Can A Reading Fluency/Speed Of Processing Component Be Added To The Simple View Of Reading In Arabic? Results from a Longitudinal Study
Can A Reading Fluency/Speed Of Processing Component Be Added To The Simple View Of Reading In Arabic? Results from a Longitudinal Study
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) proposes that that reading ability should be predictable from a measure of decoding ability (e.g. the ability to pronounce pseudo-words) and a measure of listening comprehension (Gough and Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990). This formula was later modified by Tunmer & Chapman (2012), who added a vocabulary component to the language construct. Some other researchers investigated the possibility of adding a fluency component in the oral reading of the SVR (e.g. Adlof, Catts, & Little, 2006), and others added naming speed (e.g. Johnston & Kirby, 2006). Some studies provide evidence that the SVR could be applied to Arabic (e.g. Everatt et al, 2013; Elshikh, 2012).
The study aimed at investigating the possibility of adding a reading fluency/speed of processing component to the SVR in Arabic. Measures of Arabic word reading, non-word decoding, receptive vocabulary, morphological segmentation, syntactic awareness, text reading fluency and rapid object naming were applied to 71 Grade 4 boys in Kuwait at the beginning of the school year (Time 1) , then eight months later towards the end of the school year (Time 2), measures of Arabic marked-text reading comprehension, unmarked-text reading comprehension, and reading comprehension fluency were applied to the students.
Hierarchal regression analyses were used to see the variance explained by Time 1 measures in Time 2 comprehension measures. Simple regression-based path models were also built of the longitudinal relations between the observed variables at the beginning of the school year in the prediction of each of the comprehension measures using AMOS 21.
Results show that, reading fluency/speed of processing could be added to SVR in Arabic. They also show that speed of processing was more related to marked-text comprehension, and that both speed of processing and reading fluency are related to unmarked-text comprehension and comprehension fluency.