Bidirectional Relations Between Text Reading Prosody and Reading Comprehension in the Upper Primary School Grades: A Longitudinal Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the directionality of the relationship between text reading prosody and reading comprehension in the upper grades of primary school. We compared three theoretical possibilities: Two unidirectional relations from text reading prosody to reading comprehension and from reading comprehension to text reading prosody and a bidirectional relation between text reading prosody and reading comprehension. Further, we controlled for autoregressive effects and included decoding efficiency as a measure of general reading skill. Participants were 99 Dutch children, followed longitudinally, from fourth- to sixth-grade. Structural equation modeling showed that the bidirectional relation provided the best fitting model. In fifth-grade, text reading prosody was related to prior decoding and reading comprehension, whereas in sixth-grade, reading comprehension was related to prior text reading prosody. As such, the results suggest that the relation between text reading prosody and reading comprehension is reciprocal, but dependent on grade level.

Analysis of Eye Gazing on Read Aloud and Problem Solving Activities

“…Text reading prosody and reading comprehension have relations with each other [3]. Teachers observe a pupil to read aloud a text, and understand the ability of the pupil about text reading prosody.…”

What is the relationship between reading prosody and reading comprehension in European Portuguese? Evidence from grades 2 to 5

“…In short, the aforementioned studies examining the reciprocal relationship between reading prosody and reading comprehension (in English: Klauda & Guthrie, ; Lai et al, ; Schwanenflugel et al, ; and in Dutch: Veenendaal et al, ) reached different conclusions probably due to the fact they used different methods (e.g., different control variables and reading fluency and reading comprehension measures) and also students in different grades as participants.…”

“…Furthermore, it is widely accepted that the weight of decoding on reading comprehension decreases during reading development (e.g., Fernandes, Querido, Verhaeghe, Marques, & Araújo, ), but as far as reading prosody is concerned, little is known about its differential weight on reading comprehension along learning to read. However, it has recently been proposed that the relation between reading prosody and reading comprehension is dynamic and depends on reading level and the characteristics of the language under study (e.g., Veenendaal, Groen, & Verhoeven, ). Although scarce, there is evidence supporting this statement.…”

“…More recently, using also a rating scale measure of reading prosody, Veenendaal et al () investigated these relationships between reading prosody and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study with Dutch children followed from fourth to sixth grades. They took into account both the autoregressive effect and the ‘decoding efficiency – the fast and accurate retrieval of the phonological code for written words’ (Veenendaal et al, , p. 3).…”

“…More recently, using also a rating scale measure of reading prosody, Veenendaal et al () investigated these relationships between reading prosody and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study with Dutch children followed from fourth to sixth grades. They took into account both the autoregressive effect and the ‘decoding efficiency – the fast and accurate retrieval of the phonological code for written words’ (Veenendaal et al, , p. 3). Their results suggested a reciprocal relation between text reading prosody and reading comprehension: in fifth grade, text reading prosody was related to prior decoding and reading comprehension, whereas in sixth grade, reading comprehension was only related to prior text reading prosody.…”