How Executive Functions contribute to Reading Comprehension

Background Executive functions have been proposed to account for individual variation in reading comprehension beyond the contributions of decoding skills and language skills. However, insight into the direct and indirect effects of multiple executive functions on fifth‐grade reading comprehension, while accounting for decoding and language skills, is limited. Aim The present study investigated the direct and indirect effects of fourth‐grade executive functions (i.e., working memory, inhibition, and planning) on fifth‐grade reading comprehension, after accounting for decoding and language skills. Sample The sample included 113 fourth‐grade children (including 65 boys and 48 girls; Age M = 9.89; SD = .44 years). Methods The participants were tested on their executive functions (working memory, inhibition and planning), and their decoding skills, language skills (vocabulary and syntax knowledge) and reading comprehension, one year later. Results Using structural equation modelling, the results indicated direct effects of working memory and planning on reading comprehension, as well as indirect effects of working memory and inhibition via decoding (χ2 = 2.46). Conclusions The results of the present study highlight the importance of executive functions for reading comprehension after taking variance in decoding and language skills into account: Both working memory and planning uniquely contributed to reading comprehension. In addition, working memory and inhibition also supported decoding. As a practical implication, educational professionals should not only consider the decoding and language skills children bring into the classroom, but their executive functions as well

How storage and executive functions contribute to children's reading comprehension

In the current study we investigated the contribution of storage and separate measures of executive functions to reading comprehension in Dutch 5th graders, while controlling for word recognition and vocabulary. In addition we investigated the relationship between this model and working memory as assessed with a listening span task--which reflects an integrated measure of both storage and executive functions. Regression analysis revealed that word recognition, vocabulary, cognitive flexibility and listening span task performance contributed directly to reading comprehension. Adding the listening span task to the model led to a change in the beta-values of storage, inhibition and cognitive flexibility, indicating that these variables shared variance with listening span task performance. A second regression analysis confirmed this finding: storage, inhibition and cognitive flexibility contributed to listening span task performance, and hence indirectly to reading comprehension. Together, these findings highlight the contribution of storage and executive functions to children's reading comprehension

How working memory relates to children’s reading comprehension:the importance of domain-specificity in storage and processing

Working memory is considered a well-established predictor of individual variation in reading comprehension in children and adults. However, how storage and processing capacities of working memory in both the phonological and semantic domain relate to reading comprehension is still unclear. In the current study, we investigated the contribution of phonological and semantic storage, and phonological and semantic processing to reading comprehension in 123 Dutch children in fifth grade. We conducted regression and mediation analyses to find out to what extent variation in reading comprehension could be explained by storage and processing capacities in both the phonological and the semantic domain, while controlling for children’s decoding and vocabulary. The analyses included tasks that reflect storage only, and working memory tasks that assess processing in addition to storage. Regression analysis including only storage tasks as predictor measures, revealed semantic storage to be a better predictor of reading comprehension than phonological storage. Adding phonological and semantic working memory tasks as additional predictors to the model showed that semantic working memory explained individual variation in reading comprehension over and above all other memory measures. Additional mediation analysis made it clear that semantic storage contributed indirectly to reading comprehension via semantic working memory, indicating that semantic storage tapped by working memory, in addition to processing capacities, explains individual variation in reading comprehension. It can thus be concluded that semantic storage plays a more important role in children’s reading comprehension than previously thought