Receptive vocabulary in oral text reading fluency.

Abstract

Reading fluency is fast and accurate word recognition and once established, closely linked to comprehension. Fluency is thought to free up cognitive capacity allowing for integration of words in a text and its development is critical to be considered a skilled reader. Academic and professional success is reliant on skilled reading, hence the importance for the educational field to understand the processes behind development of adequate reading skills. The purpose of the present cross-sectional study is to determine to what extent receptive vocabulary can predict oral text reading fluency in grade 3 children. Through hierarchical regression analysis, age and skills thought to capture word reading in sequence are used as control variables in the hope of identifying the unique variance explained in oral text reading fluency by receptive vocabulary. The sample consists of 70 Dutch grade 3 children who have all been assessed on oral text reading fluency, receptive vocabulary, individual word reading, serial word reading rate (word lists) and serial digit naming. The results show that receptive vocabulary does not explain any statistically significant unique variance in oral text reading fluency in a relatively transparent language in grade 3. The study challenges the idea that established readers rely on elements of vocabulary for text reading fluency. However, the large amount of unexplained variance after controlling for elements thought to capture reading of words in sequence should not be overlooked. The data was collected in a relatively transparent orthography where accurate decoding skills are thought to become established earlier than in opaque orthographies. Thus, the assumption that a language skill like receptive vocabulary would explain unique variance in text reading fluency is not unreasonable, but the results are somewhat surprising.