Dependency of reading comprehension development on listening and basic reading skills: An examination of the Simple View of Reading

Recent models of reading acquisition assume that the reader uses the same p rocesses to understand a written text as he does in understanding spoken wo rds. The main assumption of the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 198 6) is that reading comprehension is determined by the basic reading skills, recoding and decoding, as well as listening comprehension. This approach h as been tested and confirmed so far only for Anglo-American samples of bili ngual children and those with a high risk of developing reading problems in selected grades of elementary school. Therefore the primary question is wh ether the Simple View of Reading is also applicable to representative sampl es; the second question concerns the main premises' validity for the whole time-span of elementary school. To answer these questions a new reading tes t was administered to N = 360 children per grade (end of the first grade to end of the fourth grade) to test their skills in recoding, decoding, and c omprehending spoken and written instructions. In conclusion, the results co nfirm the applicability of the central assumptions of the Simple View to re presentative samples, as well as proving the validity for the duration in e lementary school.