How Visual Word Decoding and Context-Driven Auditory Semantic Integration Contribute to Reading Comprehension: A Test of Additive vs. Multiplicative Models

Abstract

Theories of reading comprehension emphasize decoding and listening comprehension as two essential components. The current study aimed to investigate how Chinese character decoding and context-driven auditory semantic integration contribute to reading comprehension in Chinese middle school students. Seventy-five middle school students were tested. Context-driven auditory semantic integration was assessed with speech-in-noise tests in which the fundamental frequency (F0) contours of spoken sentences were either kept natural or acoustically flattened, with the latter requiring a higher degree of contextual information. Statistical modeling with hierarchical regression was conducted to examine the contributions of Chinese character decoding and context-driven auditory semantic integration to reading comprehension. Performance in Chinese character decoding and auditory semantic integration scores with the flattened (but not natural) F0 sentences significantly predicted reading comprehension. Furthermore, the contributions of these two factors to reading comprehension were better fitted with an additive model instead of a multiplicative model. These findings indicate that reading comprehension in middle schoolers is associated with not only character decoding but also the listening ability to make better use of the sentential context for semantic integration in a severely degraded speech-in-noise condition. The results add to our better understanding of the multi-faceted reading comprehension in children. Future research could further address the age-dependent development and maturation of reading skills by examining and controlling other important cognitive variables, and apply neuroimaging techniques such as functional magmatic resonance imaging and electrophysiology to reveal the neural substrates and neural oscillatory patterns for the contribution of auditory semantic integration and the observed additive model to reading comprehension.

Dyslexia: A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis

“…However, with the development of early reading education activities by educators in some Asian countries, the problem of children's dyslexia had gradually attracted the attention of researchers. Therefore, it was not surprising that Asian countries (China, Japan, and Israel) had their language as one of their research focuses (104,(121)(122)(123)(124)(125)(126)(127)(128).…”

The Extended Simple View of Reading in Adult Learners of Chinese as a Second Language

“…This hypothesis was first confirmed in Hoover and Gough (1990) where the product of decoding and listening comprehension significantly accounted for an extra 1%–7% of variances in English reading comprehension in Grades 1–4 with Spanish speakers learning to read English. However, subsequent studies from alphabetic languages (e.g., Neuhaus et al, 2006 ; Conners, 2009 ; Georgiou et al, 2009 ) and Chinese ( Li et al, 2021 ) failed to replicate such finding. Hoover and Tunmer (2018) explained that “testing such a difference (between additive and multiplicative model) requires a special population where skills are nonexistent for a substantial number of children in at least one of the components” (p309).…”

“…Nevertheless, Joshi et al (2012) found that the importance of decoding increased from Grade 2 to Grade 4. A recent study even found that the role of decoding can last until middle school ( Li et al, 2021 ).…”

Contributions of Demographics, Language Learning Experience, and Cognitive Control to Chinese Reading Comprehension

“…Most previous studies focused on the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension, particularly in alphabetic languages (e.g., Jenkins et al, 2003 ; Rasinski et al, 2005 ; Yovanoff et al, 2005 ; Klauda and Guthrie, 2008 ). There are, however, some studies on (non-alphabetic) Chinese reading comprehension that examined character recognition and comprehension (e.g., Joshi et al, 2012 ; Yeung et al, 2016 ; Li et al, 2021 ). For example, Joshi et al (2012) found that the SVR as incorporated in the componential model of reading (CMR) is also applicable to Chinese other than English.…”

“… Yeung et al (2016) examined the interrelationships between linguistic comprehension skills, decoding and reading comprehension within Chinese children in a longitudinal study, and found that linguistic comprehension and decoding were the main predictors for a significant amount of variance in sentence and passage comprehension. Similarly, Li et al (2021) examined how Chinese character decoding and context-driven auditory semantic integration contributed to reading comprehension among Chinese middle school students by administering speech-in-noise tests, and found that performance in Chinese character decoding and auditory semantic integration scores with the flattened (but not natural) fundamental frequency contours of spoken sentences significantly predicted reading comprehension.…”