reading comprehension

Children with Reading Comprehension Difficulties 

Children with specific reading comprehension difficulties were compared with control children on tests of language skill. The two groups performed at a similar level on tests requiring predominantly phonological skills, but the poor comprehenders performed less well on tests tapping semantic ability. Although the two groups were matched for decoding ability (as assessed by nonword reading), the poor comprehenders were worse at reading words with irregular spelling patterns and low-frequency words. These results show that despite having adequate phonological decoding skills, poor comprehenders have problems reading words that are typically read with support from semantics. These findings are related to connectionist models of reading development in which phonological and semantic processes interact.

this work was carried out with the support of Grant G9315019N from the Medical Research Council, Grant R000221708 from the Economic and Social Research Council, and Grant 048147 from The Wellcome Trust. We are most grateful to the staff and pupils at Westfield Junior School for their help and cooperation and to Ann McElligot and John Adams for their help with testing the children. We thank Karalyn Patterson for helpful discussion and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.