Do children with reading comprehension difficulties struggle academically?
Children with poor reading comprehension but good decoding skills show lower educational attainment in primary school and are less likely than their peers to meet key academic benchmarks by the end of compulsory education.
Source
Educational attainment in poor comprehenders
What they did
The researchers conducted a longitudinal study tracking children over eight years, starting at age 9 and following them to 16 years of age. They compared 15 poor comprehenders with 15 controls who had similar nonverbal reasoning and decoding skills. Reading and vocabulary were tested at 11 years of age, and the researchers obtained educational test results at 11 years of age and GCSE exam scores, which were available for 21/30 participants.
What they found
At 11 years of age, poor comprehenders scored significantly lower than controls on national reading and writing tests. At 16 years of age, poor comprehenders showed a trend toward lower performance, and only 55% achieved standard level passing grades, which was significantly below the national average. Vocabulary gaps remained stable over time rather than widening.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Because final results were only available for 21/30 participants, the study had limited statistical power to confirm differences at 16 years of age. The researchers did not measure actual reading comprehension or cognitive skills at 16 years of age, leaving the final reading status of the participants unknown. It is also unknown whether participants received exam accommodations during their final assessments.
Key terms
- poor comprehenders
- Children who demonstrate age-appropriate word recognition and decoding skills but struggle to understand the meaning of the texts they read.
- Simple View of Reading
- A theoretical framework proposing that reading comprehension is the product of word recognition and oral language comprehension.
- Matthew effects
- The phenomenon where academic differences between high-achieving and low-achieving students widen over time, often described as the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
- decoding
- The cognitive process of mapping letters onto sounds to translate printed words into spoken language.
- GCSEs
- General Certificate of Secondary Education, which are standardized subject-based academic qualifications taken by students in the United Kingdom at the end of compulsory education.
- SAT-UK
- Standardised national school assessment tests completed by primary school students in the United Kingdom to measure educational attainment.
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Quiz yourself
What core characteristic defines 'poor comprehenders' in the field of reading research?
Common questions
How are poor comprehenders different from dyslexic readers?
Dyslexic readers primarily struggle with decoding words and translating letters to sounds, whereas poor comprehenders can read and pronounce words accurately but struggle to understand the overall meaning of the text.
Did the study find that reading comprehension difficulties get worse over time?
No, the study did not find evidence of widening gaps (Matthew effects). While poor comprehenders remained behind their peers, the gap in reading comprehension and vocabulary stayed relatively stable over the studied time frame.
How does poor reading comprehension impact overall school performance?
Poor reading comprehension is linked to lower scores on standardized national assessments in English subjects (reading and writing) at the end of primary school, and it increases the risk of failing to achieve key secondary school benchmarks at the end of compulsory education.
What role does oral vocabulary play in reading comprehension?
Oral vocabulary provides a foundation for reading comprehension, as knowing word meanings makes it easier to understand written text. Poor comprehenders in this study consistently showed lower expressive vocabulary skills than their peers.
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