Kintsch and Rawson (2005) suggest that there are higher-level processes involved in reading comprehension beyond reading accuracy and lower level language skills. They propose that individuals must understand both the microstructure and the macrostructure of a text. The microstructure refers to understanding word meanings and how they group together into idea units, or propositions. This local representation of the text is in contrast to the
macrostructure, or the global structure, which is concerned with how topics within the text relate to each other. The microstructure and macrostructure combine to form the textbase. This, along with the reader’s prior knowledge, results in a situation model, or a mental model of the text. To create a situation model, processes such as working memory, inferencing, comprehension monitoring and knowledge of story structure are required.
Reading comprehension requires the processing of information and, in the context of Kintsch and Rawson’s (2005) theory, holding this information in memory to create a situation model. Therefore working memory is necessary for successful reading comprehension.
Seigneuric, Ehrlich, Oakhill and Yuill (2000) looked at the contribution of verbal, numerical and spatial working memory to reading comprehension in a group of 48 children aged 8-10 years. Regression analyses were conducted to investigate whether working memory contributed unique variance to reading comprehension when decoding and vocabulary were also entered. The verbal working memory tasks were significant predictors whereas the other tasks were not. This supports Kintsch and Rawson, particularly as the verbal domain would be the most likely to support reading comprehension through the storage and integration of information gathered from the text.
Sesma, Mahone, Levine, Eason and Cutting (2009) examined the contribution of memory and executive functioning to reading comprehension in a group of 60 children aged 9-
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15 years; half of whom had difficulties in reading accuracy, reading comprehension and/or attention. After decoding, vocabulary and parental reports of attention were controlled for, measures of working memory and planning contributed unique variance to reading
comprehension. However this measure of working memory included arithmetic and digit span therefore was not a pure task.
If working memory contributes to reading comprehension, then children with specific reading comprehension difficulties, i.e. poor comprehenders, might be expected to have weaknesses in working memory. Indeed a meta-analysis by Carretti, Borella, Cornoldi and De Beni (2009) found that poor comprehenders showed difficulties on short-term and working memory tasks, although verbal working memory tasks posed the most difficulty for this group. They also had weaknesses on tasks of executive functioning, which required inhibiting
irrelevant information and updating information in memory.
Some higher-level processes proposed to be involved in reading comprehension are more specific to this task, including inference-making, comprehension monitoring and story structure knowledge. When reading a text, it is often necessary to go beyond the information explicitly given in the text and make an inference, for example understanding who a pronoun refers to (cohesive inferences) or the application of real-world knowledge (elaborative inferences). Furthermore in order to fully understand text, the process of comprehension monitoring must occur; this enables individuals to be aware of when their understanding breaks down and attempt to address this (Perfetti, Landi, & Oakhill, 2005). Knowledge of story structure is also important. This is the production and understanding of different components and the sequence of a narrative, for example titles, the introduction of characters and endings (Perfetti et al., 2005).
As with working memory, the level of inferencing, comprehension monitoring and story structure have been examined in poor comprehenders. Cain, Oakhill, Barnes and Bryant (2001) taught children information about an alien planet to ensure that any differences in inference-making were not due to differences in existing knowledge. Compared to skilled comprehenders who were matched for reading accuracy and age, poor comprehenders made less successful inferences, and this difference remained when performance on literal questions
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(those which did not require an inference) and retention of taught knowledge were controlled for. The authors suggested this result arises because poor comprehenders have difficulty in selecting the appropriate piece of information for making the inference.
A difference between skilled and poor comprehenders has also been found in resolving anomalies within text, knowledge of story conventions and structure of stories produced (Cain, 1996; Yuill, Oakhill, & Parkin, 1989). In the latter case, poor comprehenders also told poorer structured stories than younger children matched on comprehension skill when given only a general topic as a prompt. When children were provided with a sequence of stories, the poor comprehenders and the comprehension-matched group told comparable stories (Cain, 1996). It was suggested that the poor comprehenders were less able to independently produce a structural framework for a cohesive story.
Oakhill et al. (2003) conducted a longitudinal study of reading comprehension and included measures of vocabulary, working memory, comprehension monitoring, inference comprehension, narrative sequencing and story structure knowledge. Ninety-six children participated in two time points, when they were aged 7-8 years and 8-9 years. Verbal working memory, comprehension monitoring, inference comprehension and story structure knowledge all predicted unique variance in reading comprehension after vocabulary skills were accounted for. The most stringent test would be to control for the autoregressive effect of earlier reading comprehension, which was not done here. Furthermore reading accuracy was not entered as a control variable, so the effect of these variables beyond the contribution of reading accuracy cannot be determined.