How do Chinese poor decoders differ from poor oral comprehenders?

The present study aimed to investigate the cognitive-linguistic profile in Chinese poor decoders and oral comprehenders. Two groups of 3rd grade Hong Kong Chinese-speaking children were selected from a longitudinal sample either be poor oral comprehenders (N=44) or poor decoders (N=22). These children were administered measures of IQ, rapid naming, orthographic awareness, syntactic awareness, morphological awareness, verbal working memory, word reading, reading comprehension, one-minute word reading, one-minute text reading, and oral language comprehension. Results showed that the poor decoders performed less well than the oral comprehenders in all cognitive-linguistic and reading measures. Among these measures, the orthographic awareness, rapid naming, and verbal working memory showed the greatest power in discriminating poor decoders and oral comprehenders. These findings suggest that orthographic awareness, rapid naming, and verbal working memory may be useful in understanding the development and impairment of literacy skills in Chinese.