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Dimensions of discourse level oral language skills and their relation to reading comprehension and written composition: an exploratory study

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Abstract

We examined the relations of discourse-level oral language skills [i.e., listening comprehension, and oral retell and production of narrative texts (oral retell and production hereafter)] to reading comprehension and written composition. Korean-speaking first grade students (N = 97) were assessed on listening comprehension, oral retell and production, word reading, spelling, handwriting fluency as well as reading comprehension and written composition. Listening comprehension, and oral retell and production tasks were best described as having a bi-factor structure, capturing a general discourse-level oral language construct as well as unique listening comprehension and oral retell constructs which are not explained by the general discourse-level oral language skill. The general discourse-level oral language skill was related to reading comprehension whereas listening comprehension and oral retell were not. Although positive in direction, the general discourse-level oral language skill did not reach the conventional statistical significance in relation to writing quality. These findings suggest that the general discourse-level oral language skill underlying listening comprehension, and oral retell and production tasks is important for reading comprehension, and unique listening comprehension and oral retell skills that are not subsumed to the general discourse-level oral language skill do not independently contribute to reading comprehension.

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Notes

  1. A post hoc statistical power analysis suggests that the sample size of 97 allows detecting effect size of .21 at the power of .80 and p value of .05 level for the given number of observed variables and latent variables used in the present study.

  2. We expected children to be familiar with the word, goblin, because of its high frequency in Korean folk tales.

  3. Prior to examining the four alternative models, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine whether oral retell and production tasks are best considered as separable skills. Both single factor model and two factor model had excellent fit to the data. In addition, the Chi square different test was on the cut point (p = .05) and differences in AIC (2.11) and BIC (3.04) values between two alternative models were small. Therefore, for parsimony, oral retell and production were considered as a single construct in confirmatory factor models of four alternative models.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Grant NRF-2010-330-B00299 from the National Research Foundation of Korea. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Research Foundation of Korea. We would like to thank participating children and teachers.

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  1. College of Education and Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University, 1114 W. Call Street, Tallahassee, FL, 32306, USA

    Young-Suk Grace Kim

  2. Busan National University of Education, Pusan, South Korea

    Cheahyung Park

  3. Pusan National University, Pusan, South Korea

    Younghee Park

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Correspondence to Young-Suk Grace Kim.

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Kim, YS.G., Park, C. & Park, Y. Dimensions of discourse level oral language skills and their relation to reading comprehension and written composition: an exploratory study. Read Writ 28, 633–654 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9542-7

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