought to examine the role of inference‐making skills as longitudinal and concurrent predictors of other language skills and listening comprehension from the age of 4 to 6 years. One hundred thirty Finnish‐speaking children participated in the study. A theoretical model of the developmental relationships among the variables was proposed and the associations were analyzed by means of path analysis. Results showed that inference skills, assessed through picture‐book viewing, made a significant and unique contribution to variation in later narrative listening comprehension. Inference skills also played an indirect role in narrative listening comprehension by making a significant contribution to vocabulary knowledge even after controlling for earlier vocabulary knowledge and sentence memory. Although vocabulary knowledge and sentence memory were related to concurrent narrative listening comprehension, they did not predict later listening comprehension over and above the autoregressor. The results are discussed in terms of the predictive validity and diagnostic sensitivity of inference skills assessments in listening comprehension. Implications for research and theory are also discussed.
Developing the ability to read is a complex process involving a variety of skills, including both basic language skills and language comprehension skills. Although a balanced reading program would include the development of basic language and comprehension skills, comprehension has often been overlooked in early reading instruction. In this article, we examine recent research findings on how comprehension skills develop in young children and discuss the implications of those findings for comprehension assessment and interventions.
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