poor reading comprehension research paper

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

The overlap of poor reading comprehension in english and french.

$\r\nNadia D&#x;Angelo*$

1 Ontario Ministry of Education, Toronto, ON, Canada
2 Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

This study examined overlap and correlates of poor reading comprehension in English and French for children in early French immersion. Poor comprehenders were identified in grade 3 in English and French using a regression method to predict reading comprehension scores from age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word reading fluency. Three groups of poor comprehenders were identified: 10 poor comprehenders in English and French, 11 poor comprehenders in English, and 10 poor comprehenders in French, and compared to 10 controls with good reading comprehension in both English and French. There was a moderate degree of overlap in comprehension difficulties in English and French among poor comprehenders with equivalent amounts of exposure to French, with a prevalence rate of 41.7% in our sample. Children who were poor comprehenders in both English and French consistently scored the lowest on English vocabulary in grade 1 and grade 3 and in French vocabulary in grade 3 suggesting that poor comprehenders’ vocabulary weaknesses in English as a primary language may contribute to comprehension difficulties in English and French.

Introduction

There is considerable evidence to suggest that children who are at risk for reading difficulties in a second language (L2) can be identified through early assessment of word reading and cognitive skills in their first language (L1), before their oral language proficiency is fully developed in L2 ( Geva and Clifton, 1994 ; Da Fontoura and Siegel, 1995 ; MacCoubrey et al., 2004 ). Much of this previous research is based on the premise that certain cognitive and linguistic skills, such as phonological processing, transfer across languages (e.g., Comeau et al., 1999 ; August and Shanahan, 2006 ). More recently, studies have investigated children’s reading comprehension difficulties that occur despite age-appropriate decoding skills (e.g., Nation et al., 2010 ; Tong et al., 2011 ). Relatively little is known about the identification of poor reading comprehension in the absence of poor decoding, and even less is known about whether reading comprehension difficulties manifest in a similar manner in L1 and L2 for children learning in a bilingual context. The present study aims to investigate overlap and early contributors of poor reading comprehension for children in early French immersion programs in Canada who receive school instruction in French, an additional language, while being exposed to English, their primary language of the community.

Reading comprehension is a complex process that involves the integration and coordination of various skills, including word decoding, the ability to decipher or recognize printed words, and oral language or listening comprehension, the ability to understand what is decoded in spoken form (Simple View of Reading; Gough and Tunmer, 1986 ). Most research into reading comprehension difficulties has focused on children with poor decoding whose weaknesses manifest early in reading development as phonological awareness and word reading deficits (e.g., Snowling, 2000 ). In contrast to poor decoders, poor comprehenders’ difficulties appear to emerge later, when decoding becomes automatized and more variance in reading comprehension is accounted for by oral language skills ( Catts et al., 2012 ). Oral language difficulties tend to be masked by poor comprehenders’ age-appropriate decoding skills, and as a result, early indicators of later reading comprehension difficulties are often overlooked.

Existing longitudinal studies have used a retrospective approach to examine poor comprehenders’ deficits across previous grades and suggest that oral language weaknesses are prevalent in poor comprehenders before their reading comprehension difficulties become apparent ( Catts et al., 2006 ; Nation et al., 2010 ; Tong et al., 2011 ). For example, Nation et al. (2010) identified poor comprehenders based on reading achievement at age 8 and retrospectively examined their reading and language skills beginning at age 5. While poor comprehenders’ phonological processing and word reading skills progressed over time, their oral language skills remained persistently weak, suggesting that early weaknesses in understanding and producing spoken language contributed to poor comprehenders’ comprehension difficulties.

The linguistic interdependence hypothesis suggests that L1 and L2 reading skills are interdependent, and that language and literacy skills acquired in one language facilitate reading development in the L2 ( Cummins, 1984 ). Thus, it seems probable that the same cognitive and linguistic skills needed for successful reading comprehension in L1 contribute to reading development in L2 (e.g., Gottardo and Mueller, 2009 ; Mancilla-Martinez and Lesaux, 2010 ). Indeed, previous research suggests that it is possible to identify children at-risk for L2 reading difficulties based on their performance in L1 ( Geva and Clifton, 1994 ; Da Fontoura and Siegel, 1995 ). However, few studies have investigated poor comprehenders in a bilingual context largely due to the complexity of understanding reading comprehension processes in L1 and L2. Children learning in an L2 are in the process of acquiring the language of instruction and it may be difficult to determine whether weaknesses in L2 reading comprehension reflect limited language learning experiences or are indicative of a language or reading impairment ( Paradis et al., 2010 ; Li and Kirby, 2014 ; D’Angelo and Chen, 2017 ).

Li and Kirby (2014) examined the reading comprehension profiles of grade 8 emerging Chinese-English bilinguals in an English immersion program in China. Poor comprehenders were distinguished from average comprehenders based on their performance on English L2 vocabulary measures. The authors concluded that because the groups did not differ on Chinese L1 word reading and reading comprehension, poor comprehenders’ reading comprehension difficulties were due to limited English L2 proficiency. However, the comprehender groups in this study were selected using English L2 assessments only and therefore, children with an underlying oral language impairment across the two languages could not be identified. Since Chinese and English and are not closely related languages, vocabulary and reading comprehension may not have the same underlying mechanisms in each language.

A few studies have identified poor comprehenders based on English L1 reading performance in a French immersion context and suggest that poor comprehenders demonstrate relatively poor oral language skills in both English L1 and French L2 (e.g., D’Angelo et al., 2014 ; D’Angelo and Chen, 2017 ). D’Angelo et al. (2014) retrospectively investigated the reading and language abilities of a small sample of English L1 children in French immersion who were identified as poor and average comprehenders based on their English L1 reading performance in grade 3. They found that poor comprehenders scored relatively lower on English and French vocabulary across grades 1 to 3, despite average phonological awareness and word reading skills in both languages. Such findings suggest that poor comprehenders may indeed have an underlying problem in oral language. The current study extends the existing research to a larger, more representative sample of children in French immersion to facilitate comparison. The purpose is to determine the extent to which those identified as having poor reading comprehension in English, the societal language, also demonstrate poor reading comprehension in French, an additional language and the language of instruction.

Studies that have examined the co-occurrence of reading difficulties between an L1 and L2 have primarily focused on poor readers and suggest that there is some overlap of reading difficulty in L1 and L2 ( Manis and Lindsey, 2010 ; McBride-Chang et al., 2013 ; Tong et al., 2015 ; Shum et al., 2016 ). For example, Manis and Lindsey (2010) found that 55% of grade 5 children who met the criteria for reading difficulties in English L2 (decoding scores at or below the 25 th percentile) were also identified with reading difficulties in Spanish L1. Similarly, McBride-Chang et al. (2013) tested the overlap of poor readers in Chinese L1 and English L2 (defined as those at or below the 25 th percentile on Chinese and English word reading tests) among 8-year-old children in Beijing and found that 40% of poor readers in Chinese L1 were also poor readers in English L2. In each study, children who were identified as poor readers in both languages scored lower on cognitive and linguistic tasks than children who were poor readers in only one language. On the other hand, children with poor reading in one language did not necessarily have difficulties in the other. It appears that the degree of overlap between poor reading is increased when the two languages are more closely related. However, these studies focused on the overlap status of poor readers based on poor decoding. We were interested in whether such overlap occurs for poor comprehenders who show discrepancies between their reading comprehension and decoding skills.

Only one known study at this time has explored the overlap between L1 and L2 reading comprehension difficulties. Tong et al. (2017) examined the co-occurrence of reading comprehension difficulties and associated longitudinal correlates in 10-year-old children with poor reading comprehension (defined as those at or below the 25 th percentile on reading comprehension tasks) in Chinese L1 and English L2. The authors found that approximately half (53%) of children with poor reading comprehension in Chinese L1 also experienced poor reading comprehension in English L2. Results indicated that word reading and language skills were longitudinal correlates of poor reading comprehension in Chinese and English. This study was among the first to investigate overlap of reading comprehension difficulties in L1 and L2 and to retrospectively examine sources of poor reading comprehension. However, the selection method used in this study identified poor comprehenders based on reading comprehension scores only and did not distinguish between children with poor oral language skills from those with poor decoding skills. In the present study, we aimed to understand the overlap of poor reading comprehension in English and French in the absence of decoding problems.

Given the challenges associated with defining poor reading comprehension in an additional language, the goal of the present study was to extend previous research on reading comprehension difficulties to English–French bilinguals to answer two specific research questions.

First, we asked whether children identified as poor comprehenders in English are also identified as poor comprehenders in French. Whereas most previous studies have examined overlap with word reading and reading comprehension scores at or below an arbitrary cut-off score, we utilized a regression technique to identify poor comprehenders in English and French by examining associations between reading comprehension scores, age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word reading fluency. This approach defines groups more precisely than the cut-off score method because it examines relative discrepancies between various skills related to reading comprehension by distinguishing poor comprehenders from average and good comprehenders (e.g., Tong et al., 2011 , 2014 ; Li and Kirby, 2014 ; D’Angelo and Chen, 2017 ).

Second, we asked what reading and language skills distinguish between poor comprehenders in English and French, poor comprehenders in English, and poor comprehenders in French. We anticipated that children identified as poor comprehenders in both English and French would show early and persistent oral language difficulties in both languages. English and French share many similarities in vocabulary, morphology, and syntax (e.g., LeBlanc and Seguin, 1996 ; Roy and Labelle, 2007 ; D’Angelo and Chen, 2017 ; D’Angelo et al., 2017 ). Both are represented by the Roman alphabet and an opaque writing system ( Seymour et al., 2003 ). These shared structural properties are thought to facilitate cross-language associations between two languages ( Koda, 2008 ). Therefore, we expected to see similar characteristics of reading comprehension difficulties between the two languages.

The socio-linguistic and educational context of the current study makes it possible to assess and compare English and French reading outcomes among children acquiring both languages. In Canada, French immersion is an additive dual language program that promotes oral and written language proficiency in both English and French, the official languages. Children in early French immersion programs are non-francophones who receive integrated language and content instruction primarily in French beginning in kindergarten or grade 1. However, these children often live in predominantly English-speaking environments with limited opportunity to hear and speak French outside of the classroom. Thus, French immersion classrooms are comprised of English-speaking children for whom French is the L2 and minority language children for whom English is the L2 and French the L3. English language arts instruction is generally introduced in grade 4.

Since the children in this study had similar and limited levels of French proficiency upon school entry, any differences in French reading and language abilities between children would be unlikely a result of differences in the amount of exposure the children had to French. Specifically, for children with poor reading comprehension in both English and French, we could be confident that weaknesses in oral language reflect a pervasive language impairment rather than a less developed French proficiency.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

Participants were 180 children consisting of 83 males and 97 females who were recruited from early French immersion schools in a large Canadian city and tested in English and French in the spring of grade 1 ( M age = 80.36 months, SD = 4.18) and grade 3 ( M age = 104.66 months, SD = 4.06). As part of the inclusion criteria, children selected for this study were non-native speakers of French receiving school instruction entirely in French since school entry. Out of the 180 children, 135 (75%) spoke English as a primary language. Forty-five children (25%) were exposed to additional languages at home.

The data in this study are from longitudinal research, in which several reading-related tasks were administered to participants between grades 1 and 3. Trained research assistants, who were fluent in the respective test language, administered tasks to participants at school. English and French instructions were used for French measures to ensure comprehension of the task. The order of the sessions was counterbalanced across participants and within each session the order of the task administration was randomized. Due to limited testing time, not all the same tasks were administered in each year of the study.

Non-verbal Reasoning

Children were administered the reasoning by analogy subtest of the Matrix Analogies Test in English to assess non-verbal reasoning in grade 1 (expanded form; Naglieri, 1985 ). For each item, children were asked to complete a figural matrix by choosing the missing piece from 5 to 6 possible choices. There were 16 items and testing was discontinued after four consecutive errors.

Phonological Awareness

This task was measured in grade 1 using the elision subtest of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP; Wagner et al., 1999 , 2013 ). The examiner read individual words aloud and children were asked to delete a syllable or phoneme from each word (e.g., “say time without saying/ m /”). There were 34 test items presented in order of increasing difficulty. Testing was discontinued after three consecutive errors.

A parallel measure was created to assess phonological awareness in French. Twenty-six items were selected to match characteristics of the English task (i.e., syllable and phoneme deletion) and presented in order of increasing difficulty. The administration of the test was discontinued if the children made six consecutive errors.

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary was used to measure English receptive vocabulary (PPVT-IV Form A; Dunn and Dunn, 2007 ) in grades 1 and 3. Each time a tester orally presented a target word, the child was required to point to one of four pictures that best corresponded to that word. Testing was discontinued when the child made eight or more errors in a set of 12.

The Échelle de Vocabulaire en Images Peabody (EVIP Form A; Dunn et al., 1993 ) was used to assess French receptive vocabulary in both grades. The examiner read a target word and the child was asked to identify the picture that best represented the word from a set of four pictures. Testing was discontinued after six errors were made on the previous eight consecutive items.

Word Reading Accuracy

Word reading accuracy in English was assessed in grades 1 and 3 with the Letter-Word Identification subtest from the Test of Achievement, Woodcock Johnson-III (WJ-III; Woodcock et al., 2001 ). Children were asked to read a series of 76 letters and words that were presented in order of increasing difficulty. Testing was discontinued after participants misread the six consecutive highest-numbered items on a given page.

French word reading accuracy was assessed using an experimental task ( Au-Yeung et al., 2015 ). The test consists of 120 items arranged in 15 sets of eight words each. The children were asked to read the words accurately and fluently. Testing was discontinued when the children misread five or more words within a set of eight words. The total score represents the number of words read correctly.

Word Reading Fluency

Children’s word reading fluency in English was measured by the Sight Word Efficiency subtest of the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE Form A; Torgesen et al., 1999 ) in grade 3. Children were provided with 45 s to quickly and accurately identify as many words as they could from a vertical list of 104 items. A parallel experimental measure was created to assess word reading fluency in French.

Reading Comprehension

The comprehension subtest (Level 3 Form S) of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests (GMRT; MacGinitie et al., 2000 ) was used to assess children’s English reading comprehension in grade 3. Children were asked to read short passages and answer 48 corresponding multiple-choice questions. The score was the total number of correct answers. Level C Form 4 of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests – Second Canadian Edition ( MacGinitie and MacGinitie, 1992 ) was translated into French and administered in the same way as the English task.

To prepare the data for analyses, we first examined whether there was statistical support for merging the samples of children who spoke English as a primary language at home and those who were exposed to additional home languages into one sample. A Box’s M test using the grades 1 and 3 measures, indicated no significant difference in variance-covariance patterns between the two language groups on English, Box’s M = 40.88, p = 0.09, and French, Box’s M = 7.74, p = 0.99, reading and language measures. Based on these results, the two groups were combined to create one sample. Table 1 presents the mean raw scores, standard scores for standardized measures, standard deviations and reliability estimates for the entire sample on all English and French measures in grade 1 and grade 3.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and reliabilities for the total sample ( N = 180) on English and French measures in grade 1 and grade 3.

We selected groups of comprehenders in grade 3 using separate regression techniques for English and French measures to predict children’s reading comprehension scores from age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word reading fluency. These variables are correlated with reading comprehension (e.g., Deacon and Kirby, 2004 ; Lesaux et al., 2006 ) and have been widely used for identifying comprehender subgroups ( Li and Kirby, 2014 ; Tong et al., 2014 ; D’Angelo and Chen, 2017 ). Together, the predictors explained a total of 43% of the variance in English reading comprehension and 37% of the variance in French reading comprehension. The observed reading comprehension scores were plotted against the standardized predicted scores. Children below the lower 65% confidence interval of the regression line were identified as poor comprehenders and those above the upper 65% confidence interval were identified as good comprehenders. Those children who scored within the 15% confidence interval were identified as average comprehenders. Children with very poor or good word reading skills (predicted value 1 SD above or below the mean) were not selected and excluded from analyses.

Through this regression method, we identified three groups of comprehenders in English (24 poor, 24 average, and 24 good) and three groups of comprehenders in French (24 poor, 24 average, and 24 good). Sixteen children out of the 24 poor comprehenders of English and 18 children out of the 24 poor comprehenders of French identified as English-speaking. 1 The remaining children came from diverse linguistic backgrounds and were exposed to additional languages at home, including Russian, Hebrew, and Mandarin. A chi-square test of independence indicated a non-significant relationship between the children who spoke English as a primary language at home and those who were exposed to additional languages at home within the comprehender groups identified in English, χ 2 (1, N = 72) = 3.11, p = 0.21, and in French, χ 2 (1, N = 72) = 1.01, p = 0.61. Based on these results, and given that the children exposed to additional languages met the inclusion criteria (non-native speakers of French), they were retained in the sample.

We conducted multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) to confirm the reading comprehension profiles of the English comprehender groups and to determine whether poor comprehenders differed from average and good comprehenders on English and French reading-related measures in grade 1 and grade 3. As illustrated in Table 2 , there were no significant differences between the three groups on age, non-verbal reasoning, English and French word reading accuracy, and English and French elision in grade 1 and English and French word reading accuracy and fluency in grade 3 (all p s > 0.08). However, as expected, poor comprehenders differed significantly from average ( p < 0.001) and good comprehenders ( p < 0.001) on English and French reading comprehension in grade 3. Poor comprehenders also differed from average ( p < 0.001) and good comprehenders ( p < 0.001) on English vocabulary in grade 1 and grade 3. Similarly, French vocabulary distinguished poor comprehenders from average comprehenders in grade 1 ( p < 0.05) and grade 3 ( p < 0.01).

Table 2. Means (standard deviations) of poor, average, and good comprehenders selected with English measures on English and French reading and language variables in grade 1 and grade 3.

For the comprehender groups identified using French measures, there were no significant differences between poor, average, and good comprehenders on age, non-verbal reasoning, and English and French phonological awareness in grade 1. Poor comprehenders differed significantly from average and good comprehenders on grade 1 measures of English ( p < 0.01) and French vocabulary ( p < 0.01) and English ( p < 0.001) and French word reading accuracy ( p < 0.001). In grade 3, English ( p < 0.05) and French vocabulary ( p < 0.001), English word reading accuracy ( p < 0.001), English ( p < 0.001) and French word reading fluency ( p < 0.001), and English ( p < 0.001) and French reading comprehension ( p < 0.001) distinguished poor comprehenders from average and good comprehenders ( Table 3 ).

Table 3. Means (standard deviations) of poor, average, and good comprehenders selected with French measures on English and French reading and language variables in grade 1 and grade 3.

Table 4 presents the prevalence rates of the overlap between comprehender groups in English and French. Of particular interest to this study was the number of children who were identified through the regression technique as poor comprehenders for both English and French relative to the entire sample. Three subgroups of reading comprehension difficulties in the two languages were considered: 10 children who were poor comprehenders in both English and French (PCB), 11 children who were poor comprehenders in English only (PCE), and 10 children who were poor comprehenders in French only (PCF). We selected an additional 10 children from among the good comprehenders in both English and French, matched on age and gender, to serve as the control group. In this way, we could compare the three groups of comprehenders to children who had average English and French word reading skills, but good comprehension in both English and French. There were no significant differences between the four groups on age (PCB: M = 104.26, SD = 3.97; PCE: M = 105.01, SD = 4.98; PCF: M = 104.01, SD = 4.40; Control: M = 105.02, SD = 3.46) and non-verbal reasoning (PCB: M = 3.80, SD = 3.01; PCE: M = 2.82, SD = 2.40; PCF: M = 3.80, SD = 2.25; Control: M = 5.00, SD = 4.14). Chi-square results demonstrated that the chance of poor comprehenders in English also being poor comprehenders in French was significantly above the baseline level, χ 2 (1, N = 180) = 14.02, p < 0.001.

Table 4. The overlap and distribution of poor reading comprehension in English and French.

It should be noted that children identified as poor comprehenders in English only had not been selected for a comprehender status in French. Similarly, those identified as poor comprehenders in French only did not fit a comprehender group in English. Of the remaining children who were poor comprehenders identified in English, two were average comprehenders in French and one was a good comprehender in French. Of the remaining poor comprehenders identified in French, two were average comprehenders in English and two were good comprehenders English.

The next step in our analyses was to retrospectively examine the correlates of English and French reading comprehension difficulties for each of the three subgroups of poor comprehenders and the control group. We conducted separate MANOVAs, controlling for gender, for the English and French reading and language measures in each grade. Univariate analyses were computed for tasks tested at one time point only (i.e., English and French phonological awareness, English and French word reading fluency, and English and French reading comprehension). Table 5 shows the mean raw scores and standard deviations of the English and French reading and language measures for each group in grade 1 and grade 3, as well as comparisons across groups.

Table 5. Means (standard deviations) and comparisons of poor comprehenders in English and French, poor comprehenders in English only, poor comprehenders in French only, and controls on English and French measures in grade 1 and grade 3.

As expected, there were no significant differences between the four groups on the word reading measures used to select comprehender groups, word reading accuracy and fluency, for both English and French in grade 3, and consistent findings were revealed retrospectively for English and French word reading accuracy in grade 1. Similarly, the groups did not differ significantly on English and French phonological awareness in grades 1 and 3.

Results of univariate analyses showed that there was a significant overall group effect for English reading comprehension, F (3,41) = 38.83, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.76 and French reading comprehension, F (3,41) = 37.84, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.76. Tukey’s HSD post hoc comparisons showed that the PCB, PCE, and PCF groups performed worse than the control group on English reading comprehension in grade 3. The PCB group also scored significantly lower than the PCF group on English reading comprehension. For French reading comprehension in grade 3, all three poor comprehender groups (PCB, PCE, and PCF) scored significantly lower than the control group, with the PCF group also scoring lower than PCE group.

There was a significant overall group effect for English vocabulary, Wilks’ Λ = 0.41, F (6,70) = 6.64, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.36, and French vocabulary, Wilks’ Λ = 0.29, F (6,72) = 3.60, p < 0.05, η p 2 = 0.22. Univariate tests revealed that the four groups differed significantly in English vocabulary in grade 1, F (3,41) = 9.05, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.43, and in grade 3, F (3,41) = 13.47, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.54. Tukey’s HSD post hoc comparisons showed that children in the PCB and PCE groups scored significantly lower than the control group on English vocabulary in grades 1 and 3. However, in grade 3, the PCB group also scored lower than the PCF group on English vocabulary. The univariate tests for French vocabulary found no significant difference between groups on grade 1 French vocabulary, but there were significant group differences on French vocabulary in grade 3, F (3,41) = 3.04, p < 0.05, η p 2 = 0.20. The post hoc test for French vocabulary showed that the PCB and PCF groups had significantly lower scores than control groups on French vocabulary in grade 3. The PCB group also had lower French vocabulary scores than the PCE group in grade 3. 2

The aim of the present study was to investigate correlates and overlap of reading comprehension difficulties for bilingual poor comprehenders who are exposed to English, the societal language, and French, the language of classroom instruction. By identifying poor comprehenders of both English and French, we were able to determine to what extent poor comprehenders in English, a primary language, are also poor comprehenders in French, an additional language.

We found that there is a moderate degree of overlap in comprehension difficulties in English and French among poor comprehenders with equivalent amounts of exposure to French, with a prevalence rate of 41.7% in our sample. However, our findings also indicate that children who have reading comprehension difficulties in one language do not necessarily have difficulties in another. In addition, we found that English and French vocabulary was a strong and persistent indicator of reading comprehension difficulties in the same language for poor comprehenders of English, French, and both English and French.

Consistent with previous studies, results demonstrate that deficits in oral language are characteristic of children with poor reading comprehension (e.g., Nation et al., 2004 , 2010 ; Catts et al., 2006 ). Building on previous work ( D’Angelo et al., 2014 ), we found that poor comprehenders of English who received classroom instruction in French demonstrated concurrent vocabulary weaknesses in English and French relative to average and good comprehenders, despite comparable word decoding skills. Lower English vocabulary scores distinguished poor comprehenders from average and good comprehenders, whereas lower French vocabulary scores distinguished poor comprehenders from good comprehenders but not from average comprehenders. Similarly, for children identified in French, poor comprehenders differed from average and good comprehenders on English vocabulary, and from good comprehenders, but not average comprehenders on French vocabulary. These findings suggest that the average comprehenders in this study may have not yet reached a level of French proficiency needed to move beyond the performance of the poor comprehenders on French vocabulary. Vocabulary acquisition in French, an additional language, may be more challenging for immersion children because of their limited exposure to French outside of the classroom. Future research should include measures of cognitive abilities, such as phonological short-term memory that may be better at distinguishing group differences in the early grades ( Farnia and Geva, 2011 ).

Regardless of English or French identification, the retrospective analyses indicated that differences between the three comprehender groups in English and French vocabulary were apparent in grades 1 and 3, with no group differences on English and French phonological awareness in grade 1. These findings clearly demonstrate that poor comprehenders’ oral language weaknesses are evident in the early stages of learning to read in both English and French. Although our study examines poor comprehenders in a bilingual context, these results are strikingly similar to findings reported by Catts et al. (2006) and Nation et al. (2010) and confirm that vocabulary weaknesses are apparent before poor comprehenders’ reading comprehension difficulties emerge. However, our study also found that there were differences between poor and average and good comprehenders identified in French on word reading measures in grade 1 and grade 3, indicating that different skills may lead to poor reading comprehension in English and French, and French reading comprehension may be more dependent on word level skills.

This study is the first to demonstrate that children with poor reading comprehension may experience difficulties with comprehension in English, in French, or in both English and French. Of these groups, children who were poor comprehenders in both English and French consistently scored the lowest on English vocabulary in grade 1 and grade 3 and in French vocabulary in grade 3 suggesting that severe English vocabulary weaknesses in poor comprehenders may contribute to comprehension difficulties in English and French. While there were no significant group differences found on phonological awareness, word reading and word fluency tasks, it is interesting to note that the poor comprehenders of both English and French, who were the poorest on English and French reading comprehension, also scored the lowest on all English and French reading and language measures in both grades 1 and 3. Results provide support for the linguistic interdependence hypothesis and suggest that children with poor reading comprehension in L1 may be at risk for being a poor comprehender in L2.

We found that 41.7% of children classified as poor comprehenders in grade 3 were poor comprehenders of both English and French. As expected, this overlap is less than reported in previous studies (e.g., Tong et al., 2017 ) in part due to differences in the approach to defining poor comprehender groups. More specifically, whereas most previous studies have defined poor comprehender groups based on a cut-off score on word reading, reading comprehension, or both, the present study utilized a regression method to identify poor comprehenders based on the relative discrepancy between wording reading, word reading fluency, and reading comprehension, while controlling for age and non-verbal reasoning, therefore, avoiding overidentification and narrowing the sample of children who qualify for poor comprehender status.

However, it could be argued that the overlap between English and French poor comprehender status should be greater given that English and French are alphabetic orthographies and share many linguistic features. It is worth noting that children in this study had been receiving classroom instruction in French for approximately 3 years at the time of comprehender classification. It is possible that children’s poor comprehension in French would have been more apparent had they been exposed to French for a longer period of time. This explanation is consistent with that of previous research, which has demonstrated that relative to poor decoders, poor comprehenders’ difficulties with reading comprehension emerge around the age 10, when performance in reading comprehension is equally accounted for by oral language and decoding skills (e.g., Elwér et al., 2013 ). Therefore, it seems plausible that there would be a greater overlap of poor comprehender status with more exposure to the French language in spoken and written form. Further research is needed to investigate the overlap of English and French reading comprehension difficulties in the later elementary grades, as decoding becomes more automatized and greater variance is accounted for by oral language skills.

The current study examined the learning needs of poor comprehenders in immersion education and has important implications for the assessment and remediation of reading comprehension difficulties in emerging bilingual learners. Our findings demonstrate that poor comprehenders exhibit pervasive oral language difficulties from the onset of reading that manifest similarly in English, their primary language, and French, the language of instruction. Furthermore, the results suggest that it is possible for children to experience poor reading comprehension in one language but be relatively good at comprehension in another language. Since many children begin French immersion with limited levels of French language proficiency, it is beneficial to gather information on children’s reading and language abilities with parallel measures in English and French. Limiting assessment to French, an additional language, may underestimate children’s reading and language ability or misattribute reading difficulties to a lack of French proficiency ( Geva and Herbert, 2012 ).

This research also suggests that intervention strategies should be targeted at poor comprehenders’ underlying language difficulties regardless of language of instruction. While there have been relatively few intervention studies with poor comprehenders, existing studies have shown that intervention practices that promote oral language skills and text comprehension strategies are effective supports for monolingual children with poor reading comprehension ( Snowling and Hulme, 2012 ). Evidently, there is a need for future intervention research that fosters the development of children’s oral language skills in immersion programs.

There are some limitations of the current study that should be noted. First, the sample of poor comprehenders identified within the three subgroups (i.e., PCB, PCE, PCF) was small, which limits the generalizability of our findings. However, obtaining a large sample of poor comprehenders is particularly challenging in a bilingual educational context. Our study is among the few longitudinal studies that have examined bilingual poor comprehenders’ reading and language skills in both languages over time. Given the attrition of students in French immersion (e.g., Chen et al., 2019 ) and the prevalence rate of poor comprehenders in middle elementary years at approximately 10% (e.g., Nation and Snowling, 1998 ; Clarke et al., 2010 ), our sample size may be considered representative of poor comprehenders in a bilingual context. Nevertheless, larger sample sizes for the subgroups of poor comprehenders would benefit future work.

Reading comprehension is a complex process that involves the coordination of various skills that are assessed differently across measures of reading comprehension. In the present study, we used a single standardized measure of reading comprehension. Although the use of this standardized test makes our sample of poor comprehenders comparable to those in the existing monolingual literature (e.g., Tong et al., 2014 ), results reported in this study need to be replicated with more varied reading comprehension measures to disentangle whether poor comprehenders score low on reading comprehension because they do not understand the text or because they are unable to read the question. Similarly, the use of a single measure of vocabulary knowledge may not fully capture the influence of other language skills on reading comprehension, such as vocabulary depth, listening comprehension, morphological awareness, and inference ( Nation and Cocksey, 2009 ; D’Angelo and Chen, 2017 ).

Another limitation is that approximately 25% of the children identified as poor comprehenders in either English, French, or both were exposed to another language at home in addition to English. While this sample is representative of students enrolled in French immersion programs in Canada, there is a need for further research to explore whether significant differences exist between children identified as poor comprehenders from English monolingual backgrounds and those who speak additional languages.

Finally, there is some difficulty in interpreting poor comprehender status in French only, particularly for children in this study who grew up in an English-speaking community. Poor reading comprehension in French may not be attributed to a language impairment or limited proficiency in French but associated with children’s lack of motivation to learn in an L2. Evidently, there is a need for further research to explore the role of motivation in L1 and L2 reading comprehension for children enrolled in immersion programs.

Taken together, the present study demonstrates that poor comprehenders experience similar and persistent difficulties with components of language in both English, a primary language, and French, an additional language, that are present in the early stages of reading development, and therefore, likely indicators of later reading comprehension difficulties in both languages. These results also show while there is a moderate degree of overlap in English and French reading comprehension difficulties, not all poor comprehenders of English are poor comprehenders of French, suggesting that somewhat different skills may be involved in comprehending text in English and French.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by University of Toronto Research Ethics Board. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

Author Contributions

ND’A and XC contributed to the conception and design of the study. ND’A and KK organized data collection and managed the database and performed the statistical analyses. ND’A wrote the first draft of the manuscript. KK and XC wrote sections of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revisions and read and approved the submitted version.

This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) (Grant Number: 435-2013-1745) (Title: Ensuring reading success for all students in early French immersion).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the parents, educators, and students in participating school boards.

^ For children to be classified as English-speaking, parents had to indicate that English was spoken in the home environment 50% of the time or more.
^ Due to the small group sizes, equivalent non-parametric tests were calculated for each analysis. The Kruskal–Wallis test, used for comparing two or more independent samples, confirmed our parametric results.

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Keywords : poor comprehenders, reading comprehension, French immersion, oral language skills, vocabulary, comprehension difficulties, bilingual learners

Citation: D’Angelo N, Krenca K and Chen X (2020) The Overlap of Poor Reading Comprehension in English and French. Front. Psychol. 11:120. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00120

Received: 11 July 2019; Accepted: 16 January 2020; Published: 05 February 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 D’Angelo, Krenca and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Nadia D’Angelo, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language learners

Affiliations.

1 Department of Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education, University of Houston, 3657 Cullen Blvd, Houston, TX, 77204, USA. [email protected].
2 Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
3 Ontario Ministry of Education, Toronto, Canada.
4 Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture, College of Education and Human Development, Texas A & M University, College Station, USA.
5 Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada.
PMID: 33575979
DOI: 10.1007/s11881-021-00214-4

This study examined the sources of reading comprehension difficulties in English language learners (ELLs). The characteristics of ELL poor comprehenders were compared to their English as a first language (EL1) peers. Participants included 124 ELLs who spoke Chinese as an L1 and 79 EL1 students. Using a regression technique based on age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word reading fluency, three types of comprehenders (poor, average, and good) were identified within each language group. The groups were then compared on measures of oral language skills (vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and listening comprehension), metalinguistic skills (morphological awareness and syntactic awareness), working memory, and higher-level processing skills (inference, conjunction use, and comprehension monitoring). ELL poor comprehenders had significantly lower scores than ELL average and good comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, whereas there were no significant differences between the average and good comprehender groups on these skills. Additionally, both ELL poor and average comprehenders had lower scores than ELL good comprehenders on all three higher-level skills. Finally, results showed that ELL poor comprehenders scored lower than EL1 poor comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, but the two groups did not differ on higher-level skills. Theoretical and educational implications for the identification and instruction of ELL poor comprehenders are discussed.

Keywords: English language learners; Poor comprehenders; Reading comprehension difficulties.

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Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language learners

Published: 11 February 2021
Volume 71 , pages 299–321, ( 2021 )

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poor reading comprehension research paper

Miao Li ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6756-8122 1 ,
Esther Geva 2 ,
Nadia D’Angelo 3 ,
Poh Wee Koh 4 ,
Xi Chen 2 &
Alexandra Gottardo 5

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Li, M., Geva, E., D’Angelo, N. et al. Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language learners. Ann. of Dyslexia 71 , 299–321 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-021-00214-4

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Levels of Reading Comprehension in Higher Education: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Cristina de-la-peña.

1 Departamento de Métodos de Investigación y Diagnóstico en Educación, Universidad Internacional de la Rioja, Logroño, Spain

María Jesús Luque-Rojas

2 Department of Theory and History of Education and Research Methods and Diagnosis in Education, University of Malaga, Málaga, Spain

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Higher education aims for university students to produce knowledge from the critical reflection of scientific texts. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a deep mental representation of written information. The objective of this research was to determine through a systematic review and meta-analysis the proportion of university students who have an optimal performance at each level of reading comprehension. Systematic review of empirical studies has been limited from 2010 to March 2021 using the Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, and PsycINFO databases. Two reviewers performed data extraction independently. A random-effects model of proportions was used for the meta-analysis and heterogeneity was assessed with I 2 . To analyze the influence of moderating variables, meta-regression was used and two ways were used to study publication bias. Seven articles were identified with a total sample of the seven of 1,044. The proportion of students at the literal level was 56% (95% CI = 39–72%, I 2 = 96.3%), inferential level 33% (95% CI = 19–46%, I 2 = 95.2%), critical level 22% (95% CI = 9–35%, I 2 = 99.04%), and organizational level 22% (95% CI = 6–37%, I 2 = 99.67%). Comparing reading comprehension levels, there is a significant higher proportion of university students who have an optimal level of literal compared to the rest of the reading comprehension levels. The results have to be interpreted with caution but are a guide for future research.

Introduction

Reading comprehension allows the integration of knowledge that facilitates training processes and successful coping with academic and personal situations. In higher education, this reading comprehension has to provide students with autonomy to self-direct their academic-professional learning and provide critical thinking in favor of community service ( UNESCO, 2009 ). However, research in recent years ( Bharuthram, 2012 ; Afflerbach et al., 2015 ) indicates that a part of university students are not prepared to successfully deal with academic texts or they have reading difficulties ( Smagorinsky, 2001 ; Cox et al., 2014 ), which may limit academic training focused on written texts. This work aims to review the level of reading comprehension provided by studies carried out in different countries, considering the heterogeneity of existing educational models.

The level of reading comprehension refers to the type of mental representation that is made of the written text. The reader builds a mental model in which he can integrate explicit and implicit data from the text, experiences, and previous knowledge ( Kucer, 2016 ; van den Broek et al., 2016 ). Within the framework of the construction-integration model ( Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978 ; Kintsch, 1998 ), the most accepted model of reading comprehension, processing levels are differentiated, specifically: A superficial level that identifies or memorizes data forming the basis of the text and a deep level in which the text situation model is elaborated integrating previous experiences and knowledge. At these levels of processing, the cognitive strategies used, are different according to the domain-learning model ( Alexander, 2004 ) from basic coding to a transformation of the text. In the scientific literature, there are investigations ( Yussof et al., 2013 ; Ulum, 2016 ) that also identify levels of reading comprehension ranging from a literal level of identification of ideas to an inferential and critical level that require the elaboration of inferences and the data transformation.

Studies focused on higher education ( Barletta et al., 2005 ; Yáñez Botello, 2013 ) show that university students are at a literal or basic level of understanding, they often have difficulties in making inferences and recognizing the macrostructure of the written text, so they would not develop a model of a situation of the text. These scientific results are in the same direction as the research on reading comprehension in the mother tongue in the university population. Bharuthram (2012) indicates that university students do not access or develop effective strategies for reading comprehension, such as the capacity for abstraction and synthesis-analysis. Later, Livingston et al. (2015) find that first-year education students present limited reading strategies and difficulties in understanding written texts. Ntereke and Ramoroka (2017) found that only 12.4% of students perform well in a reading comprehension task, 34.3% presenting a low level of execution in the task.

Factors related to the level of understanding of written information are the mode of presentation of the text (printed vs. digital), the type of metacognitive strategies used (planning, making inferences, inhibition, monitoring, etc.), the type of text and difficulties (novel vs. a science passage), the mode of writing (text vs. multimodal), the type of reading comprehension task, and the diversity of the student. For example, several studies ( Tuncer and Bahadir, 2014 ; Trakhman et al., 2019 ; Kazazoglu, 2020 ) indicate that reading is more efficient with better performance in reading comprehension tests in printed texts compared to the same text in digital and according to Spencer (2006) college students prefer to read in print vs. digital texts. In reading the written text, metacognitive strategies are involved ( Amril et al., 2019 ) but studies ( Channa et al., 2018 ) seem to indicate that students do not use them for reading comprehension, specifically; Korotaeva (2012) finds that only 7% of students use them. Concerning the type of text and difficulties, for Wolfe and Woodwyk (2010) , expository texts benefit more from the construction of a situational model of the text than narrative texts, although Feng (2011) finds that expository texts are more difficult to read than narrative texts. Regarding the modality of the text, Mayer (2009) and Guo et al. (2020) indicate that multimodal texts that incorporate images into the text positively improve reading comprehension. In a study of Kobayashi (2002) using open questions, close, and multiple-choice shows that the type and format of the reading comprehension assessment test significantly influence student performance and that more structured tests help to better differentiate the good ones and the poor ones in reading comprehension. Finally, about student diversity, studies link reading comprehension with the interest and intrinsic motivation of university students ( Cartwright et al., 2019 ; Dewi et al., 2020 ), with gender ( Saracaloglu and Karasakaloglu, 2011 ), finding that women present a better level of reading comprehension than men and with knowledge related to reading ( Perfetti et al., 1987 ). In this research, it was controlled that all were printed and unimodal texts, that is, only text. This is essential because the cognitive processes involved in reading comprehension can vary with these factors ( Butcher and Kintsch, 2003 ; Xu et al., 2020 ).

The Present Study

Regardless of the educational context, in any university discipline, preparing essays or developing arguments are formative tasks that require a deep level of reading comprehension (inferences and transformation of information) that allows the elaboration of a situation model, and not having this level can lead to limited formative learning. Therefore, the objective of this research was to know the state of reading comprehension levels in higher education; specifically, the proportion of university students who perform optimally at each level of reading comprehension. It is important to note that there is not much information about the different levels in university students and that it is the only meta-analytic review that explores different levels of reading comprehension in this educational stage. This is a relevant issue because the university system requires that students produce knowledge from the critical reflection of scientific texts, preparing them for innovation, employability, and coexistence in society.

Materials and Methods

Eligibility criteria: inclusion and exclusion.

Empirical studies written in Spanish or English are selected that analyze the reading comprehension level in university students.

The exclusion criteria are as follows: (a) book chapters or review books or publications; (b) articles in other languages; (c) studies of lower educational levels; (d) articles that do not identify the age of the sample; (e) second language studies; (f) students with learning difficulties or other disorders; (g) publications that do not indicate the level of reading comprehension; (h) studies that relate reading competence with other variables but do not report reading comprehension levels; (i) pre-post program application work; (j) studies with experimental and control groups; (k) articles comparing pre-university stages or adults; (l) publications that use multi-texts; (m) studies that use some type of technology (computer, hypertext, web, psychophysiological, online questionnaire, etc.); and (n) studies unrelated to the subject of interest.

Only those publications that meet the following criteria are included as: (a) be empirical research (article, thesis, final degree/master’s degree, or conference proceedings book); (b) university stage; (c) include data or some measure on the level of reading comprehension that allows calculating the effect size; (d) written in English or Spanish; (e) reading comprehension in the first language or mother tongue; and (f) the temporary period from January 2010 to March 2021.

Search Strategies

A three-step procedure is used to select the studies included in the meta-analysis. In the first step, a review of research and empirical articles in English and Spanish from January 2010 to March 2021. The search is carried out in online databases of languages in Spanish and English, such as Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Medline, and PsycINFO, to review empirical productions that analyze the level of reading comprehension in university students. In the second step, the following terms (titles, abstracts, keywords, and full text) are used to select the articles: Reading comprehension and higher education, university students, in Spanish and English, combined with the Boolean operators AND and OR. In the last step, secondary sources, such as the Google search engine, Theseus, and references in publications, are explored.

The search reports 4,294 publications (articles, theses, and conference proceedings books) in the databases and eight records of secondary references, specifically, 1989 from WoS, 2001 from Scopus, 42 from Medline, and 262 of PsycINFO. Of the total (4,294), 1,568 are eliminated due to duplications, leaving 2,734 valid records. Next, titles and abstracts are reviewed and 2,659 are excluded because they do not meet the inclusion criteria. The sample of 75 publications is reduced to 40 articles, excluding 35 because the full text cannot be accessed (the authors were contacted but did not respond), the full text did not show specific statistical data, they used online questionnaires or computerized presentations of the text. Finally, seven articles in Spanish were selected for use in the meta-analysis of the reading comprehension level of university students. Data additional to those included in the articles were not requested from the selected authors.

The PRISMA-P guidelines ( Moher et al., 2015 ) are followed to perform the meta-analysis and the flow chart for the selection of publications relevant to the subject is exposed (Figure 1) .

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Flow diagram for the selection of articles.

Encoding Procedure

This research complies with what is established in the manual of systematic reviews ( Higgins and Green, 2008 ) in which clear objectives, specific search terms, and eligibility criteria for previously defined works are established. Two independent coders, reaching a 100% agreement, carry out the study search process. Subsequently, the research is codified, for this, a coding protocol is used as a guide to help resolve the ambiguities between the coders; the proposals are reflected and discussed and discrepancies are resolved, reaching a degree of agreement between the two coders of 97%.

For all studies, the reference, country, research objective, sample size, age and gender, reading comprehension test, other tests, and reading comprehension results were coded in percentages. All this information was later systematized in Table 1 .

Results of the empirical studies included in the meta-analysis.

S. No.	Country	Objective	Sample ( °/age/sex)	Comprehension Instrumentos	Other tests	Reading comprehension results
1.	Ecuador	Assess the effectiveness of didactic strategies to strengthen the level of reading comprehension	30 Educación/unknown/unknown	text with 12SS questions		Literal: 40% Inferential: 40% Critical: 20%
2.	México	Validate reading comprehension test	570 Psychology/19.9 years/72% women 28% men	Instrument to measure reading comprehension of university students (ICLAU)		Literal: 41% Inferential: 33% Critical: 47% Appreciative: 72% Organization.: 75% Prueba general: 66%
3.	México	Assess reading comprehension	101 Education/unknown/unknown	text with questions		Literal: 52.86% Inferential: 52.92% Critical: 53.89% Organization: 66.46% Appreciative: 44.01%
4.	Bolivia	Identify the relationship between reading comprehension and academic performance	49 Psychology/18.5 years/87.8% women 12.2% men	Instrument to measure reading comprehension in university students (ICLAU)	Academic qualifications	Literal: 67.3% Inferential: 12.2% Organization: 4.1% Critical: 0% Appreciative: 0%
5.	Chile	Know the level of reading comprehension	44 Kinesiology and Nutrition and Dietetics/unknown/unknown	Instrument to measure reading comprehension in university students (ICLAU)		Literal: 43.2% Inferential: 4.5% Critical: 0% Organization: 4.5%
6.	Colombia	Characterize the cognitive processes involved in reading and their relationship with reading comprehension levels	124 Psychology/16–30 years/unknown	Arenas Reading Comprehension Assessment Questionnaire (2007)		Literal: 56.4% Inferential: 43.5% Critical: 0%
7.	Perú	Determine the level of reading comprehension	126 from the 1°year University/43% men and 57% women/15–26 years	Reading comprehension test 10 fragments with 28 questions	Bibliographic datasheet	Literal: 86.7% Inferential: 45.4% Critical: 34.29%

In relation to the type of reading comprehension level, it was coded based on the levels of the scientific literature as follows: 1 = literal; 2 = inferential; 3 = critical; and 4 = organizational.

Regarding the possible moderating variables, it was coded if the investigations used a standardized reading comprehension measure (value = 1) or non-standardized (value = 0). This research considers the standardized measures of reading comprehension as the non-standardized measures created by the researchers themselves in their studies or questionnaires by other authors. By the type of evaluation test, we encode between multiple-choice (value = 0) or multiple-choices plus open question (value = 1). By type of text, we encode between argumentative (value = 1) or unknown (value = 0). By the type of career, we encode social sciences (value = 1) or other careers (health sciences; value = 0). Moreover, by the type of publication, we encode between article (value = 1) or doctoral thesis (value = 0).

Effect Size and Statistical Analysis

This descriptive study with a sample k = 7 and a population of 1,044 university students used a continuous variable and the proportions were used as the effect size to analyze the proportion of students who had an optimal performance at each level of reading comprehension. As for the percentages of each level of reading comprehension of the sample, they were transformed into absolute frequencies. A random-effects model ( Borenstein et al., 2009 ) was used as the effect size. These random-effects models have a greater capacity to generalize the conclusions and allow estimating the effects of different sources of variation (moderating variables). The DerSimonian and Laird method ( Egger et al., 2001 ) was used, calculating raw proportion and for each proportion its standard error, value of p and 95% confidence interval (CI).

To examine sampling variability, Cochran’s Q test (to test the null hypothesis of homogeneity between studies) and I 2 (proportion of variability) were used. According to Higgins et al. (2003) , if I 2 reaches 25%, it is considered low, if it reaches 50% and if it exceeds 75% it is considered high. A meta-regression analysis was used to investigate the effect of the moderator variables (type of measure, type of evaluation test, type of text, type of career, and type of publication) in each level of reading comprehension of the sample studies. For each moderating variable, all the necessary statistics were calculated (estimate, standard error, CI, Q , and I 2 ).

To compare the effect sizes of each level (literal, inferential, critical, and organizational) of reading comprehension, the chi-square test for the proportion recommended by Campbell (2007) was used.

Finally, to analyze publication bias, this study uses two ways: Rosenthal’s fail-safe number and regression test. Rosenthal’s fail-safe number shows the number of missing studies with null effects that would make the previous correlations insignificant ( Borenstein et al., 2009 ). When the values are large there is no bias. In the regression test, when the regression is not significant, there is no bias.

The software used to classify and encode data and produce descriptive statistics was with Microsoft Excel and the Jamovi version 1.6 free software was used to perform the meta-analysis.

The results of the meta-analysis are presented in three parts: the general descriptive analysis of the included studies; the meta-analytic analysis with the effect size, heterogeneity, moderating variables, and comparison of effect sizes; and the study of publication bias.

Overview of Included Studies

The search carried out of the scientific literature related to the subject published from 2010 to March 2021 generated a small number of publications, because it was limited to the higher education stage and required clear statistical data on reading comprehension.

Table 1 presents all the publications reviewed in this meta-analysis with a total of students evaluated in the reviewed works that amounts to 1,044, with the smallest sample size of 30 ( Del Pino-Yépez et al., 2019 ) and the largest with 570 ( Guevara Benítez et al., 2014 ). Regarding gender, 72% women and 28% men were included. Most of the sample comes from university degrees in social sciences, such as psychology and education (71.42%) followed by health sciences (14.28%) engineering and a publication (14.28%) that does not indicate origin. These publications selected according to the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis come from more countries with a variety of educational systems, but all from South America. Specifically, the countries that have more studies are Mexico (28.57%) and Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador with 14.28% each, respectively. The years in which they were published are 2.57% in 2018 and 2016 and 14.28% in 2019, 2014, and 2013.

A total of 57% of the studies analyze four levels of reading comprehension (literal, inferential, critical, and organizational) and 43% investigate three levels of reading comprehension (literal, inferential, and critical). Based on the moderating variables, 57% of the studies use standardized reading comprehension measures and 43% non-standardized measures. According to the evaluation test used, 29% use multiple-choice questions and 71% combine multiple-choice questions plus open questions. 43% use an argumentative text and 57% other types of texts (not indicated in studies). By type of career, 71% are students of social sciences and 29% of other different careers, such as engineering or health sciences. In addition, 71% are articles and 29% with research works (thesis and degree works).

Table 2 shows the reading comprehension assessment instruments used by the authors of the empirical research integrated into the meta-analysis.

Reading comprehension assessment tests used in higher education.

Studies	Evaluation tests	Description	Validation/Baremation
	text with 12 questions	Text “Narcissism” with 12 questions: 4 literal, 4 inferential, and 4 critical. 40 min	Validation: no Reliability: no Baremation: no
; ;	Instrument to measure reading comprehension in university students (ICLAU)	965-word text on “Evolution and its history.” Then 7 questions are answered as: 2 literal, 2 inferential, 1 organizational, 1 critical, and 1 appreciative. 1 h	Inter-judge validation Reliability: no Baremation: no
	text with questions	596-word text on “Ausubel’s theory.” Then literal, inferential, organizational, appreciative, and critical level questions	Validation: no Reliability: no Baremation: no
	Arenas Reading Comprehension Assessment Questionnaire (2007)	Texts 4: 2 literary and 2 scientific with 32 questions each and four answer options	Inter-judge validation Reliability: no Baremation: no
	Reading comprehension test by Violeta Tapia Mendieta and Maritza Silva Alejos	35 min	Validation: empirical validity: 0.58 Reliability: test-retest: 0.53 Baremation: yes

Meta-Analytic Analysis of the Level of Reading Comprehension

The literal level presents a mean proportion effect size of 56% (95% CI = 39–72%; Figure 2 ). The variability between the different samples of the literal level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 162.066, p < 0.001; I 2 = 96.3%). No moderating variable used in this research had a significant contribution to heterogeneity: type of measurement ( p = 0.520), type of test ( p = 0.114), type of text ( p = 0.520), type of career ( p = 0.235), and type of publication ( p = 0.585). The high variability is explained by other factors not considered in this work, such as the characteristics of the students (cognitive abilities) or other issues.

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Forest plot of literal level.

The inferential level presents a mean proportion effect size of 33% (95% CI = 19–46%; Figure 3 ). The variability between the different samples of the inferential level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 125.123, p < 0.001; I 2 = 95.2%). The type of measure ( p = 0.011) and the type of text ( p = 0.011) had a significant contribution to heterogeneity. The rest of the variables had no significance: type of test ( p = 0.214), type of career ( p = 0.449), and type of publication ( p = 0.218). According to the type of measure, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential administering a standardized test is 28.7% less than when a non-standardized test is administered. The type of measure reduces variability by 2.57% and explains the differences between the results of the studies at the inferential level. According to the type of text, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential using an argumentative text is 28.7% less than when using another type of text. The type of text reduces the variability by 2.57% and explains the differences between the results of the studies at the inferential level.

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Forest plot of inferential level.

The critical level has a mean effect size of the proportion of 22% (95% CI = 9–35%; Figure 4 ). The variability between the different samples of the critical level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 627.044, p < 0.001; I 2 = 99.04%). No moderating variable used in this research had a significant contribution to heterogeneity: type of measurement ( p = 0.575), type of test ( p = 0.691), type of text ( p = 0.575), type of career ( p = 0.699), and type of publication ( p = 0.293). The high variability is explained by other factors not considered in this work, such as the characteristics of the students (cognitive abilities).

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Forest plot of critical level.

The organizational level presents a mean effect size of the proportion of 22% (95% CI = 6–37%; Figure 5 ). The variability between the different samples of the organizational level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 1799.366, p < 0.001; I 2 = 99.67%). The type of test made a significant contribution to heterogeneity ( p = 0.289). The other moderating variables were not significant in this research: type of measurement ( p = 0.289), type of text ( p = 0.289), type of career ( p = 0.361), and type of publication ( p = 0.371). Depending on the type of test, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in organizational with multiple-choices tests plus open questions is 37% higher than while using only multiple-choice tests. The type of text reduces the variability by 0.27% and explains the differences between the results of the studies at the organizational level.

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Forest plot of organizational level.

Table 3 shows the difference between the estimated effect sizes and the significance. There is a larger proportion of students having an optimal level of reading comprehension at the literal level compared to the inferential, critical, and organizational level; an optimal level of reading comprehension at the inferential level vs. the critical and organizational level.

Results of effect size comparison.

		Difference	CI	Value of
Literal-Inferential	110.963	22.9%	18.7035–26.9796%	< 0.0001
Literal-Critical	248.061	33.6%	25.5998–37.4372%	< 0.0001
Literal-Organizational	264.320	34.6%	30.6246–38.4088%	< 0.0001
Inferential-Critical	30.063	10.7%	6.865–14.4727%	< 0.0001
Inferential-Organizational	36.364	11.7%	7.9125–15.4438%	< 0.0001
Critical-Organizational	0.309	1%	−2.5251–4.5224%	= 0.5782

Analysis of Publication Bias

This research uses two ways to verify the existence of bias independently of the sample size. Table 4 shows the results and there is no publication bias at any level of reading comprehension.

Publication bias results.

	Fail-safe N	Value of	Regression test	Value of
Literal	3115.000	<0.001	−0.571	0.568
Inferential	1145.000	<0.001	0.687	0.492
Critical	783.000	<0.001	1.862	0.063
Organizational	1350.000	<0.001	1.948	0.051

This research used a systematic literature search and meta-analysis to provide estimates of the number of cases of university students who have an optimal level in the different levels of reading comprehension. All the information available on the subject at the international level was analyzed using international databases in English and Spanish, but the potentially relevant publications were limited. Only seven Spanish language studies were identified internationally. In these seven studies, the optimal performance at each level of reading comprehension varied, finding heterogeneity associated with the very high estimates, which indicates that the summary estimates have to be interpreted with caution and in the context of the sample and the variables used in this meta-analysis.

In this research, the effects of the type of measure, type of test, type of text, type of career, and type of publication have been analyzed. Due to the limited information in the publications, it was not possible to assess the effect of any more moderating variables.

We found that some factors significantly influence heterogeneity according to the level of reading comprehension considered. The type of measure influenced the optimal performance of students in the inferential level of reading comprehension; specifically, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential worsens if the test is standardized. Several studies ( Pike, 1996 ; Koretz, 2002 ) identify differences between standardized and non-standardized measures in reading comprehension and a favor of non-standardized measures developed by the researchers ( Pyle et al., 2017 ). The ability to generate inferences of each individual may difficult to standardize because each person differently identifies the relationship between the parts of the text and integrates it with their previous knowledge ( Oakhill, 1982 ; Cain et al., 2004 ). This mental representation of the meaning of the text is necessary to create a model of the situation and a deep understanding ( McNamara and Magliano, 2009 ; van den Broek and Espin, 2012 ).

The type of test was significant for the organizational level of reading comprehension. The proportion of students who have an optimal level in organizational improves if the reading comprehension assessment test is multiple-choice plus open questions. The organizational level requires the reordering of written information through analysis and synthesis processes ( Guevara Benítez et al., 2014 ); therefore, it constitutes a production task that is better reflected in open questions than in reproduction questions as multiple choice ( Dinsmore and Alexander, 2015 ). McNamara and Kintsch (1996) identify that open tasks require an effort to make inferences related to previous knowledge and multidisciplinary knowledge. Important is to indicate that different evaluation test formats can measure different aspects of reading comprehension ( Zheng et al., 2007 ).

The type of text significantly influenced the inferential level of reading comprehension. The proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential decreases with an argumentative text. The expectations created before an argumentative text made it difficult to generate inferences and, therefore, the construction of the meaning of the text. This result is in the opposite direction to the study by Diakidoy et al. (2011) who find that the refutation text, such as the argumentative one, facilitates the elaboration of inferences compared to other types of texts. It is possible that the argumentative text, given its dialogical nature of arguments and counterarguments, with a subject unknown by the students, has determined the decrease of inferences based on their scarce previous knowledge of the subject, needing help to elaborate the structure of the text read ( Reznitskaya et al., 2007 ). It should be pointed out that in meta-analysis studies, 43% use argumentative texts. Knowing the type of the text is relevant for generating inferences, for instance, according to Baretta et al. (2009) the different types of text are processed differently in the brain generating more or fewer inferences; specifically, using the N400 component, they find that expository texts generate more inferences from the text read.

For the type of career and the type of publication, no significance was found at any level of reading comprehension in this sample. This seems to indicate that university students have the same level of performance in tasks of literal, critical inferential, and organizational understanding regardless of whether they are studying social sciences, health sciences, or engineering. Nor does the type of publication affect the state of the different levels of reading comprehension in higher education.

The remaining high heterogeneity at all levels of reading comprehension was not captured in this review, indicating that there are other factors, such as student characteristics, gender, or other issues, that are moderating and explaining the variability at the literal, inferential, critical, and organizational reading comprehension in university students.

To the comparison between the different levels of reading comprehension, the literal level has a significantly higher proportion of students with an optimal level than the inferential, critical, and organizational levels. The inferential level has a significantly higher proportion of students with an optimal level than the critical and organizational levels. This corresponds with data from other investigations ( Márquez et al., 2016 ; Del Pino-Yépez et al., 2019 ) that indicate that the literal level is where university students execute with more successes, being more difficult and with less success at the inferential, organizational, and critical levels. This indicates that university students of this sample do not generate a coherent situation model that provides them with a global mental representation of the read text according to the model of Kintsch (1998) , but rather they make a literal analysis of the explicit content of the read text. This level of understanding can lead to less desirable results in educational terms ( Dinsmore and Alexander, 2015 ).

The educational implications of this meta-analysis in this sample are aimed at making universities aware of the state of reading comprehension levels possessed by university students and designing strategies (courses and workshops) to optimize it by improving the training and employability of students. Some proposals can be directed to the use of reflection tasks, integration of information, graphic organizers, evaluation, interpretation, nor the use of paraphrasing ( Rahmani, 2011 ). Some studies ( Hong-Nam and Leavell, 2011 ; Parr and Woloshyn, 2013 ) demonstrate the effectiveness of instructional courses in improving performance in reading comprehension and metacognitive strategies. In addition, it is necessary to design reading comprehension assessment tests in higher education that are balanced, validated, and reliable, allowing to have data for the different levels of reading comprehension.

Limitations and Conclusion

This meta-analysis can be used as a starting point to report on reading comprehension levels in higher education, but the results should be interpreted with caution and in the context of the study sample and variables. Publications without sufficient data and inaccessible articles, with a sample of seven studies, may have limited the international perspective. The interest in studying reading comprehension in the mother tongue, using only unimodal texts, without the influence of technology and with English and Spanish has also limited the review. The limited amount of data in the studies has limited meta-regression.

This review is a guide to direct future research, broadening the study focus on the level of reading comprehension using digital technology, experimental designs, second languages, and investigations that relate reading comprehension with other factors (gender, cognitive abilities, etc.) that can explain the heterogeneity in the different levels of reading comprehension. The possibility of developing a comprehensive reading comprehension assessment test in higher education could also be explored.

This review contributes to the scientific literature in several ways. In the first place, this meta-analytic review is the only one that analyzes the proportion of university students who have an optimal performance in the different levels of reading comprehension. This review is made with international publications and this topic is mostly investigated in Latin America. Second, optimal performance can be improved at all levels of reading comprehension, fundamentally inferential, critical, and organizational. The literal level is significantly the level of reading comprehension with the highest proportion of optimal performance in university students. Third, the students in this sample have optimal performance at the inferential level when they are non-argumentative texts and non-standardized measures, and, in the analyzed works, there is optimal performance at the organizational level when multiple-choice questions plus open questions are used.

The current research is linked to the research project “Study of reading comprehension in higher education” of Asociación Educar para el Desarrollo Humano from Argentina.

Data Availability Statement

Author contributions.

Cd-l-P had the idea for the article and analyzed the data. ML-R searched the data. Cd-l-P and ML-R selected the data and contributed to the valuable comments and manuscript writing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The handling editor declared a shared affiliation though no other collaboration with one of the authors ML-R at the time of the review.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Funding. This paper was funded by the Universidad Internacional de la Rioja and Universidad de Málaga.

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Reading comprehension is one of the most complex cognitive activities in which humans engage, making it difficult to teach, measure, and research. Despite decades of research in reading comprehension, international and national reading scores indicate stagnant growth for U.S. adolescents. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical research in reading comprehension.
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Introduction. Being able to read is a foundational skill: it enables participation in education and society, it improves health outcomes and supports engagement in cultural and democratic processes (Castles et al., Citation 2018).It is therefore unsurprising that teaching of reading is seen across the world as both an educational and public health priority (Progress in International Literacy ...
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However, not all Els have difficulties with reading comprehension solely as a result of poor English linguistic comprehension. Word-level reading difficulties (WLRD) remain an important source of poor performance on reading comprehension for EL students (Cho et al., 2019). Although ELs with WLRD are likely to benefit from interventions focusing ...
Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language
This study examined the sources of reading comprehension difficulties in English language learners (ELLs). The characteristics of ELL poor comprehenders were compared to their English as a first language (EL1) peers. Participants included 124 ELLs who spoke Chinese as an L1 and 79 EL1 students. Using a regression technique based on age, non ...
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The comprehension problems for second-language learners with poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Reading , 40(2), 199-217. Crossref
PDF Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language
It is estimated that 5-15% of EL1 school-aged children are poor comprehenders, while the prevalence rate is 10-18% among ELLs. The percentage of this reader group is higher for ELLs due to their weaker English vocabulary skills, which lead to reading comprehension problems (Lesaux, Koda, Siegel, & Shanahan, 2006a).
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Studies designed to improve reading comprehension in adolescents are needed. Many adolescents struggle to succeed in schools today because of underlying language impairments or weak language skills. This research note discusses the relationship between language development and academic success with respect to reading comprehension.
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Comprehension Reading comprehension is a complex process that involves the interaction between readers and texts within a social context. Scholars have proposed various strategies to improve reading comprehension, which are detailed in this section. These strategies, such as activating background knowledge, asking questions, making
Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language
This study examined the sources of reading comprehension difficulties in English language learners (ELLs). The characteristics of ELL poor comprehenders were compared to their English as a first language (EL1) peers. Participants included 124 ELLs who spoke Chinese as an L1 and 79 EL1 students. Using a regression technique based on age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word ...
The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension: A Critical
The Role of Domain Knowledge. The Construction-Integration model identifies a critical role for background knowledge in reading (Kintsch, Citation 1998; Kintsch & Van Dijk, Citation 1978).Knowledge can be classified according to its specificity; background knowledge comprises all of the world knowledge that the reader brings to the task of reading. This can include episodic (events ...
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Meta-Analytic Analysis of the Level of Reading Comprehension. The literal level presents a mean proportion effect size of 56% (95% CI = 39-72%; Figure 2). The variability between the different samples of the literal level of reading comprehension was significant (Q = 162.066, p < 0.001; I2 = 96.3%).
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omous activity, which eventually improves the level of comprehension. Moreover, the study conducted by Protacio (2017) implied that reading engagement represents the students' motivation to read and engage in reading activities to improve their understanding from texts and hence, the current study provides evidence.
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Poor reading comprehension is becoming a global problem confronting students and teachers. This paper analyzes studies on improving reading comprehension to generate some useful insights for effective teaching. This paper presents a comprehensive review ... comprehension is essential in improving reading comprehension. Research has shown that ...

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Non-verbal Reasoning

Phonological Awareness

Word Reading Accuracy

Word Reading Fluency

Reading Comprehension

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Ethics Statement

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Conflict of Interest

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Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language learners

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Levels of Reading Comprehension in Higher Education: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

María Jesús Luque-Rojas

Associated Data

Introduction

The Present Study

Materials and Methods

Search Strategies

Encoding Procedure

Effect Size and Statistical Analysis

Overview of Included Studies

Meta-Analytic Analysis of the Level of Reading Comprehension

Analysis of Publication Bias

Limitations and Conclusion

Data Availability Statement

Conflict of Interest

Publisher’s Note

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