Unraveling Reading Comprehension

Behavioral, Neurobiological, and Genetic Components

Contents

About the Editors

• Brett Miller, Ph.D. - Program Director, Reading, Writing, and Related Learning Disabilities Research Program, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, Maryland
  Dr. Miller oversees a research program focused on developing and supporting research and training initiatives to increase knowledge relevant to the development of reading and written language abilities for learners with and without disabilities. This program supports research that includes work with diverse groups and includes a range of ages across the life span.

• Laurie E. Cutting, Ph.D. - Patricia and Rodes Hart Endowed Chair, Associate Professor, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University
  Dr. Cutting's research focuses on educational neuroscience, particularly the neurobiological and behavioral underpinnings of reading, oral language, and dyslexia.

• Peggy McCardle, Ph.D., MPH - Chief, Child Development and Behavior Branch, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
  Dr. McCardle directs the research program on language, bilingualism, and biliteracy, addressing all aspects of typical language development as well as bilingualism research related to typical learning and learning disabilities in bilingual individuals.

Chapter 6: Reading Comprehension Difficulties in Struggling Readers

Introduction

Reading is a widespread and varied activity. We read different types of texts for different purposes, including fiction for pleasure and information texts to learn new ideas. Reading plays a central role in educational, working, recreational, and social lives. This chapter focuses on comprehension and why some children struggle to understand what they read.

What is Involved in Reading Comprehension?

Before examining reasons for reading comprehension failure, we must identify what is involved in the act of comprehending. Skilled comprehenders recognize individual words, access their meanings, and identify connections between words and sentences. This dynamic process involves constructing a memory-based representation of the text's meaning, known as a mental model.

Who Has Reading Comprehension Difficulties?

Reading is a complex cognitive activity that requires a range of knowledge bases and skills. Poor comprehenders may struggle with decoding critical words in a text and may not retain sufficient information to enable integration between sentences due to cognitive resources being focused on word decoding.

A Closer Look at the Barriers to Successful Comprehension

Reading comprehension involves lower and higher-level language skills. Lower-level skills, such as vocabulary and grammar, are needed to understand individual words and sentences, while higher-level skills involve relating information across texts. Poor comprehenders may have difficulties in both areas or may have intact lower-level skills but weaknesses in higher-level skills.

Research Findings

• Specific discourse skills—such as inference and integration, comprehension monitoring, and text structure knowledge—account for variance in reading comprehension.
• Working memory plays a separate role in reading comprehension performance.
• Meaning-making skills weak in poor comprehenders predict reading comprehension development in unselected samples.

Conclusion

Good word-reading skills do not guarantee comprehension success. Children with unexpectedly poor reading comprehension identify gaps in their skills, leading to a deeper understanding of the barriers faced in reading development.