The Relationship between SES and Reading Comprehension in Chinese: A Mediation Model

The effect of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation on memory recall in reading: A pilot study

Expert reading acquisition is marked by fluent, effortless decoding, and adequate comprehension skills and is required for modern daily life. In spite of its importance, many individuals struggle with reading comprehension even when decoding skills are adequate. Unfortunately, effective reading comprehension interventions are limited, especially for adults. A growing body of research suggests that non-invasive transcutaneous stimulation of the auricular vagus nerve (taVNS) may drive neural plasticity for low-level reading skills such as speech sound perception and letter-sound learning, but it is unknown whether taVNS can improve higher level skills as well. Thus, the current pilot study was designed to evaluate the effect of taVNS paired with passage reading on reading comprehension performance. Twenty-four typically developing young adults were recruited and screened for baseline reading and working memory skills. Participants received either sham or active taVNS while reading short passages out loud. Immediately following each passage, participants answered a series of test questions that required either direct recall of passage details or more complete comprehension of the passage content. While taVNS did not improve the mechanics of reading (e.g., reading rate or accuracy), there was a significant effect of active taVNS on test performance. This effect was driven by significant improvement on accuracy for memory questions while there was no effect of taVNS on comprehension question accuracy. These findings suggest that taVNS may be beneficial for enhancing memory, but its efficacy may be limited in higher cognitive domains.

Reading Comprehension of Chinese-Speaking Children With Hearing Loss: The Roles of Metalinguistic Awareness and Vocabulary Knowledge

PURPOSE

This study aims to explore the contributions of phonological awareness (PA) and morphological awareness (MA) to the reading comprehension skills of Chinese-speaking children with hearing loss (HL) and examine the possible mediation effect of vocabulary knowledge on the relationships of PA and MA with their reading comprehension.

METHOD

The participants were 28 Chinese-speaking children with HL, who were followed from Grade 1 through Grade 2. They were administered a series of tests that measured their PA and MA at the beginning of Grade 1, vocabulary knowledge at the end of Grade 1, and reading comprehension at the end of Grade 2.

RESULTS

MA significantly accounted for additional variance in reading comprehension beyond the effect of PA but not vice versa. Both PA and MA contributed uniquely to vocabulary knowledge, which completely mediated the relationships of PA and MA with reading comprehension.

CONCLUSIONS

PA and MA are both essential to the development of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in Chinese-speaking children with HL; however, MA seems to be more important than PA in their reading comprehension. PA and MA significantly affect children's reading comprehension through their influence on vocabulary knowledge. This study has replicated previous evidence on the importance of PA, MA, and vocabulary knowledge in the reading comprehension of children with typical hearing, and has extended its significance to children with HL. In addition, the findings have the potential to inform educational practitioners regarding the importance of teaching essential reading skills to Chinese-speaking children with HL.

Contributions of Demographics, Language Learning Experience, and Cognitive Control to Chinese Reading Comprehension

The study investigates whether learners' demographics (e.g., age, education, and intelligence-IQ), language learning experience, and cognitive control predict Chinese (L2) reading comprehension in young adults. Thirty-four international students who studied mandarin Chinese in mainland China (10 females, 24 males) from Bangladesh, Burundi, Congo, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe were tested on a series of measures including demographic questionnaires, IQ test, two cognitive control tasks [Flanker Task measuring inhibition and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) measuring mental set shifting], and a Chinese reading comprehension test (HSK level 4). The results of correlation analyses showed that education, L2 learning history, L2 proficiency, and previous category errors of the WCST were significantly correlated with Chinese reading comprehension. Further multiple regression analyses indicated that Chinese learning history, IQ, and previous category errors of the WCST significantly predicted Chinese reading comprehension. These findings reveal that aside from IQ and the time spent on L2 learning, the component mental set shifting of cognitive control also predicts reading outcomes, which suggests that cognitive control has a place in reading comprehension models over and above traditional predictors of language learning experience.

Individual Differences in Print Exposure Predict Use of Implicit Causality in Pronoun Comprehension and Referential Prediction

In three experiments, we measured individual patterns of pronoun comprehension (Experiments 1 and 2) and referential prediction (Experiment 3) in implicit causality (IC) contexts and compared these with a measure of participants’ print exposure (Author Recognition Task; ART). Across all three experiments, we found that ART interacted with verb bias, such that participants with higher scores demonstrated a stronger semantic bias, i.e., they tended to select the pronoun or predict the re-mention of the character that was congruent with an implicit cause interpretation. This suggests that print exposure changes the way language is processed at the discourse level, and in particular, that it is related to implicit cause sensitivity.

Impact of visual processing skills on reading ability in Chinese deaf children

BACKGROUND

Reading activity involves visual processing in nature. Compared with hearing people, visual processing may be more critical for deaf people. However, much less research has explored the impact of visual processing on the reading ability of deaf children, and the mechanism underlying this relationship is unclear.

AIMS

This study aimed to examine whether and how visual processing skills predict reading ability in elementary school deaf children in China.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

A total of 118 Chinese deaf children (mean age = 14.60 years) from grades 4-6 were tested on the tasks of visual-graphic processing, visual-orthographic processing, word segmentation, reading comprehension, and reading fluency.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

The results showed that after chronological age was controlled, visual-graphic processing and visual-orthographic processing significantly predicted Chinese deaf children's reading ability. Specifically, visual-orthographic processing played a mediating role in the effect of visual-graphic processing on reading ability, whereas word segmentation played a mediating role in the effect of visual-orthographic processing on reading ability. However, the mediating role of word segmentation, as well as the chain mediating effect of visual-orthographic processing and word segmentation in the influence of visual-graphic processing on reading ability, were not significant.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

These findings emphasized the importance of visual processing skills in reading activity and offered potential mechanisms underlying the contribution of visual processing skills to reading ability in Chinese deaf children.

A computer-based Pinyin intervention for disadvantaged children in China: Effects on Pinyin skills, phonological awareness, and character reading

Pinyin is an alphabetic script that denotes pronunciations of Chinese characters. Studies have shown that Pinyin instruction enhances both phonological awareness (e.g., Shu et al., Developmental Science, 2008, 11, 171-181) and character reading (e.g., Lin et al., Psychological Science, 2010, 21, 1117-1122) in Chinese children. In the present study, we provided a 3-week Pinyin intervention with a computer-based Pinyin GraphoGame to disadvantaged migrant children with poor Pinyin skills. A total of 252 first graders who were children of migrant workers in a large Chinese city were assessed to identify poor Pinyin readers. Fifty-six 7-year-old children with poor Pinyin skills were selected and randomly divided into a training group and a control group, with 28 children in each group. The training group played the Pinyin GraphoGame for 3 weeks, while the control group received school instruction only during the same period. Results showed that the children in the training group outperformed their peers in the control group on Pinyin reading accuracy and fluency, onset-rime and phonemic awareness, and character reading. These results suggest that the Pinyin GraphoGame may be a cost-effective method to enhance Pinyin and literacy outcomes for underprivileged children in China.

Contribution of Vocabulary Knowledge to Reading Comprehension Among Chinese Students: A Meta-Analysis

This study investigated the correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. To address the correlation picture under Chinese logographical scripts, the researchers investigated the potential explanation for the correlation via Reading Stage, Information Gap, Content-based Approach, and Cognition and Creativity Theory approaches. This study undertook a meta-analysis to synthesize 89 independent samples from primary school stage to Master's degree stage. Results showed the correlation picture as an inverted U-shape, supporting the idea that vocabulary knowledge contributed a large proportion of variance on text comprehension and might also support the independent hypothesis of the impact of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension. In each education stage, the correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension was independent in that it did not interact with any significant moderators. This study informed that the vocabulary knowledge not only determined text comprehension progress through facial semantic meaning identification but also suggested that the coordinate development of vocabulary knowledge, grammatical knowledge, and inference would be better in complexity comprehension task performance.

The roles of decoding and vocabulary in Chinese reading development: Evidence from a 3-year longitudinal study

BACKGROUNDS

Decoding and vocabulary are two essential abilities to reading comprehension. Investigating the roles of decoding and vocabulary in Chinese reading development can not only provide empirical evidence to enrich the current reading theories but also have implications for educational practice.

AIMS

To examine the developing importance of decoding and vocabulary to reading comprehension and the reciprocal relationship between decoding and vocabulary across the reading development.

SAMPLE

A total of 186 Chinese children were followed from grade 1 to grade 3 (aged 6.5 to 8.5 years).

METHODS

Participants' decoding, vocabulary, and reading comprehension abilities were measured once a year for three years. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to obtain the unique contributions of decoding and vocabulary to reading comprehension in the different grades. A cross-lagged structural equation model was used to explore the reciprocal relationship between decoding and vocabulary over the three years.

RESULTS

Decoding and vocabulary explained nearly 40% of the variance to reading comprehension across grades, and the unique contribution of decoding decreased over the grades (from 29% to 8%) while that of vocabulary increased (from 3% to 9%). Moreover, vocabulary always predicted decoding from grade 1, but decoding predicted later vocabulary only started in grade 2.

CONCLUSIONS

Decoding skills are important to reading comprehension in the early learn-to-read grades. However, vocabulary becomes more critical for reading comprehension in later grades. Larger oral vocabularies promote the development of decoding skills, and vice versa.