A longitudinal investigation of early reading and language skills in children with poor reading comprehension

TLDR

Poor comprehenders struggle with connected text despite age‑appropriate accuracy and fluency. The study longitudinally examined early reading and language skills in children later identified as poor comprehenders. A cohort of 242 children was assessed from age 5 to 8, and at age 8, 15 poor comprehenders were compared to 15 controls both concurrently and prospectively. Poor comprehenders maintained normal accuracy and fluency but consistently low comprehension, showed minimal growth between ages 6 and 8, and exhibited mild expressive, receptive, listening, and grammatical language deficits that appeared early and persisted, indicating oral language weaknesses are not merely a consequence of reading impairment.

Abstract

Background: Poor comprehenders have difficulty comprehending connected text, despite having age‐appropriate levels of reading accuracy and fluency. We used a longitudinal design to examine earlier reading and language skills in children identified as poor comprehenders in mid‐childhood. Method: Two hundred and forty‐two children began the study at age 5. Further assessments of language and reading skill were made at 5.5, 6, 7 and 8 years. At age 8, fifteen children met criteria for being a poor comprehender and were compared to 15 control children both concurrently and prospectively. Results: Poor comprehenders showed normal reading accuracy and fluency at all ages. Reading comprehension was poor at each time point and, notably, showed minimal increases in raw score between 6 and 8 years. Phonological skills were generally normal throughout, but mild impairments in expressive and receptive language, listening comprehension and grammatical understanding were seen at all ages. Conclusions: Children identified as poor comprehenders at 8 years showed the same reading profile throughout earlier development. Their difficulties with the non‐phonological aspects of oral language were present at school entry and persisted through childhood, showing that the oral language weaknesses seen in poor comprehenders in mid‐childhood are not a simple consequence of their reading comprehension impairment.