Why do some students struggle to understand what they read?

Reading comprehension is not a single skill, but a complex task underpinned by a range of different abilities and knowledge (Catts, 2021). To understand a text, students must first have adequate sight reading and decoding abilities, as well as fluency in reading. They will need to have adequate background and vocabulary knowledge, and be able to use a range of metalinguistic strategies to work out the meanings of new words as well as to monitor and repair any gaps in understanding.

They will also need adequate working memory to keep the relevant information in mind and piece it all together into a coherent whole. On top of all this, to truly engage with a text, students will need to infer, reason, compare and contrast, summarise information, problem solve and interpret. Given the complexity of the task, some have gone so far as to call it, “thinking guided by print” (Catts, 2009).

Catts (2021) emphasized the particular importance of background knowledge in understanding a text. Whilst we may think of reading as a way of learning new information, research has shown that our prior knowledge of the general domain of the text greatly influences comprehension. In one study, poor decoders who were knowledgeable in the subject matter (baseball) outperformed good decoders with poor understanding of the subject (Catts, 2009).

This may be because new information needs something to hook onto: an anchor (Catts, 2021). When we read a text, we are not so much learning new information, as we are integrating it with our own prior knowledge to create a dynamic “situational model” (Catts, 2009). Having an awareness of the topic can also prevent us from going off on the wrong track, and guide us in making inferences. It is likely that having some background knowledge will also allow students to think more deeply about the topic, due to freeing up working memory space (Catts, 2021).

Another important aspect of reading comprehension which has sometimes been overlooked, yet is especially relevant to Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs), is sentence comprehension. In her article, “A Case for the Sentence in Reading Comprehension”, Cheryl Scott (2009) argues that many reading comprehension problems are actually the result of undetected sentence processing difficulties. There is a fair amount of evidence for her position.

Traditionally, students with “literacy difficulties” have been split into two camps: “poor decoders” and “poor comprehenders”. Poor decoders are those who struggle to translate letters into sounds, to blend them together to make words, to read fluently: those who could also be described as “dyslexic”. Poor comprehenders, on the other hand, have no problem with the reading process itself, but they struggle to understand the meaning of a text. Approximately 5-10% of school children could be said to fit into this category (Catts et al, 2006).

A range of studies have found evidence of weak underlying language abilities in this group. For example, Catts’s group of poor comprehenders scored near the 20% percentile for receptive vocabulary, and near the 30^th percentile for grammatical understanding. He observes that although mild, and “subclinical”, these difficulties may be enough to have a significant impact on complex reading comprehension tasks. Whilst these difficulties were often present from kindergarten, only a small percentage of these children had met the criteria for a language disorder, with very few receiving support from an SLT (Catts et al, 2006).

Despite these findings, reading comprehension interventions have traditionally prioritized the teaching of generic strategies over targeting any underlying language deficits. But Cheryl Scott (2009) observes that if a student is unable to parse individual sentences to derive meaning from them, then they will struggle to understand at text level. Marylin Nippold (2017) also questions how we can expect students to grasp the main idea, or to summarise a passage if they have not understood the individual sentences it is composed of.  Although reading comprehension strategies may be useful to some students, they are unlikely to be effective unless underlying language deficits are addressed first.

Given the myriad skills required by the task of reading comprehension, it is no wonder that students with underlying language difficulties struggle so much. Besides having poorer vocabularies and syntactic ability as mentioned previously, some of these students may have associated difficulties with working memory and literacy. They are also likely to have poorer background knowledge by dint of their reading difficulties and possible reluctance with reading. Thus, a vicious cycle is born, where students see their difficulties compounded.

As SLTs, it may be worth paying particular attention to the overlooked role of syntax (Nippold, 2017): something we are very specifically qualified to address. This is particularly relevant to the secondary school years, as students are expected to understand increasingly complex sentence structures (see my post). Indeed, it is no coincidence that a group of “poor comprehenders” typically emerge at this time (Scott, 2009). Unfortunately, there is still a great need for research in this area (Nippold, 2017).

Notes

Catts, Hugh W., Suzanne M. Adlof, and Susan Ellis Weismer. “Language Deficits in Poor Comprehenders: A Case for the Simple View of Reading.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 49, no. 2 (2006): 278–293.

Catts, Hugh W. “The Narrow View of Reading Promotes a Broad View of Comprehension.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 40, no. 2 (April 2009): 178–183. 

Catts, Hugh W. “Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension.” American Educator 45, no. 4 (Winter 2021-2022): 26–33. 

Nippold, Marilyn A. 2017. “Reading Comprehension Deficits in Adolescents: Addressing Underlying Language Abilities.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 48 (2): 125–131.

Scott, Cheryl M. “A Case for the Sentence in Reading Comprehension.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 40, no. 2 (2009): 184-191.