Factors associated with good comprehension: the role of memory
There are several language skills that support good reading comprehension which, if weak, are potential barriers. However, the processing of the meaning of the text happens in real time. As the text unfolds, readers and listeners need to integrate each new piece of information into the mental model of the text that they have constructed so far. As a result, readers and listeners have to hold and coordinate all of this information in their memory. The type of memory that supports both storage and processing of information in this way is referred to as working memory. It can be considered the mental workspace in which the processing required to construct the mental model of the text occurs.
Working memory is related to children’s and adults’ reading and language comprehension. In particular, children with poor reading comprehension have difficulties in monitoring for sense over several sentences or generating inferences when the information has to be integrated over several sentences.
Daneman, M. and Merikle, P. M. (1996) ‘Working memory and language comprehension: A meta-analysis’, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 3, pp. 422–433.
Cain, K., Oakhill, J. and Lemmon, K. (2004) ‘Individual differences in the inference of word meanings from context: the influence of reading comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, and memory capacity’, Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, pp. 671–681.
Oakhill, J., Hartt, J. and Samols, D. (2005) ‘Levels of comprehension monitoring and working memory in good and poor comprehenders’, Reading and Writing, 18, pp. 657–713.
However, there is no strong evidence that poor working memory is the source of reading comprehension difficulties. When differences in working memory are taken into account statistically (by including performance on independent assessments of memory), children’s inference making, comprehension monitoring, and knowledge and use of story structure continue to predict reading comprehension ability between the ages of 7 and 11 years.
Cain, K., Oakhill, J. V. and Bryant, P. E. (2004) ‘Children's reading comprehension ability: Concurrent prediction by working memory, verbal ability, and component skills’, Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, pp. 31–42.
Oakhill, J. and Cain, K. (2012) ‘The precursors of reading comprehension and word reading in young readers: Evidence from a four-year longitudinal study’, Scientific Studies of Reading, 16, pp. 91–121.