From oral vocabulary to text reading comprehension : the role of working memory

Abstract

The present study attempted to examine the role of WM in oral vocabulary and text reading comprehension in Cantonese-English bilingual children. A group of 64 Chinese-English bilingual grade 2 children was assessed on measures of working memory (Chinese competing language processing task and operation span), Cantonese and English oral vocabulary (receptive vocabulary breadth, expressive vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth), and Chinese and English text reading comprehension. Using structural equation modeling analyses, we found that working memory significantly contributed to oral vocabulary and text reading comprehension in both Chinese and English while taking into working memory. Oral vocabulary predicted unique significant variance of text reading comprehension in both Chinese and English while taking into account of working memory. More importantly, the contribution of working memory to reading comprehension is partially mediated by oral vocabulary in both Chinese and English. In addition, there was a transfer of Cantonese oral vocabulary to English text reading comprehension, and such transfer was fully mediated by the English oral vocabulary. Together, these findings extended the theory of simple view of reading and lexical-quality hypothesis in Cantonese-English bilinguals.