Abstract
As posited by the simple view of reading, listening comprehension and decoding are necessary for reading comprehension. Thus, the present study examined subcomponents of listening comprehension (i.e., vocabulary, morphology, and syntax) and their contributions to reading comprehension. The novel aspect of this study is that rather than examining listening comprehension as a global variable, the unique and shared variance of subcomponents of listening comprehension were examined in relation to English reading comprehension. Second language learners of English from Spanish-speaking backgrounds between the ages of 9 and 13 years completed tasks assessing vocabulary, morphological awareness, syntactic knowledge, word reading, and reading comprehension in English. As expected, regression analyses showed that all three subcomponents of listening comprehension contributed to reading comprehension. Additionally, commonality analyses showed that morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge shared significant amounts of variance with vocabulary. The interrelations among these variables have implications for assessment and intervention.
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Introduction
Understanding the variables related to reading comprehension in second language (L2) learners is crucial given the pervasive and persistent weaknesses that they exhibit in this area of reading (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; Farnia & Geva, 2013). These weaknesses have been noted in experimental studies and in the results of national standardized testing by the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) in the United States (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2009) as well as the findings of regional assessments conducted by the Education Quality and Accountability Office in Ontario, Canada (Educational Quality & Accountability Office, 2012). On an individual level, immigrant L2 learners in the later elementary grades often must “learn to read” their L2 while using their L2, the dominant societal language, to “read to learn” (Chall, 1996). In other words, these students are learning to read their L2 while mastering academically demanding school curriculum.
Several models have been advanced to explain reading comprehension. One of these models, the simple view of reading posits that reading comprehension (RC) is the product of decoding (D) and language/listening comprehension (LC), RC = D × LC (Gough & Tumner, 1986). Numerous studies examining reading comprehension have used the simple view of reading as the foundational model. These studies have examined reading comprehension in native speakers (Catts & Weismer, 2006; Kieffer, Petscher, Proctor, Silverman, 2016; Savage, 2006; Tilstra, McMaster, Van den Broek, Kendou, & Rapp, 2009) and second language learners (Babayiğit, 2014; Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005; Yaghoub-Zadeh, Farnia, & Geva, 2012). In all cases, the key constructs of word reading and/or decoding, and listening comprehension or a proxy variable for listening comprehension have been related to reading comprehension (Jeon & Yamashita, 2014). The current study examined variables related to reading comprehension in Spanish–English speakers, ranging in age from approximately 9–13 years, with a focus on three subcomponents of listening comprehension, specifically vocabulary, morphological awareness, and syntactic knowledge. The examination of the subcomponents of listening comprehension can aid in refining models of reading comprehension for English L2 learners.
However, the simple view of reading has been criticized for being too “simple” (Kirby & Savage, 2008). Modifications to the simple view of reading have resulted in the addition of variables such as vocabulary (Braze, Tabor, Shankweiler, & Mencl, 2007; Proctor et al., 2005), rapid naming (Nakamoto, Lindsey, & Manis, 2007) and reading fluency (Yaghoub-Zadeh et al., 2012). Substantial changes to the model have also incorporated working memory and higher order comprehension processes (Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2004). Additional significant changes to models of reading comprehension include the addition of socio-emotional, socio-cultural, and environmental/ecological variables as predictors of reading comprehension (Aaron, Joshi, Gooden, & Bentum, 2008; Jia, Gottardo, Koh, Chen, & Pasquarella, 2014). Modifications to the simple view of reading, in the studies cited above, have involved data from monolingual speakers as well as bilingual learners. Despite differences in the above studies, the commonalities among them are that all of these models of reading comprehension have incorporated basic language processes and word level reading as key underlying skills.
Despite criticisms of the simple view of reading, it continues to be held up as a “straw man” model of reading comprehension to be tested and/or refuted. The longevity of the simple view of reading is likely the result of the model being deceptively “simple”. In fact, if the concept of listening comprehension is examined in detail, it contains many crucial cognitive and linguistic components. For example, linguistic components of listening comprehension include knowledge of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax (Kieffer et al., 2016), while cognitive components include working memory, allocation of attentional resources, higher order reasoning skills, such as inferencing, as well as general and topic-specific background knowledge (Cain et al., 2004; Tilstra et al., 2009). However in most studies, the construct of listening comprehension is not well defined. The Lexical Quality Hypothesis has examined word-level correlates of reading comprehension (Perfetti, 2007; Perfetti & Hart, 2002). This hypothesis considers orthography, phonology, morpho-syntax and semantics to be representational properties of the lexicon that are subsumed under word knowledge. The two former components are considered lexical processes that are related to decoding and while latter two are considered supralexical or general language skills and are related to listening comprehension and text-level reading (Share & Leikin, 2004).
For pragmatic reasons, many studies select, one linguistic skill as a proxy for listening comprehension. The skill that is usually selected as a proxy for listening comprehension is vocabulary knowledge, as it is highly related to listening comprehension (see above) and is relatively easy to measure. Additionally and consistent with the Lexical Quality Hypothesis, vocabulary knowledge subsumes many relevant components of listening comprehension (see above) and might be considered an appropriate proxy variable. The current study expands upon previous studies of reading comprehension by systematically examining the relations among vocabulary, morphological awareness (measured using a derivational awareness task in the current study) and syntactic knowledge, and how these variables are related to reading comprehension in English L2 learners in an attempt to “unpack” the construct of listening comprehension and to determine if one or all of these variables are equally related to reading comprehension.
Why listening comprehension?
Understanding the components of listening comprehension is important for several reasons. One reason for examining listening comprehension in greater detail is that it contributes increasing variance to reading comprehension as readers progress through the grades and gain reading experience (Catts, Hogan, & Adlof, 2005; Tilstra et al., 2009). Research with native English speakers has shown that decoding explained the majority of unique and shared variance in reading comprehension in the second grade, 27% unique and 40% shared (Catts et al., 2005). In contrast, the contribution of decoding decreased in higher grades while the contribution of listening comprehension increased. Listening comprehension explained the majority of the unique and shared variance by eighth grade, 36% unique and 36% shared variance (Catts, et al., 2005). Thus, the change in the amount of variability explained by decoding as compared to listening comprehension occurs gradually over the later elementary grades with patterns of relations among variables being in the intermediate range for fourth graders (Catts et al., 2005). Similar results were found for slightly older learners in fourth to ninth grade (Tilstra et al., 2009). The current study thus examined variables related to reading comprehension with a focus on subcomponents of listening comprehension in Spanish–English speakers, approximately 9–13 years old. Children of this age were selected because research with monolinguals shows that at these ages the variance explained in reading comprehension shifts from decoding to listening comprehension. Therefore, it is important to determine how subcomponents of listening comprehension are related to each other and to reading comprehension in L2 learners who have mastered decoding.
An additional reason for examining the role of listening comprehension is that English L2 learners struggle with this complex linguistic skill. After decades of inquiry, researchers have a strong understanding of the skills underlying decoding (Conners, Atwell, Rosenquist, & Sligh, 2001; Seymour & Evans, 1994) and of the ways to enhance decoding skills in native speakers and L2 learners (Allinder, Dunse, Brunken, & Obermiller-Krolikowski, 2001; McCandliss, Beck, Sandak, & Perfetti, 2003; Meyer & Felton, 1999). Although some English L2 learners might initially struggle with the acquisition of decoding skills, good instruction allows English L2 learners to perform at the same levels as their native English-speaking peers on decoding after a few years of explicit instruction (Chiappe, Siegel, & Gottardo, 2002; D’Anguilli, Siegel, & Maggi, 2004; Gersten & Baker, 2000; Geva, Yaghoub-Zadeh, & Schuster, 2000). However, English L2 learners continue to perform at lower levels on reading comprehension and on the language variables that are related to listening comprehension such as vocabulary and syntactic knowledge (August et al., 2005; Geva et al., 2000). Therefore, understanding component variables that are related to listening comprehension can assist in developing models of reading comprehension for English L2 learners. These models then can be used to develop targeted intervention programs.
Research on L2 learners is beginning to enhance our understanding of how listening comprehension is related to reading comprehension. At present, the data collected from English L2 learners show both similarities and differences to native speakers in relations among variables that measure listening comprehension and reading comprehension (as outlined above). Data collected from Spanish–English speakers in fourth grade showed that listening comprehension and vocabulary are highly correlated but each variable also contributed unique variance to reading comprehension in addition to word level alphabetic knowledge (Proctor et al., 2005). However, in contrast to research with young native English speakers, variables related to listening comprehension, such as vocabulary and oral cloze, were related to reading comprehension in addition to word reading skills in younger English L2 learners in second grade (Gottardo & Mueller, 2009). Other research conducted with first and second grade English L2 learners showed that listening comprehension was uniquely related to reading comprehension, as was the interaction between code-related variables and listening comprehension (Kieffer & Vukovic, 2012). Research conducted with adolescent English L2 learners showed that both vocabulary and decoding were related to reading comprehension (Pasquarella, Gottardo, & Grant, 2012). Therefore, the current literature shows a strong influence of listening comprehension and other language variables in relation to reading comprehension across grades for English L2 learners. Due to this consistent relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension, it is even more important for researchers and educators to understand relations among oral language variables related to listening comprehension in English L2 learners.
Given the documented weaknesses in reading comprehension and listening comprehension in L2 learners, a greater understanding of listening comprehension will assist in the development of intervention programs. Specifically, understanding the multiple linguistic components that are related to reading comprehension is important in order to develop targeted remediation programs. Given the limited instructional time available and the wide variety of learning tasks and demands in classrooms, interventions should be targeted to maximize the use of instructional time.
Listening comprehension skills in relation to reading comprehension
The simple view of reading features listening comprehension as one of the key skills that is related to reading comprehension. However, listening comprehension is itself a complex construct that is difficult to delineate and measure. For example, tests of listening comprehension usually mirror tests of reading comprehension, where a passage is read to the child, who then answers comprehension questions. Difficulties inherent in designing and selecting reading comprehension measures, such as the role of background knowledge and the types of questions being asked, are also found in measures of listening comprehension (Keenan, Betjemann, & Olsen, 2008). Additionally, the component skills required to perform well on measures of listening comprehension include attention, vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, morphological knowledge, and working memory as well as expressive language skills if the task demands an open-ended response. Although many of the component skills have been studied separately in relation to reading comprehension, few studies have included measures of vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and morphological awareness simultaneously (Babayiğit, 2014; Kieffer et al., 2016). The current study examined relations among reading comprehension and vocabulary, morphological awareness, and syntactic knowledge in L2 learners.
Vocabulary
As mentioned above, vocabulary has been studied extensively in relation to reading comprehension (Farnia & Geva, 2013; Pasquarella et al., 2012; Proctor, Silverman, Harring, & Montecillo, 2012). Native English speakers who are poor comprehenders performed more poorly on multiple semantic tasks compared to average readers who were matched on age, decoding and nonverbal reasoning (Nation & Snowling, 1998). The links between vocabulary and reading comprehension are both indirect through listening comprehension and direct (Braze et al., 2007). Similar findings have been reported for English L2 learners. For example, Proctor et al. (2005) found that vocabulary explained unique variance in relation to reading comprehension beyond listening comprehension and word level reading skills. Previous research using vocabulary as a proxy for language comprehension shows that it is a strong predictor of reading comprehension in English L2 learners (e.g., August et al., 2005; Farnia & Geva, 2013; Geva & Farnia, 2012; Pasquarella et al., 2012; Proctor et al., 2005). Research on the role of vocabulary has included this variable as both a predictor and an experimental variable in remediation studies of language and reading comprehension (Coyne, McCoach, & Kapp, 2007; Pollard-Durodola et al., 2011). Vocabulary weaknesses in English L2 learners have been documented across languages, ages, and socio-economic status. These weaknesses in vocabulary knowledge are considered to be a major source of weaknesses in reading comprehension in English L2 learners. However, other subcomponents of listening comprehension are not examined as often in relation to reading comprehension.
Morphological awareness
Morphological awareness is an important subskill in relation to both word reading and reading comprehension in native English speakers (Carlisle, 2000; Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Specifically, it is a metalinguistic skill that measures the ability to produce correct forms of words using derivational (e.g., -ness, -ly) or inflectional morphology (e.g., -ed, -s), or compound words (e.g., sun-set) (Carlisle, 2000; Deacon & Kirby, 2004; McBride-Chang et al., 2005). Morphological awareness is often examined as the key morphological variable in relation to reading comprehension. Deacon and Kirby (2004) found that morphological awareness, as measured by a task where students used the correct inflectional morphemes, was a significant predictor of reading comprehension in grades 4 and 5 (also see Kirby et al., 2012 for children in the early elementary grades). Morphological awareness, measured by inflectional and derivational morphological awareness, also differentiated good and poor comprehenders (Tong, Deacon, Kirby, Cain, & Parrila, 2011). A longitudinally predictive relationship was found between morphological awareness and reading comprehension with the importance of morphological awareness for reading comprehension increasing over time (e.g., Berninger, Abbott, Nagy, & Carlisle, 2010 ; Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006).
A growing body of evidence shows that morphological awareness predicts English vocabulary (Nagy et al., 2006; McBride-Chang et al., 2005; Carlisle, 2000). Nagy et al. (2006) found a relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary, with readers’ ability to use correct real or pseudo derivations [e.g., did you hear the _______? (directs, directions, directing, directed)] and inflections [e.g., our teacher taught us how to _______ long words (jittling, jittles, jittled, jittle)] in the context of sentences, contributing to access to meaning. Additionally, morphology instruction enhances vocabulary knowledge, with interventions demonstrating moderate effect sizes (Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010). Therefore, the evidence suggests that morphological awareness and vocabulary are independently linked to reading comprehension and also that morphological awareness is related to reading comprehension through vocabulary knowledge. Specifically, morphological awareness can enhance vocabulary acquisition and therefore facilitate reading comprehension (Carlisle, 2000). Knowing the meaning of root words and common derivational morphological markers allows students to understand words not previously encountered (Biemiller, 2010). For example, in a case of the word “unable”, knowing the negative meaning of the prefix “un” and the word “able” allows the child to understand the word “unable”. These findings are congruent with the Lexical Quality Hypothesis that assumes morpho-syntactic knowledge is a component of lexical knowledge (Perfetti, 2007). In the case of the current study, morphological awareness, specifically derivational awareness, and syntactic knowledge were examined separately.
Although these relations have been documented for native English speakers, fewer studies have examined these interrelations in L2 learners (Babayiğit, 2014; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008; Kieffer & Vukovic, 2012; Ramirez, Chen, Geva, & Luo, 2011; Ramirez, Chen, & Pasquarella, 2013). Research conducted by Ramirez et al. (2011, 2013) found cross-linguistic relations in morphological awareness skill and relations between morphological awareness and word reading in English L2 learners, using a measure of derivational morphology. Kieffer and Lesaux (2008) focused on the role of morphological awareness in vocabulary development and reading comprehension. For example, Kieffer and Lesaux (2008) found that morphological awareness, measured using a derivational morphology task, predicted unique variance in reading comprehension in fifth grade students who were Spanish–English speakers. This relationship was significant even after vocabulary and phonological awareness were controlled. The results of this study also showed that morphological awareness in Grade 4 was a significant predictor of reading comprehension in Grade 5 (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008). This longitudinal predictive influence of morphological awareness on reading comprehension is aligned with the hypothesis proposed by many researchers that the importance of morphological awareness for reading comprehension increases over time, due to the increasing difficulty and morphological complexity of words being read and the relative decrease in decoding as a key predictor of reading comprehension (e.g., Berninger et al., 2010; Nagy et al., 2006).
Morphological awareness is implicated in vocabulary learning in preadolescent English L2 learners (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2007, 2012). For example, morphological awareness was related to reading comprehension in Spanish–English speakers in sixth to eighth grades, when word reading accuracy and fluency as well as vocabulary and listening comprehension were controlled (Kieffer, Biancarosa, & Mancilla-Martinez, 2013). Morphological awareness also showed an indirect relationship to reading comprehension through vocabulary and text reading fluency (Kieffer et al., 2013). In the above studies, vocabulary was examined as a control variable. It is likely that vocabulary and morphological awareness are highly related and contribute shared variance to reading comprehension. However, it is unlikely that they demonstrate fully overlapping variance given the many models that posit the contribution of metalinguistic awareness to reading comprehension (e.g., Tunmer & Bowey, 1984). Vocabulary knowledge contributes a pure meaning component whereas morphological awareness includes the metalinguistic component, which would result in these variables also contributing unique variance to reading comprehension. Although the relationships between vocabulary and morphological awareness have been examined in English L2 learners, additional variables such as syntactic knowledge could influence their interrelationships to reading comprehension. Studies examining the relationships among measures of vocabulary, morphological and syntactic knowledge are lacking in the literature on reading comprehension in L2 learners (Babayiğit, 2014).
Syntactic knowledge
Intuitively, syntactic knowledge is related to reading comprehension, as it is necessary to comprehend the structure of sentences in order to comprehend text. Kintsch (1992) suggests that knowledge of syntax is a key factor in generating a situation model in that syntax signals which meaning-based components are most important. Research evidence showed that syntactic knowledge allows the reader to identify the subject-verb-object elements of the sentence, which allows the reader to determine the topic and general meaning of the sentence. Syntactic knowledge also allows the reader to relate ideas within a sentence or across sentences. The Lexical Quality Hypothesis assumes that grammatical information of word classes is a component of lexical knowledge and therefore is related to reading comprehension (Perfetti & Hart, 2002). Additionally, syntactic knowledge is considered a supralexical processes related to listening comprehension (Share & Leikin, 2004).
Research with native English speakers in third grade found that although syntactic processing was correlated with reading comprehension it was not uniquely related to reading comprehension when phonological processing and working memory were controlled (Gottardo, Stanovich, & Siegel, 1996). In contrast, performance on a measure of comprehension of complex sentences was related to reading comprehension in English-speaking 10 to 11 year olds (Oakhill, Cain, & Bryant, 2003). Subsequent work with good and poor readers has shown that native English speakers who are poor comprehenders perform more poorly on syntactic tasks (Catts & Weismer, 2006; Nation, Clarke, Marshall, & Durand, 2004). In a comparison of different measures of reading comprehension, sentence processing skills were related to some but not all measures of reading comprehension (Cutting & Scarborough, 2006). Guo, Roehrig and Williams (2011) examined interrelations among reading comprehension, vocabulary, morphology and syntax in college-aged English speakers. They report both direct and indirect relations between both morphology and syntax and reading comprehension, with the indirect effects being mediated by vocabulary (Guo et al., 2011).
Research on syntactic processing has also differentiated between syntactic knowledge and syntactic awareness as well as between types of syntactic knowledge. Brimo, Apel, and Fountain (2017) found direct effects of syntactic knowledge and indirect effects of syntactic awareness on reading comprehension in adolescent English speakers. Cain (2007) examined variables related to measures of syntactic awareness and found that word order correction was related to vocabulary knowledge and working memory while grammatical correction was related to vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. Although links between syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension have been established for monolingual speakers, less work has been conducted examining the role of syntax in reading comprehension in L2 learners. However, findings from the limited number of studies that have examined the contributions of syntax to reading comprehension among L2 learners are consistent with findings from studies examining these skills in native English speakers (e.g., Lesaux, Lipka, & Siegel, 2006; Lipka & Siegel, 2012). Children who were L2 learners performed worse on syntactic awareness measures than native English speakers (Lesaux et al., 2006). However, within the groups, poor comprehenders performed worse than good comprehenders (Lipka & Siegel, 2012). Finally, morph-syntactic skills as measured by a recalling sentence task were related to listening comprehension and reading comprehension in a mixed group of native speakers and L2 learners (Babayiğit, 2014).
The present study examined variables related to the simple view of reading in Spanish–English speakers, approximately 9–13 years of age. The novel aspect of this study is that rather than examining listening comprehension as a global independent variable, the unique and shared variance of subcomponents of listening comprehension, specifically vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, were examined in relation to the outcome of reading comprehension. Although it is expected that all three subcomponents of listening comprehension will be interrelated and jointly contribute to reading comprehension, it is also expected that they will make unique contributions to reading comprehension.
Method
Participants
Fifty-two participants were recruited through community centres and churches that served Latino families as well as local Hispanic associations. These participants were students who were living in a large metropolitan, English-speaking area in Canada. The participants had a mean age of 11 years, range 8 years 11 months to 13 years 2 months (SD = 1 year, 1 mos) (23 males). They had lived in Canada for a mean of 6 years 3 months, but showed high variability in terms of time living in Canada (SD = 3 years, 3 mos).
Family socio-economic status (SES) was calculated for each participant. Parental educational level was used to calculate SES, because it is a stable indicator of the SES, even in the face of changes in geographic location (Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, Guerin, & Parramore, 2003). Both paternal and maternal education levels were considered in the calculation of SES because of the high correlation between the two (Ensminger & Fothergill, 2003). Additionally, children’s academic performance is highly related to maternal education (Ensminger & Fothergill, 2003). In the current study, parental education was determined using a parental report questionnaire. The educational level of each parent was assigned a numerical code based on the Hollingshead’s (1975) Four Factor Index of Social Status. Levels of education were assigned a value of 1 through 7 with higher numbers indicating a higher level of education. More specifically, 5 indicated partial college education with at least one year of specialized training, while 6 indicated a 4-year college or university education with graduation. Mean scores for the present sample were between 5 and 6, suggesting that the families in the present study were from upper-middle class backgrounds.
Reading measures
Word level reading
Word reading accuracy was assessed using the Word Identification subtest from the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised (WRMT-NU; Woodcock, 1998). Participants were asked to read the words aloud. The items increased in difficulty and testing was discontinued when the participant made 6 consecutive errors at the end of a page. The Word Identification subtest had a Cronbach’s α value of .92 (Woodcock, 1998).
Reading comprehension
The Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA; Neale, 1999) was used as a measure of reading comprehension. Participants were asked to read passages aloud and answer comprehension questions that followed each passage. There were a total of six passages and 44 questions. However, the total number of passages administered to each participant varied depending on the participant’s reading ability and age. The passages increased in difficulty and testing was discontinued when the participant exceeded the maximum number of errors that were allowed for a given passage. Three scores were obtained for each passage: a comprehension score, an accuracy score, and a reading speed score. Only the reading comprehension score was used in the analyses. The NARA has a reliability coefficient of .84 for ages 10–12 (Neale, 1999) and is known to be a valid measure of reading comprehension (Nation & Snowling, 1997; Savage, 2001).
Listening comprehension measures
Vocabulary
The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 3rd edition (PPVT-III; Dunn & Dunn, 1997) was administered to measure receptive vocabulary. In this task, participants chose the picture that best matched a target word that they heard. The split-half reliability of the PPVT-III ranges from .86 to .97, with test–retest reliability ranging from .91 to .94 (Dunn & Dunn, 1997).
Syntactic knowledge
The sentence assembly subtest of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals—4 was administered as a measure of syntactic knowledge (CELF-4: Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2006). The participants were required to reorder stimuli, which were grouped as individual words and/or word pairs (e.g., tall, the boy, is) in order to formulate two sentences (i.e., “The boy is tall.” and “Is the boy tall?”). The stimuli were read to the participants and also were visible while the participants responded orally. The sentences ranged in length from seven to ten words with later items including lower frequency words. The sentences had to be grammatically correct and semantically meaningful. This measure has a test–retest reliability of .82.
Morphological awareness
The students’ derivational morphological awareness skills were measured using an orally presented, morphological decomposition task (Carlisle, 2000). In this 28-item task, students were given a derived form of a word and asked to provide the root word that was appropriate for the given sentence by deleting a prefix or suffix from the word (e.g., growth: She wanted her plant to grow.). The root words of the items were sampled from a range of frequencies. The inter-item reliability of this measure based on previous studies was .84 for Spanish-speaking English L2 learenrs (Ramirez et al., 2011).
Procedure
Participants were tested in their homes or in community centres on weekends or during the summer months when they were not attending school. The testing took place in one session but students were given breaks between measures. Total testing time was one and half hours. Tests were administered by graduate students who were native English speakers. All instructions were provided in English as all participants had strong conversational English language skills and had been in English immersion settings at school.
Results
In the current study, we examined the unique and shared contributions of three subcomponents of listening comprehension, namely, vocabulary, morphological awareness, and syntactic knowledge, to reading comprehension in Spanish–English bilingual speakers between the ages 9 and 13. It was hypothesized that each of the three subcomponents would jointly contribute to reading comprehension. In addition, each component was predicted to make unique contributions to reading comprehension. We examined our research questions and hypotheses using a series of hierarchical regressions and commonality analyses.
Overview of performance of sample
Means and standard deviations for the measures are reported in Table 1. Descriptives show that the participants had good decoding skills. The raw scores on all measures, including the subcomponents of listening comprehension, vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, showed good variability with no floor or ceiling effects. The standard scores reported for the measures of word reading and vocabulary show that these students performed within the average range based on norms calculated from monolingual English speakers. The standard scores on the measure of syntactic knowledge showed scores in the low average range (see Table 1).
Relationships among components of listening comprehension and their relations to reading comprehension
Bivariate correlations were calculated for measures of reading comprehension (NARA), word reading (Word ID) and the three variables that measured subcomponents of listening comprehension; vocabulary (PPVT-III), morphological awareness (derivational morphological awareness) and syntactic knowledge (CELF-4). All of the variables entered in the analyses were positively correlated with one another. Measures of word reading and reading comprehension were moderately correlated, r (50) = .659, p < .001. Reading comprehension was also correlated with the measures of listening comprehension, specifically vocabulary, r (50) = .755, p < .001, morphology, r (50) = .593, p < .001, and syntax, r (50) = .651, p < .001. Measures of listening comprehension were highly correlated with one another, with the highest of these correlations being between vocabulary and morphology, r (50) = .720, p < .001, showing that these abilities are largely overlapping (see Table 2).
Unique relations of variables to reading comprehension: the simple view of reading
Two sets of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to determine which variables were related to reading comprehension. The first set of analyses examined the contributions of word reading and the three variables that were used to measure subcomponents of listening comprehension in relation to reading comprehension. In these analyses, vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge were blocked and entered as one step. The order of the two blocks, word reading and variables measuring listening comprehension, was alternated. Table 3 shows that the four variables explained a substantial amount of variance in reading comprehension, total R 2 = .713. Word reading was uniquely related to reading comprehension, β = .310, t = 3.3, p < .01. Additionally, vocabulary and syntactic knowledge were uniquely related to reading comprehension, β = .353, t = 2.96, p < .01 and β = .268, t = 2.87, p < .01, respectively.
For the second set of regression analyses, only the three variables measuring listening comprehension; vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, were entered in the equation. In this case, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to determine the relative contributions of vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge to reading comprehension when only these variables were entered in the equation. The three variables explained a substantial amount of variance in reading comprehension, total R 2 = .668. Each variable was uniquely related to reading comprehension (see Table 4). Therefore, the three subcomponents of listening comprehension were related to reading comprehension when this construct was “unpacked”.
Unique and overlapping relations across measures of listening comprehension: vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge
Based on the results of the multiple regression analysis, a commonality analysis was conducted to examine the unique and common variance contributed by the measures of vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge in relation to reading comprehension. Commonality analyses examine the contributions of predictor variables by partitioning the total variance of the criterion variable, reading comprehension, into the unique contribution of each individual predictor variable and the common effects or contributions of combinations of the predictor variables.
The commonality coefficients of all possible combinations of the three predictor variables, vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, and the percentages of their total variance in English reading comprehension are displayed in Table 5. Vocabulary and syntactic knowledge each contributed 9.83, and 9.02% of unique variance in reading comprehension. Jointly, the measures of vocabulary and syntactic knowledge accounted for 12.37% of the total variance in reading comprehension. Together vocabulary and morphological awareness made a strong contribution to reading comprehension and accounted for 22.41% of the total variance. The common effects accounted for by all three predictor variables yielded the highest contribution to reading comprehension and explained 41% of the total variance. As a whole, the model that included all three predictors accounted for 66.8% of the variance in English reading comprehension.
Nature of interrelations between vocabulary and morphology: mediation analyses
Based on the overlapping variance between vocabulary and morphology, a mediation analysis was conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS (version 2.13.2) to test the hypothesis that vocabulary mediated the relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension. Morphological awareness and vocabulary were entered as predictor variables and reading comprehension was entered as the outcome variable. Three sets of predictions were tested in the analyses: (1) morphological awareness as a predictor of reading comprehension, (2) morphological awareness as a predictor of vocabulary, and (3) the prediction of reading comprehension by both morphological awareness and vocabulary. A mediation was present if four conditions were met in the analyses. First, morphological awareness and vocabulary each significantly predicted reading comprehension (without controlling for the effects of each other); second, morphological awareness significantly predicted vocabulary; third, vocabulary was a significant predictor of reading comprehension, controlling for the contribution of morphological awareness, and lastly, the contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension was no longer significant (full mediation) or significantly reduced (partial mediation) when the effects of vocabulary was controlled.
Results are shown in Fig. 1. Morphological awareness [F(1, 50) = 53.68, p < .01, R 2 = .46] and vocabulary [F(2, 49) = 37.97, p < .01, R 2 = .61] were significantly related to reading comprehension. Morphological awareness was also shown to be significantly related to vocabulary, F(1, 50) = 53.68, p < .01, R 2 = .52. The overall equation for the model where both vocabulary and morphological awareness were entered was significant, F(2, 49) = 37.97, p < .01, R 2 = .61. The relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension was significant, even after controlling for morphological awareness, b = .19, t(49) = 4.32 p < .01. In comparison to the direct relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension without considering vocabulary, b = 1.44, t(50) = 6.52, p < .01, the relationship between morphology and reading comprehension when vocabulary was entered was much weaker, b = .59, t(49) = 2.16, p < .05, although still significant. The reduction in contribution of morphological awareness was significant, Z = 3.69, p < .01, κ 2 = .38. The results show a partial mediation of vocabulary on the relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension.
Model depicting the mediation of the relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension by vocabulary. Note *p < .05; **p < .01
Discussion
The results of the current study are congruent with previous findings and confirm that major components of the simple view of reading are related to reading comprehension in L2 learners who are in the late elementary grades (Proctor et al., 2005). Specifically, decoding and components of listening comprehension were related to reading comprehension in this group of English L2 learners. The unique contribution of this study was that it examined the shared as well as separate contributions of linguistic processes, specifically vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, in relation to reading comprehension. In addition, the role of morphological awareness in relation to vocabulary knowledge was examined in greater detail.
Each component of listening comprehension measured in the current study, specifically vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, was related to reading comprehension when only the listening comprehension variables were examined in relation to reading comprehension. These patterns are similar to the findings of previous studies with native English speakers that showed that reading comprehension is related to vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntax (Braze et al., 2007; Carlisle, 2000: Oakhill et al., 2003). A limited number of studies with native speakers have included all three of these components of listening comprehension and shown that they contribute to reading comprehension (Cain, 2007; Guo et al., 2011; Kieffer et al., 2016). Separate studies have also shown that these subcomponents of listening comprehension are related to reading comprehension in English L2 learners. Specifically vocabulary (Lesaux, Crosson, Kieffer, & Pierce, 2010; Pasquarella et al., 2012; Proctor et al., 2005), vocabulary and morphology (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008) and morphology and syntax (Lipka & Siegel, 2012) were related to reading comprehension. Kieffer and Lesaux (2008) examined interrelations between the two subcomponents of listening comprehension, vocabulary and morphology, although these relationships were not the focus of the study. Additionally, Babayiğit (2014) investigated the three subcomponents of listening comprehension highlighted in the current study in a mixed group of native speakers and L2 learners (Babayiğit, 2014). The current study is one of the few studies that investigated the contribution of all three subcomponents of listening comprehension in relation to reading comprehension in L2 learners in a single study. In this sample of proficient English L2 learners, vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge each contributed a small but significant amount of unique variance with morphological awareness contributing the smallest amount of unique variance.
Given the small amount of unique variance contributed by morphology, it might be tempting to infer that this variable was not important in explaining reading comprehension in this group. However, the relatively large amount of shared variance with vocabulary suggested that morphological awareness is an important component of reading comprehension in terms of its relation to vocabulary knowledge. The results of the mediation analysis support the idea that the role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension is at least partially mediated by vocabulary knowledge. In addition, morphological awareness does contribute unique variance to reading comprehension. Based on the results of previous studies it is likely that morphological awareness is integral to vocabulary knowledge (Carlisle, 2000; Nagy et al., 2006). However, the unique component of morphological awareness is possibly its metalinguistic nature, which could provide readers with another means of identifying the meanings of unfamiliar words (i.e. decomposing words into smaller meaning units based on their understanding of word formation rules). Morphological awareness might be even more important for L2 learners, who are familiar with fewer words in their L2. Given the concurrent nature of the present study, it is not possible to determine whether morphological awareness is related to vocabulary acquisition or whether broad vocabulary facilitates morphological awareness. However, the results do suggest that in this group, the constructs of morphological awareness and vocabulary are highly linked. Therefore the results are consistent with previous research findings and theories, which suggest that morphological knowledge is a component of lexical knowledge (Aitchison, 2003).
Although each component was related to reading comprehension, additional findings demonstrate the shared variance among the variables. The variables in the present study demonstrated relatively larger amounts of overlapping variance among the variables in relation to reading comprehension as compared to unique contributions by each subcomponent. Specifically, as mentioned earlier, the overlapping variance between vocabulary and morphological awareness accounted for a significant proportion of variance in reading comprehension. There was also overlap in the variance accounted for by vocabulary and syntactic knowledge. Interestingly, the overlap in variance accounted for by morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge was not significant. Finally, the three variables combined demonstrated a large amount of overlapping variance.
The overlapping variance among the components of listening comprehension can be interpreted in one of two ways. It is possible that listening comprehension forms a single construct in these English L2 learners as has been found in other L2 learners (Pasquarella et al., 2012). However, the lack of overlapping variance between morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge suggests that this explanation is not likely for the present sample of highly proficient English L2 learners. Therefore, it is likely that the interrelations are strongly influenced by vocabulary knowledge as both morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge are related to vocabulary knowledge.
The findings of the links between vocabulary and morphological awareness, as well as between vocabulary and syntactic knowledge are compatible with the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007). Specifically, in addition to including the phonology and meaning of a word, the lexicon is assumed to “contain” the inflectional and derivational properties of the word and grammatical knowledge of the grammatical class or classes of a given word (Perfetti, 2007). These properties were represented by the morphological and syntactic tasks in the present study, suggesting that these components of language knowledge might be represented in the lexicon and would therefore be related to vocabulary knowledge and to text reading (Share & Leikin, 2004).
The lack of a relationship between morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge in this study is likely the result of the nature of the tasks used to measure these two constructs. Specifically, it appears that syntactic knowledge and syntactic awareness are differentially related to reading comprehension (Brimo et al., 2017). In this study, the morphological task measured awareness while the syntactic task measured knowledge of the construct. Additionally, even for measures of syntactic awareness, word order correction and grammatical correction are differentially related to other variables, suggesting that the nature of the task was crucial in determining interrelations among measures (Cain, 2007). In the present study, the syntactic task was more highly related to word order knowledge as compared to morph-syntactic knowledge, thus possibly reducing the likelihood of overlap between the variables.
Implications
In terms of assessment of the subcomponents of listening comprehension, the results showed that vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge all contribute to performance on a measure of reading comprehension. Therefore, a complete picture of the strengths and weaknesses of L2 learners would be enhanced by measuring all three subcomponents of listening comprehension. However, the overlapping nature of two of the variables, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, with vocabulary suggest the importance of measuring vocabulary knowledge. These results offer suggestions as to how and why other studies that have used vocabulary as a proxy for listening comprehension have resulted in successful prediction of reading comprehension. Vocabulary could be a proxy for listening comprehension, not just because it is a reliable and valid measure, but also because it is highly related to other key subcomponents of listening comprehension, specifically morphological awareness. In terms of theoretical support, these results are in keeping with the Lexical Quality Hypothesis that states that morpho-syntactic knowledge is a component of the lexicon (Perfetti, 2007). Finally, on a practical level, the reliability and validity as well as the ease of measurement of vocabulary, especially receptive vocabulary, suggest that it is a viable option for educators who are trying to determine gross areas of strength and weakness in readers learning their L2. However, as this study was not designed to specifically address this question, future studies are needed to examine the validity of this suggestion.
In terms of implications for intervention, the results suggest that because all three subcomponents of listening comprehension are related to reading comprehension, interventions should attempt to address the development of vocabulary, morphology and syntax in English L2 learners. It is possible to combine instruction in vocabulary and morphology by showing students how to decompose morphologically complex words to determine their meaning as well as by learning how to create more complex words using root morphemes and affixes (Biemiller, 2015; Nagy, 2007). Finally, learning to combine sentences might help English L2 learners enhance their syntactic knowledge and therefore their reading comprehension skills.
Limitations of this study are also acknowledged. First, the participants in this study were highly proficient in English, their L2. Therefore the interrelations among variables might or might not be generalizable to learners with low L2 skills. It is important to conduct a similar study with less experienced, less proficient L2 learners to determine the patterns of relations among variables for these groups. A larger sample size would also allow us to split the group into more recent and long-term immigrants, which might yield different patterns of results. Additionally, using multiple measures for each construct would allow us to examine the role of specific components of listening comprehension in greater detail. For example, examining the relative role of performance on measures of inflectional and derivational morphology and compounding in relation to listening comprehension and reading comprehension could reveal different relations among variables. Finally, only linguistic components were examined in the present study. Future studies could also look at the contributions of cognitive components of listening comprehension in addition to that of linguistic variables.
In conclusion, the findings of the present study show that all three components of listening comprehension, specifically vocabulary, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge, were related to reading comprehension. Additionally, these variables were interrelated with relatively high levels of relationships between vocabulary and the other two variables, morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge. These relations can assist in better understanding listening comprehension in successful L2 readers and in providing interventions for all L2 readers.
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Gottardo, A., Mirza, A., Koh, P.W. et al. Unpacking listening comprehension: the role of vocabulary, morphological awareness, and syntactic knowledge in reading comprehension. Read Writ 31, 1741–1764 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9736-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9736-2