Abstract
Reading comprehension is one of the most important skills that children acquire in primary school. Children whose home language is different from the school language often struggle with reading comprehension. To better understand the source of reading comprehension problems in second language readers, Henriette Raudszus investigated reading processes at the word, sentence, and text level in first and second language readers. Results of this dissertation highlight the importance of integration processes at the word, sentence, and text level in children’s reading comprehension development, whether it takes place in a first or a second language. First, how well readers are able to integrate sub-lexical semantic information and semantic information from the sentence context is associated with reading comprehension outcomes. L2 readers show relative strengths in the processing of morphological information, and relative weaknesses in using semantic information from the sentence context, especially when vocabulary knowledge is low. Second, vocabulary and decoding contribute to morphosyntactic processing, but also have a direct influence on reading comprehension. In addition, word-to-text integration contributes to reading comprehension over and above the individual contribution of word and sentence processing. Building a situation model of a text is a relative strength of L2 readers. Lastly, structural relationships between component processes of reading comprehension are relatively invariant across L1 and L2 readers. However, local integration processes are a weak point for L2 readers with low vocabulary, and this limits reading comprehension growth in this population. In L2 readers, first-language knowledge also positively contributes to reading comprehension outcomes.
