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Cited by 54Reading and Literacy DevelopmentLanguage Development and DisordersSecond Language Acquisition and Learning

Lexical quality and executive control predict children’s first and second language reading comprehension

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Raudszus, Henriette, Segers, Eliane, Verhoeven, Ludo·2018·Reading and Writing
DOI 10.1007/s11145-017-9791-8PMC PMC5768669
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Abstract

This study compared how lexical quality (vocabulary and decoding) and executive control (working memory and inhibition) predict reading comprehension directly as well as indirectly, via syntactic integration, in monolingual and bilingual fourth grade children. The participants were 76 monolingual and 102 bilingual children (mean age 10 years, SD = 5 months) learning to read Dutch in the Netherlands. Bilingual children showed lower Dutch vocabulary, syntactic integration and reading comprehension skills, but better decoding skills than their monolingual peers. There were no differences in working memory or inhibition. Multigroup path analysis showed relatively invariant connections between predictors and reading comprehension for monolingual and bilingual readers. For both groups, there was a direct effect of lexical quality on reading comprehension. In addition, lexical quality and executive control indirectly influenced reading comprehension via syntactic integration. The groups differed in that inhibition more strongly predicted syntactic integration for bilingual than for monolingual children. For a subgroup of bilingual children, for whom home language vocabulary data were available ( n = 56), there was an additional positive effect of home language vocabulary on second language reading comprehension. Together, the results suggest that similar processes underlie reading comprehension in first and second language readers, but that syntactic integration requires more executive control in second language reading. Moreover, bilingual readers additionally benefit from first language vocabulary to arrive at second language reading comprehension.

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  • The lack of difference between L2 and L1 readers in morphological inferencing can be attributed to good decoding skills.

    “Possibly, this can be attributed to the recruitment of L1 vocabulary (Ramirez et al., 2010) as well as enhanced metalinguistic awareness (Adesope et al., 2010) and good decoding skills (Raudszus et al., 2018).”

    From Use of morphological and contextual cues in children’s lexical inferencing in L1 and L2 (2021) · cites this paper as Raudszus et al., 2018

    The Results (Differences between L1 and L2 readers; page unavailable) report that L2 readers decoded words and pseudowords more efficiently than L1 readers, supporting the reference to good decoding skills. The paper examines reading comprehension, not morphological inferencing, and does not establish that decoding explains a lack of difference in morphological inferencing. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Authors
Raudszus, H., Segers, E., & Verhoeven, L.
Affiliations
Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
Corresponding author
Raudszus, Henriette
ORCID
Venue
Reading and Writing
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2017-11-02
Volume
31
Issue
2
Pages
405-424
ISSN
  • 0922-4777 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-0905
DOI
10.1007/s11145-017-9791-8
PMC
PMC5768669
OpenAlex
W2765116387
Cited by
54
References
61
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1
FWCI
5.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Reading and Writing (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
Keywords
reading comprehension, lexical quality, executive function, syntactic integration, bilingual children, second language reading, vocabulary, decoding, working memory, inhibition, Dutch as a second language

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