The role of cognitive-linguistic skills in Chinese reading comprehension: An examination of the Simple View of Reading

This study investigated the direct and indirect associations of different cognitive-linguistic skills and Chinese reading comprehension in Hong Kong kindergarteners. A total of 212 Cantonese-speaking children (96 girls, 3rd year of kindergarten, mean age = 73.3 months, SD = 3.72) participated in this study. Their non-verbal IQ, cognitive-linguistic skills, word reading, listening comprehension and reading comprehension were assessed. Results showed that the correlations of all variables were significant except for the correlation between non-verbal IQ and rapid automatized naming, and that between orthographic knowledge and vocabulary knowledge. Further path analysis results (See Fig. 1) demonstrated that rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge and morphological awareness contributed to reading comprehension via word reading. Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge associated with reading comprehension through listening comprehension. Beyond that, morphological awareness still contributed to reading comprehension directly. The model explained 66.6% (p < .01) of the variance in reading comprehension. Overall, our findings elucidated the respective importance of cognitive-linguistic skills as specified in the framework of the Simple View of Reading in Chinese. Notably, the findings also highlighted the unique role of morphological awareness in Chinese reading comprehension. The study contributes to a better understanding of the Simple View of Reading in Hong Kong Chinese learners at the very early stage of reading development. Copyright © 2020 ARWA.