Psychological Development and Education ›› 2020, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (3): 311-317.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2020.03.08

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The Importance of Decoding Skills and Vocabulary to Reading Comprehension in Chinese Reading Development

YAN Mengge1, LI Hong1, LI Yixun2, ZHOU Xuelian3, HUI Yi1, CHENG Yahua4, WU Xinchun1   

  1. 1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education(Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education, Beijing Normal Universityy, Beijing 100875, China;
    2. Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, USA;
    3. Guangzhou Yuexiu District Chaotian Primary School, Guangzhou 5101802, China;
    4. Department of Psychology, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
  • Published:2020-06-02

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Abstract: According to the Simple View of Reading (e.g., Gough & Tunmer, 1986), linguistic comprehension and decoding are fundamental to reading comprehension. Many relevant studies have focused on alphabetical writing systems, yet few studies have analyzed non-alphabetical languages, such as Chinese. The present study used two samples to explore the developing roles of decoding and vocabulary (two factors of SVR) with Chinese language. The decoding, vocabulary, and reading comprehension abilities of 666 Chinese children were measured in kindergarten, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3 and grade 5 (aged from 5.6 to 9.3 years). The results of the regression showed that decoding and vocabulary accounted for 32% to 76% of the variance for reading comprehension across grades, and the unique contribution of decoding decreased over the grades while that of vocabulary increased. Implications and future research directions relating to the influence of decoding and vocabulary on reading development are discussed. According to that decoding is of great importance for reading comprehension at the beginning of school. Therefore, in the early grades, decoding instructions are of great importance. However, since vocabulary plays a more important role in later grades, our teaching shouldn't always emphasize on character learning and ignore vocabulary. Thus, it is essential to teach children how to increase their vocabulary (e.g., selecting reading materials with new words from different levels of difficulties).

Key words: decoding, vocabulary, simple view of reading, reading comprehension, reading development

CLC Number: 

  • G442
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