Testing Mechanisms Underlying Children's Reading Development: The Power of Learning Lexical Representations

• Published in: Developmental psychology 2024-07, Vol.60 (7), p.1343-1356
• Main Authors: Deacon, S. Hélène, Mimeau, Catherine, Levesque, Kyle, Ricketts, Jessie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Child; Child Development - physiology; Children; Children & youth; Comprehension - physiology; Consciousness; Elementary school students; Female; Human; Humans; Individual differences; Individuality; Learning; Learning - physiology; Learning Ability; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Mediation; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; Nonverbal ability; Novel words; Orthography; Path analysis; Phonological awareness; Power; Reading; Reading acquisition; Reading Comprehension; Reading Development; Semantics; Short stories; Short term memory; Tests; Vocabulary; Word Meaning; Words (Phonetic Units)
• ISSN: 0012-1649; 1939-0599; 1939-0599
• DOI: 10.1037/dev0001749

Prominent theories of reading development have separately emphasized the relevance of children's skill in learning (Share, 2008) and lexical representations (Perfetti & Hart, 2002). Integrating these ideas, we examined whether skill in learning lexical representations is a mechanism that might explain children's reading development. To do so we conducted a longitudinal study, following 139 children from Grades 3 to 5. In Grade 3, children completed measures of word reading and reading comprehension and again at Grade 5. In Grade 4, children read short stories containing novel words; they were later tested on their memory for the spellings and meanings of these new words, capturing orthographic and semantic learning, respectively. Using multiple-mediation path analysis, we tested whether children's skill in learning orthographic and semantic dimensions of new words was a mediator of individual differences in each of word reading and reading comprehension. In models controlling for nonverbal ability, working memory, vocabulary, and phonological awareness, we found two clear effects: individual differences in orthographic learning at Grade 4 mediated the gains that children made in word reading between Grades 3 and 5 and individual differences in semantic learning at Grade 4 mediated gains in reading comprehension over the same time period. These findings suggest that children's ability to learn lexical representations is a mechanism in reading development, with orthographic effects on word reading and semantic effects on reading comprehension. These findings show the power and the specificity of children's capacity to learn in determining their progress in learning to read. Public Significance StatementReading is one of the most important skills that children can acquire in elementary school, with its successful achievement enabling full societal engagement across the lifespan. This study suggests that children's capacity to learn targeted aspects of words-their spellings and meanings-is a mechanism that drives their reading development. These findings point to the need to incorporate the power of children's learning into theories of and instruction in reading.