Decoding, vocabulary, and reading motivation in Chinese reading

This study investigated the role of reading motivation as an affective/socio-emotional factor in relation to decoding and vocabulary—two cognitive skills—in explaining reading comprehension and fluency among Chinese elementary students. A sample of 100 native Chinese-speaking fifth graders from a large city in southern China was recruited. We assessed participants’ decoding skills, vocabulary knowledge, reading motivation, and both passage reading comprehension and reading fluency (silent and oral). All measures were adapted from prior studies with Chinese children and showed acceptable to high reliability in the present sample. Our findings replicate previous research on the significance of decoding skills and vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension for Chinese fifth graders, and extend prior findings by showing that decoding skills also predicted both silent and oral reading fluency. Moreover, two dimensions of intrinsic reading motivation uniquely contributed to passage reading comprehension in our sample, although they were not observed to predict oral or silent reading fluency. These results underscore the complexity of reading development, and highlight the importance of integrating affective/socio-emotional factors beyond cognition into existing reading theories. Copyright © 2026 The Author(s).