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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Read Res Q. 2015 Oct 7;51(1):55–66.

The Contribution of Segmental and Suprasegmental Phonology to Reading Comprehension

Nathalie J Veenendaal 1, Margriet A Groen 1, Ludo Verhoeven 1
PMCID: PMC4991552  NIHMSID: NIHMS771955  PMID: 27551159

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology, and their contribution to reading comprehension, in the upper primary grades. Following a longitudinal design, the performance of 99 Dutch primary school children on phonological awareness (segmental phonology) and text reading prosody (suprasegmental phonology) in fourth-grade and fifth-grade, and reading comprehension in sixth-grade were examined. In addition, decoding efficiency as a general assessment of reading was examined. Structural path modeling firstly showed that the relation between decoding efficiency and both measures of phonology from fourth- to fifth grade was unidirectional. Secondly, the relation between decoding in fourth- and fifth-grade and reading comprehension in sixth-grade became indirect when segmental and suprasegmental phonology were added to the model. Both factors independently exerted influence on later reading comprehension. This leads to the conclusion that not only segmental, but also suprasegmental phonology, contributes substantially to children's reading development.

Keywords: decoding, phonological awareness, prosody, reading comprehension

Learning to read starts with acquiring the alphabetic principle, but the ultimate goal of reading acquisition is to learn to comprehend written text. Decoding and reading comprehension in primary school children have been shown to correlate (e.g., Goff, Pratt, & Ong, 2005; Shankweiler et al., 1999) and decoding efficiency often predict success in reading comprehension (Kendeou, van de Broek, White, & Lynch, 2009; Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2008; Verhoeven, van Leeuwe, & Vermeer, 2011). Apart from decoding, phonological awareness has also been proposed to predict later reading comprehension (e.g., Ehri et al., 2001). Phonological awareness is a segmental phonology skill, referring to the awareness of separable sound units in speech and the ability to manipulate these. More recently, it has been shown that suprasegmental phonology is associated with reading comprehension as well (e.g., Benjamin & Schwanenflugel, 2010; Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2006, 2008; Rasinski, Rikli, & Johnston, 2009). Suprasegmental phonology refers to intonation patterns, stress placement and rhythm in spoken language; also called prosody. To date, however, longitudinal studies combining measures of both segmental and suprasegmental phonology, escpecially in older school children, are scarce. Furthermore, there is some evidence that decoding is related to segmental phonology (Melby-Lervåg, Lyster, & Hulme, 2012; Nation & Hulme, 2011) as well as to suprasegmental phonology (Goswami et al., 2002; Schwanenflugel, Hamilton, Kuhn, Wisenbaker, & Stahl, 2004). Therefore the goal of the present study was twofold; to, firstly, take a longitudinal stance on the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology and, secondly, to examine the contribution of decoding, segmental and suprasegmental phonology to reading comprehension.

Reading starts with the ability to decipher printed words. In order to do so, a child has to learn how to decode words. Decoding (or sometimes called phonological recoding), involves the coupling of phonemes to orthographic print. It has been proposed that two types of decoding procedures can be distinguished; explicit decoding, sounding out individual phonemes and blending these in order to form a word, and lexicalized decoding, making use of implicit orthographic-phonological relations, stored in the child's lexicon (e.g., Fletcher-Flinn & Thompson, 2000; Thompson & Fletcher-Flinn, 1993). Explicit decoding is strongly associated with phonics instruction. In the Dutch educational system, early reading is predominantly taught using phonics instruction (Reitsma & Verhoeven, 1993). However, in the intermediate and upper classes of primary school the focus shifts to word recognition rather than sounding out words, as children are expected to know the rules of orthographicphonological coupling by then (Aarnoutse, Verhoeven, Zandt, & Biemond, 2003). Therefore, in children from intermediate and upper classes of primary school, it seems more informative to assess lexicalized decoding.

Some of the classic studies on literacy showed that decoding abilities form an important foundation skill for reading comprehension (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Perfetti, 1985). The lexical quality hypothesis by Perfetti (2007; Perfetti & Hart, 2002) states that the quality of word representations, such as knowledge about word forms and meanings, affects general reading outcomes, including reading comprehension. Nevertheless, decoding has been shown to exert most influence on early reading comprehension skills and its effect is generally weaker at the end of primary school (Tilstra, McMaster, van den Broek, Kendeou, & Rapp, 2009; Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2009; Veenendaal, Groen, & Verhoeven, 2014). Moreover, there is some evidence that decoding develops differently in different orthographies. In languages with a transparent orthography, such as Dutch, 90% of words are read correctly after one year of reading instruction, whereas in a more opaque orthography such as English, only 41% of words are read correctly (Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003). Regarding the assessment of decoding; decoding can be measured by the accuracy of pronouncing words or pseudowords, as described above, or by the rate used to pronounce these words (efficiency). The latter form of assessment is used more in transparent languages, as reading rate has been shown to reach ceiling quickly, even in the first year of official reading instruction (e.g., Seymour et al. 2003).

It has been claimed that decoding is preceded by phonological awareness in reading development (Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004; Torgesen, 2002; Torgesen & Mathes, 2000). Phonological awareness develops gradually, and this development occurs from larger to smaller units (Kamil, Mosenthal, Pearon, & Bar, 2000; Geijsel & Aarnoutse, 2006). Children can, in general, segment words into syllables before they can segment them into phonemes (e.g., Carrol, Snowling, Stevenson, & Hulme, 2003; Treiman, 1986, 1992). A meta-analytic review of 235 studies by Melby-Lervåg et al. (2012) showed that of the three most widely studied phonological skills—phoneme awareness, rime awareness, and verbal short-term memory—phoneme awareness was most closely related to growth in children's word reading ability. These effects were shown to be similar across different languages (Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012). However, it has also been suggested that once the beginning stages of reading are mastered, the relationship between phonological awareness and word reading becomes reciprocal (Nation & Hulme, 2011; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). Experience in reading may thus facilitate further development of phonological awareness in more advanced readers (e.g., Cheung, Chen, Lai, Wong, & Hills, 2001; Mann, 1986).

In addition, suprasegmental phonology has also been reported to be related to word decoding. Suprasegmental phonology involves the melody of spoken language; this includes awareness of speech rhythm, and perception and production of stress placement and word boundaries. Apart from oral prosody, suprasegmental phonology can also be assessed in a more holistic manner, namely with text reading prosody. In this type of assessment, a correct use of pauses, phrase boundaries and intonation patterns is assessed, whilst children are reading out loud.

Regarding the first assessment; oral prosody, it has been shown that speech rhythm sensitivity was better developed in children who started to read at a young age and less so in children with dyslexia (Goswami et al., 2002). Furthermore, Kitzen (2001) found that the perception of rhythm and stress in short phrases was a significant predictor of decoding in university students. In contrast, when suprasegmental phonology is assessed by text reading prosody a reversed relation has been found. Decoding was shown to play an essential role in prosodic reading performance (Schwanenflugel et al., 2004). As soon as decoding was mastered, children generally read with shorter pauses between words and sentences, with more smoothness and with an adult-like intonation contour (Schwanenflugel et al., 2004).

Both segmental and suprasegmental phonology have been shown to contribute to reading comprehension. Regarding segmental phonology, a meta-analysis by Ehri et al. (2001) concluded that instruction in phonological awareness benefitted children's reading comprehension. In addition, Engen and Høien (2002) proposed that phonological awareness contributed to reading comprehension in both average and good decoders in first-grade. Efficient phonological awareness can even benefit readers in intermediate and upper grades, as shown by a phonologically based reading program that improved reading abilities, including reading comprehension, in children from first-grade to sixth-grade (Rashotte, MacPhee, & Torgesen, 2001). Nonetheless, a question remains as to the underlying processes assessed by phonological awareness tasks and their contribution to reading comprehension. Specifically, phonological awareness tasks that included a working memory component were stronger predictors of comprehension than tasks that did not tax working memory (Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2000).

A contribution of suprasegmental skills to reading comprehension in primary school children has also been found. For instance, text reading prosody has been associated with reading comprehension in several studies (e.g., Benjamin & Schwanenflugel, 2010; Kuhn & Stahl, 2003; Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2006, 2008; Rasinski et al., 2009; Veenendaal et al., 2014). Rasinski et al. (2009) used the Multi-dimensional Fluency Scale (Rasinski, 2004) to assess different aspects of text reading prosody, such as expression, phrasing, smoothness and pace. The authors found that text reading prosody and reading comprehension were significantly correlated in primary school children in third-grade and fifth-grade, and even beyond primary school, in seventh-grade (Rasinski et al., 2009). Studies using spectrographic analyses have shown that third-grade children who used larger pitch changes and larger basic declarative sentence declinations in reading, performed better on reading comprehension tests than children who used these prosodic features to a lesser extent (Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2006). Nevertheless, text reading prosody and reading comprehension share a common factor. Both skills are reading-dependent measures and therefore depend on basic reading skills, such as decoding (Schwanenflugel et al., 2004). Schwanenflugel et al. showed that decoding contributed directly to reading comprehension as well as indirectly, via text reading prosody. Text reading prosody has therefore been suggested to perform a mediating role between decoding and reading comprehension (Schwanenflugel et al., 2004).

Only a few studies have investigated the influence of both segmental and suprasegmental phonology to reading comprehension. Whalley and Hansen (2006) showed that in fourth-grade children, speech rhythm sensitivity (a compound word task distinguishing between a compound word, such as high-chair, and two words, such as high/ chair) contributed to word reading, whereas a reiterative phrase-level task contributed to reading comprehension when non-speech rhythmic awareness and phonological awareness were accounted for. In this reiterative speech task children listened to a spoken title of a film or book followed by two ‘DEEdee sentences’, which contained no phonemic or semantic information, as all syllables were replaced with the word ‘dee’. The DEEdee sentence that corresponded most to the prosodic pattern of the original sentence had to be selected.

Other research showed that dyslectic children had a reduced sensitivity to both prosodic structure and phonological awareness, although prosodic and phonological awareness skills made independent contributions to reading outcomes (Goswami, Gerson, & Astruc, 2010). Of the studies that have examined segmental and suprasegmental phonology, only a few had longitudinal designs. Holliman, Wood and Sheehy (2010) performed a longitudinal study and showed that speech rhythm sensitivity in 5-to-8-year-old children predicted reading comprehension one year later. The results showed that, after controlling for age, vocabulary and phonological awareness, a prosodic word-level task which manipulated stress placement (carROT instead of CARrot) was related to word reading but not to reading comprehension (Holliman, Wood, & Sheehy, 2010). Miller and Schwanenflugel (2008) examined the influence of suprasegmental phonology in a three year longitudinal study. Although the contribution of word reading skill was taken into account, phonological awareness was not included in this study. There were strong to moderate correlations between prosodic features and word reading skills from first- to second-grade and both contributed to reading comprehension outcomes in third-grade.

Despite the abovementioned outcomes, data on the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology in more mature readers are still largely missing. Further, little is known about the contribution of phonology to reading comprehension in more mature readers, specifically in an orthographical language. Therefore the aim of this study is to shed more light on the influence of suprasegmental phonology, next to segmental phonoly, on reading comprehension outcomes in older children. We expect the results to be insightful for both theory and practice. The necessity to investigate the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology and their contribution to reading comprehension, warrants a longitudinal study which takes the contribution of all three variables to reading comprehension into account.

Specifically, the research questions were:

  1. How are decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology related over time?

  2. In what way do segmental and suprasegmental phonology, in addition to decoding, predict later reading comprehension?

In order to answer the first question, the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology from fourth- to fifth-grade was examined. We examined whether the relations between decoding efficiency, phonological awareness (phoneme deletion and spoonerisms) and text reading prosody were unidirectional or bidirectional. As it has been shown that experience in reading facilitates further development of phonological awareness (Mann, 1986; Nation & Hulme, 2011), the expectation was to find a relation from decoding to phonological awareness in these mature readers. The reversed relation; from decoding to phonological awareness, is mostly found in younger, beginning readers (e.g., Muter et al., 2004) and was therefore not expected. Regarding the relation between decoding and suprasegmental phonology; speech rhythm sensitivity (Goswami et al., 2002) and perception of rhythm and stress (Kitzen, 2001) have been shown to contribute to decoding, but this relation has not been found for text reading prosody. Text reading prosody is a reading related skill, and it has been shown that children who master decoding, generally use a more adult-like prosody in their reading performance (Schwanenflugel et al., 2004). The relation between decoding and text reading prosody is therefore expected to be unidirectional.

The second question was answered in two parts; firstly, it was established whether there was a relation between decoding efficiency in fourth- and fifth-grade and reading comprehension in sixth-grade. Secondly, phonological awareness (phoneme deletion and spoonerisms) and text reading prosody from fourth- and fifth-grade were added in order to examine the contribution of segmental and suprasegmental phonology to reading comprehension, above and beyond the contribution of decoding.

Based on the literature it is expected that the effect of decoding on reading comprehension will be less prominent for more advanced readers in a transparent orthography. We therefore expect a modest contribution of decoding to reading comprehension. When segmental and suprasegmental phonology are added to the model, we expect the relation between decoding and reading comprehension to change. It has been shown that text reading prosody performs a mediating role between decoding and reading comprehension (Schwanenflugel et al., 2004). Further, phonological awareness tasks that included a working memory component, such as a spoonerism task, have been shown to be strong predictors of reading comprehension (Cain et al., 2000). Lastly, it is expected that text reading prosody and phonological awareness make an independent contribution to reading comprehension, as is suggested by Goswami et al. (2010).

Method

Participants

Participants were 99 primary school children (57 girls and 42 boys), who remained from the original sample of 104 participants in fourth-grade. The mean age in fourth-grade was 9 years, 9 months, SD = 7.6 months. Five children dropped out of the study; four children moved to another town and one child was referred to special education. A non-parametric analysis found no significant group differences in performance on any of the language tasks between the children who dropped out and the remaining 99 children. The participants came from four medium-sized, primary schools in the Eastern part of the Netherlands. The primary language of all participating children was Dutch. Children with language impairments or behavioral problems were excluded from the study. Each year, parents gave informed consent for participation of their child to the study.

Materials

Decoding efficiency

Due to the orthographically transparent nature of the Dutch language, we used rate of pseudoword reading (efficiency) to assess decoding abilities. Pseudowords are non-existing, but legal (in terms of phonotactics) words. Four lists with pseudowords were presented to the children (Verhoeven, in press). The word lists consisted of four categories of pseudowords: consonant-vowel-consonant words (CVC), double consonant words (CCVCC), two-syllable and multi-syllable words. For each list, children had one minute to read the pseudowords as quickly and accurately as possible. Per list, the number of correctly read words per minute was recorded. As the data on the four separate lists of the decoding task were highly correlated (r > .83), the average score over all four lists has been used for analyses. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient has been reported to be greater than .85 for this task (Verhoeven, in press).

Phonological awareness

Phonological awareness was assessed in fourth-grade by means of a phoneme deletion task (Verhoeven, in press). Children were aurally presented with an existing word and were asked to repeat the word whilst omitting the first, the second, the penultimate, or the last sound of this word. Twenty items were presented in total, thus five words per type of omission. In each case the remaining sounds formed another existing word in Dutch. As the phoneme deletion task proved to be relatively easy for the children in fourth-grade, a more complex phonological awareness test was added to the test battery in fifth-grade. We used a spoonerism task where children were aurally presented with the first and last name of well-known characters from TV and films. Children were asked to reverse the first sounds of the first and last name; for example, Harry Potter would become Parry Hotter. Twelve names were presented in total and children could receive two points per name (first name and/ or last name correct).

Text reading prosody

Text reading prosody was measured by asking children to read two short, grade-level texts (approximately 100 words each). In fourth-grade, one story was a folktale about a turtle and a spider and the other story was about a summer holiday. One text from fourth-grade (the summer holiday) was also presented in fifth-grade, together with a new grade-level text (a folktale about a tiger and a squirrel). Each year, children were instructed to first read each text silently, after which they were asked to read each text out loud. Children were instructed to read the way they would normally read in class. The text reading was recorded on an Olympus VN-5500PC digital recorder and was scored at a later time to assess text reading prosody. The Multidimensional Fluency Scale (Rasinski, 2004) was used to determine the quality of text reading prosody. This scale distinguishes four aspects of prosodic text reading. Performance on each section was marked on a scale from 1-4. The different sections were: Expression and volume (expression adapted according to storyline, level of enthusiasm), Phrasing (use of intonation and pauses to mark clause and sentence units), Smoothness (no hesitations, quickly resolving structure difficulties) and Pace (natural, conversational pace). Total scores per text could range from 4 to 16. An independent second rater scored 15 percent of the data and inter-rater reliability was assessed with an intraclass correlation (ICC), using absolute agreement and single measures. The ICC on the average score for both stories (as used for analysis) in fourth-grade and fifth-grade was acceptable, fourth-grade: ICC = .760, F(9,9) = 6.72, p = .005, and fifth-grade: ICC = .779, F(9,9) = 7.66, p = .003. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was .94 for the prosody assessment in fourth-grade and .93 for the assessment in fifth-grade.

Reading comprehension

In order to provide a thorough assessment of reading comprehension we used three standardized tests. The first reading comprehension test (RCI) used a cloze format (Verhoeven & Vermeer, 1993). Children read two short stories (one story about the making of bread and one about big felines) and were instructed to choose the correct connective word or conjunction out of four possible options for gaps within the text (words such as ‘and’, ‘although’, ‘that’, ‘however’). The second reading comprehension test (RCII) used the same cloze format (Verhoeven & Vermeer, 1993), but this time children were asked to select the correct content word (nouns, verbs or adjectives) for gaps within the texts of two written stories (one story was about wild animals and one about the making of paper). The missing content words referred to the coherence of the preceding or following paragraph within the text. Both reading comprehension tests (RCI and RCII) had 40 items. The third reading comprehension test (RCIII; Aarnoutse & Kapinga, 2006) presented the children with seven short texts; each followed by three multiple choice questions and two to four ‘true or false’ questions about each text. These texts were informative; topics ranged from the Olympic games and the history of folk stories, to different cultures, for example in Bali, Indonesia. The total number of items for this test was 40. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient has been reported to be .80 for the first reading comprehension test (RCI), .70 for the second reading comprehension test (RCII) (Verhoeven & Vermeer, 1996) and .82 for the third reading comprehension task (RCIII) (Aarnoutse & Kapinga, 2006).

Procedure

All assessments were carried out during school hours. Data collection took place in the spring of consecutive years. The tests to assess reading comprehension were administered group-wise by the teacher. Children performed these tests silently and no time limits were set. The decoding task, phonological awareness tasks and the text reading prosody assessment were performed on an individual basis and were administrated by the first author. Individual testing was carried out in a separate room, provided by the schools. The reading measures were collected together with three other tests (not discussed in this paper). The order of the four word lists for the decoding task and the two texts for assessing text reading prosody was counterbalanced.

Data Analysis

In order to standardize the data, averaged z-scores have been calculated for text reading prosody, decoding efficiency and the phonological awareness task in fourth grade (deletion). For the two phonological awareness tasks in fifth-grade (phoneme deletion and spoonerisms) and for the three reading comprehension tests in sixth grade, factor scores have been calculated. The two phonological awareness tasks in fifth-grade could be reduced to one factor with an eigenvalue of 1.193, explaining 59.65 % variance. Each of the two phonological awareness tests had a loading of .77. The three reading comprehension tasks in sixth-grade could also be reduced to one factor with an eigenvalue of 2.137, explaining 71.25 % variance. The cloze test assessing correct use of conjunctions (RCI) had a factor loading of .81, the cloze test assessing coherence (RCII) .87 and the third reading comprehension task (RCIII; multiple choice and true/false questions) had a factor loading of .85. The factor scores and averaged z-scores as described above have been used for the analyses.

Structural Path Modeling was used to analyze the data, using LISREL software (version 8.80, Jöreskog & Sörborn, 2006) and maximum likelihood estimation. The fit of the models was evaluated by chi-square analyses and a number of goodness of fit indices: goodness of fit index (GFI), comparative fit index (CFI), adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI), normed fit index (NFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). For an adequate fit the chi-square test should exceed a p value of .05 (Ullman, 2001). According to both Jaccard and Wan (1996) and Hu and Bentler (1999), the fit of a model is satisfactory when the GFI, CFI, AGFI, and NFI are greater than .90 and the RMSEA is lower than .08.

Results

Descriptives

Table 1 shows means and standard deviations of the raw scores for decoding efficiency, phoneme deletion and spoonerisms (segmental phonology), text reading prosody (suprasegmental phonology) and reading comprehension.

Table 1.

Means and Standard Deviations (raw scores) for Decoding Efficiency, Phoneme Deletion, Spoonerisms, Text Reading Prosody and Reading Comprehension (N=99)

4th grade 5th grade 6th grade
M SD M SD M SD
Decoding efficiency
Decoding CVCa 66.22 18.24 78.60 20.88
Decoding CCVCCa 50.84 18.34 61.73 20.78
Decoding two-syllablea 31.74 12.50 38.95 14.54
Decoding multi-syllablea 23.36 9.44 28.60 10.56
Segmental phonology
Phonological awareness
Phoneme deletion (max. 20) 19.00 1.34 18.66 2.29
Spoonerisms (max. 24) 20.82 2.83
Suprasegmental phonology
Text reading prosody
Prosody story ‘turtle’ b 11.70 2.56
Prosody story ‘holiday’ b 11.35 2.68 12.73 2.37
Prosody story ‘tiger’ b 12.89 2.21
Reading comprehension
RCI (max. 40) 37.62 3.65
RCII (max. 40) 31.36 3.73
RCIII (max. 40) 31.11 5.30
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Note.

a

correctly read words per minute

b

Multidimensional Fluency Scale (Rasinski, 2004), maximum score was 16

RCI = reading comprehension: cloze (conjunctions), RCII = reading comprehension: cloze (coherence), RCIII = reading comprehension: multiple choice questions.

Statistical differences in the performance on decoding, text reading prosody and phoneme deletion (the recurring tasks) over the two years were examined by means of a repeated-measures analysis of variance. As the assumption of sphericity was violated Greenhouse-Geisser corrections were applied. The performance on each of the word lists for the decoding task improved significantly from fourth- to fifth-grade: CVC word list: F(1.00, 98.00) = 141.11, p < .001, partial η2 = .59; CCVCC word list: F(1.00, 98.00) = 140.63, p < .001, partial η2 = .59; the two-syllable word list: F(1.00, 98.00) = 102.48, p < .001, partial η2 = .51; and the multi-syllable word list: F(1.00, 98.00) = 283.58, p < .001, partial η2 = .74.

The performance on the recurrent text reading prosody text about the summer holiday also improved significantly from fourth- to fifth -grade: F(1.00, 98.00) = 79.79, p < .001, partial η2 = .45. Lastly, no significant differences in performance on the phoneme deletion task were found between fourth- and fifth-grade: F(2, 196) = 2.16, p = .144, partial η2 = .02. Performance on the phoneme deletion task in fourth-grade was already close to ceiling; therefore a second phonological awareness task was introduced in fifth-grade.

Correlations

Table 2 shows bivariate correlations between the z-scores of the decoding task and the text reading prosody, and the factor scores of phonological awareness and the reading comprehension tests. There were moderate correlations between reading comprehension outcomes and decoding in fourth-grade (r = .36, p < .001) and fifth-grade (r = .35, p < .001). A weak but significant correlation was found between reading comprehension scores and phoneme awareness in fourth-grade (r = .23, p = .022) and a moderate correlation between reading comprehension and phoneme awareness in fifth-grade (r = .51, p < .001). Moderate correlations were also found between reading comprehension scores and text reading prosody in fourth-grade (r = .49, p < .001), as well as in fifth-grade (r = .58, p < .001).

Table 2.

Bivariate Correlations between Decoding Efficiency, Text Reading Prosody, Phonological Awareness and Reading Comprehension (N=99)

Dec 4th PA 4th Pros 4th Dec 5th PA 5th Pros 5th RC 6th
Dec 4th -
PA 4th .21* -
Pros 4th .58*** .16 -
Dec 5th .93*** .19 .58*** -
PA 5th .43*** .33** .38*** .42*** -
Pros 5th .59*** .13 .84*** .60*** .44*** -
RC 6th .36*** .23* .49*** .35*** .51*** .58*** -
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Note. PA = phonological awareness, Dec = decoding efficiency, Pros = text reading prosody, RC = reading comprehension

*

p = < .05

**

p = < .01

***

p = <.001.

Relations between Decoding, Segmental and Suprasegmental Phonology

The first Structural Path Model examined the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology. The correlation matrix presented above was used for this analysis. Based on the literature we expected that decoding efficiency in fourth-grade would contribute to phonological awareness and text reading prosody in fifth-grade. However, in order to investigate the direction of this relationship, the reversed relations, from phonological awareness and text reading prosody in fourth-grade to decoding efficiency in fifth-grade, was also mapped. An initial Structural Path Model, however, showed that neither phonological awareness nor text reading prosody in fourth-grade contributed to decoding efficiency in fifth-grade (respectively: path coefficient = −.01, t-value = −0.21, path coefficient = .06, t-value = 1.34). These paths have therefore not been included in the final model. Results of the final model are presented in Figure 1. The fit of this model was satisfactory (χ2 (10, N = 99) = 10.53, p = .40, RMSEA = .024, GFI = .97, NFI = .97, CFI = 1.00, AGFI = .93). All paths that are presented in Figure 1 are significant (p < .05).

Figure 1.

Figure 1

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Structural Path Model 1: The Relation between Decoding, Phonological Awareness and Text Reading Prosody

Firstly, Figure 1 shows that phonological awareness in fourth-grade only moderately predicted phonological awareness in fifth-grade. This is most likely due to the limited amount of variance in the phoneme deletion task in fourth-grade and the subsequent addition of the more complex spoonerism task in fifth-grade. Both decoding and text reading prosody in fourth-grade strongly predicted the performance on the same skill in fifth-grade. Decoding efficiency in fourth-grade contributed to phonological awareness as well as to text reading prosody in fifth-grade.

Prediction of Reading Comprehension

The second Structural Path Model firstly examined the contribution of decoding efficiency to reading comprehension (Figure 2, i). The fit of this model was satisfactory (χ2 (1, N = 99) = 0.98, p = .32, RMSEA = .000, GFI = .99, NFI = .99, CFI = 1.00, AGFI = .96). Decoding efficiency from fourth- and fifth-grade contributed to reading comprehension outcomes in sixth-grade. The proportion of explained variance in reading comprehension scores was quite low: R2 = .12. All paths in Figre 2i are significant (p < .05).

Figure 2.

Figure 2

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Structural Path Model 2: The Contribution of Decoding, Phonological Awareness and Text Reading Prosody to Reading Comprehension

Figure 2 (ii) shows the extended Structural Path Model in which the contribution of segmental and suprasegmental phonology were added to decoding efficiency. This path model had a satisfactory fit (χ2 (13, N = 99) = 11.62, p = .56, RMSEA = .000, GFI = .97, NFI = .98, CFI = 1.00, AGFI = .93). The proportion of explained variance in reading comprehension scores was moderate: R2 = .39. As with the previous two Structural Path Models, all lines presented in Figure 2ii are significant (p < .05).

Regarding the contribution to reading comprehension; phonological awareness and text reading prosody in fifth-grade contributed directly to reading comprehension outcomes in sixth-grade, whereas fifth-grade decoding efficiency no longer contributed. However, decoding efficiency in fourth-grade contributed to both phonological awareness and text reading prosody in fifth-grade. Therefore, the relation between decoding and reading comprehension became indirect between fifth- and sixth-grade, via segmental phonology and suprasegmental phonology.

Discussion

The aim of this study was, firstly, to determine the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology from fourth- to fifth-grade and, secondly, to determine the contribution of these skills to reading comprehension in sixth-grade.

The Relations between Decoding, Segmental and Suprasegmental Phonology

The first Structural Path Model showed that fourth-grade decoding efficiency contributed to phonological awareness one year later. This is in accordance with the idea that advanced reading skills may facilitate development of further phonological awareness skills (e.g., Nation & Hulme, 2011; Mann, 1986). This relation was unidirectional, as expected, as phonological awareness in fourth-grade did not contribute to decoding in fifth-grade. The absence of this contribution may be due to the fact that the children in the current study were between 9 and 12 years of age and therefore quite advanced readers. Phonological awareness has been shown to contribute to decoding ability mostly in early readers (Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012). Another possible reason, and a limitation of the current study, is that the performance on the phoneme deletion task in fourth-grade was at ceiling level. This might have influenced the level of prediction.

Decoding efficiency in fourth-grade also contributed to text reading prosody in fifth-grade. This was expected because text reading prosody is a reading-dependent measure. It has been proposed that efficient and automatized decoding frees up cognitive resources which can be used for prosodic processing (Schwanenflugel et al., 2004). Moreover, Miller and Schwanenflugel (2006) found that, once automatic word- and text-level skills are acquired, more adult-like prosody emerges in reading. Some studies have shown that decoding is influenced by suprasegmental phonology, such as speech rhythm sensitivity (Goswami et al., 2002; Kitzen, 2001). However, this has not been found for the relation between text reading prosody and decoding. Apart from the reliance on reading skills, the difference in results might be explained by the fact that most of the existing studies assessed receptive use of prosody, in which participants were asked to listen to sounds or short phrases. In contrast, the current study used a productive task; prosody in an oral reading performance.

Regarding the reversed relation, text reading prosody did not predict decoding one year later. Previous research proposed that prosodic sensitivity provides cues which facilitate segmenting the speech stream and identifying phonemes (Holliman, Wood, & Sheehy, 2008, 2012; Wood, 2006). However, Holliman et al. (2008, 2012) used word- or phrase-level prosody whereas the current study examined text-level prosody. Text-level prosody relies more on aspects such as syntactic parsing (Kentner, 2012), intonational phrase boundaries (Steinhauer, Alter, & Friederici, 1999; Steinhauer, 2003), and given versus new information (Bock & Mazzella, 1983). These are important aspects in reading comprehension. Word- and phrase-level prosody relies more on aspects such as rhythm and stress (Holliman, Wood, & Sheehy, 2008, 2012; Whalley & Hansen, 2006), which could be more useful in decoding.

To summarize, the results showed that decoding efficiency is still an important base-level skill, even for more advanced readers, and that the relation between decoding and segmental and suprasegmental phonology is unidirectional in the upper primary grades.

The Prediction of Reading Comprehension

The first step of the second path model showed that decoding efficiency in fourth- and fifth-grade contributed to reading comprehension outcomes in sixth-grade, confirming results from previous research (e.g., Perfetti, 2007; Perfetti & Hart, 2002). This contribution changed, however, when segmental and suprasegmental phonology were added to the model, as was expected. The second step of this path model showed that phonological awareness, as a measure of segmental phonology, and text reading prosody, as a measure of suprasegmental phonology, contributed directly to reading comprehension in sixth-grade and that the influence of decoding was no longer significant. This result showed that the relation between decoding and reading comprehension becomes indirect when phonology measures are taken into account.

The contribution of phonological awareness to reading comprehension may be explained by the fact that phonological awareness was measured by a spoonerism task in fifth-grade. A spoonerism task can be seen as a more complex phonological awareness task that taxes higher-level, working-memory dependent phonological processing, which may also be important in reading comprehension. Indeed, Cain et al. (2000) showed that memory-dependent phonological awareness tasks strongly predicted reading comprehension, even after controlling for IQ, vocabulary and word reading abilities, whereas less memory-dependent tasks did not. The memory-dependent phonological awareness task used in the current study may therefore have increased the relation between segmental phonology and reading comprehension. In turn, efficient decoding may have facilitated the memory component of the spoonerism task; as fewer cognitive resources were needed for the coupling of phonology and orthography; more resources were available for the higher-level processing that this task demanded.

A key finding in this study was the contribution of suprasegmental phonology to reading comprehension, in addition to segmental phonology. This result is in line with the relation between text reading prosody and reading comprehension found in intermediate and upper grade school children (Rasinski et al., 2009). However, the study by Rasinski et al. (2009) was not longitudinal in design and did not include segmental phonology measures or decoding efficiency. The current study showed that text reading prosody is not only related to reading comprehension, but even predicts reading comprehension one year later. A theoretical explanation for the role of prosody as facilitator of reading comprehension is that prosody aids in the extraction of the syntactic structure from a sentence (Koriat, Greenberg, & Kreiner, 2002) as well as in the facilitation of parsing processes (Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003; Snedeker & Yuan, 2008). Furthermore, Frazier, Carlson and Clifton (2006) suggested that prosody might play a role in solving the ‘binding’ problem of language. A text passage can be divided in different ways; words may either be units in a phonological representation or units in a syntactic representation, and these are not necessarily the same. Frazier et al. (2006) proposed that the prosodic representation of a sentence aids the unification of a sentence. When children perform a silent reading comprehension test, it is therefore possible that an internal phonological representation of the text facilitates their comprehension of the text. The results from the current study could therefore be explained by taking an interactive perspective in which the complex segmental phonological awareness task taxes memory-dependent processes, whereas the suprasegmental phonology task touches upon higher-order sentence unification processes. Neurocognitive studies showed that both these processes constitute a neural network which optimally fosters reading comprehension (Hagoort, 2005; Snijders et al., 2009).

The mediation of suprasegmental phonology between decoding and reading comprehension as found in the current study should also be seen in the light of the high orthographic-phonological consistency in Dutch. The contribution of text reading prosody to later reading comprehension can be examined more directly in a transparent orthography, as decoding difficulties generally hardly occur in reading performances, even in more complicated texts. For children learning to read in English, a mastery level in reading efficiency may occur at a later age than for children learning to read in more transparent orthographies. Therefore, in studies on opaque orthographies, decoding often remains more influential in reading comprehension compared to suprasegmental phonology, such as text reading prosody (e.g., Schwanenflugel et al., 2004).

Another important consideration is the type of reading instruction that children receive in the Netherlands. Phonics instruction is the most prevailing type of early reading instruction for Dutch children (Reitsma & Verhoeven, 1990). Decoding is well developed by third-grade and from fourth grade onwards the focus shifts more towards development of spelling, vocabulary and reading comprehension (Aarnoutse, Van Leeuwe, Voeten, & Oud, 2001; Reitsma, & Verhoeven, 1990). This basis in phonics instruction could partly explain the relatively strong relation between phonological awareness and reading comprehension. However, phonological awareness is not always related to success in reading. There is evidence of children who received no phoneme training at all, yet were very advanced readers (e.g., Fletcher-Flinn & Thompson, 2000). Future studies should investigate whether the results from the current study could be generalized to children who have been taught with different types of reading instruction or to children who are taught to read in a more opaque language.

To conclude, the present study showed that there is a unidirectional relation from decoding to segmental as well as to suprasegmental phonology. Further, it was shown that the relation between decoding and reading comprehension becomes indirect when segmental and suprasegmental phonology are taken into account. Both factors were shown to independently contribute to later reading comprehension. More recognition of suprasegmental phonology, above and beyond segmental phonology, in theories of reading processes in primary school children seems warranted.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank staff, children and parents from the participating schools for their cooperation. We would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers as well as the editors for their constructive comments.

Footnotes

Author statements

Nathalie Veenendaal She currently studies the role of suprasegmental phonology in literacy processes, with a special interest in the relation between text reading prosody and reading comprehension.

Margriet A. Groen is assistant professor at the School of Pedagogical and Educational Science at the Radboud University Nijmegen; m.groen@pwo.ru.nl. She studies language and literacy development in typically and atypically developing children. She is particularly interested in how speech perception and production contribute to the development of phonological representations and processes.

Ludo Verhoeven is full professor in Psychology and Education at the Radboud University Nijmegen; l.verhoeven@pwo.ru.nl. Within the Behavioural Science Institute, he coordinates a research group on Learning & Plasticity. His research interests focus on the acquisition of language and literacy by first- and second-language learners, including children with learning difficulties.

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