语素意识与快速命名对汉语儿童阅读能力的影响:跨学段的中介效应分析

Mechanisms underlying the effects of morphological awareness and rapid automatized naming(RAN)on the reading abilities of Chinese Children:An analysis of mediating effects across different stages

对416名二(低)、四(中)、六(高)年级(学段)的汉语儿童进行半年追踪,检验了语素意识与快速命名对两类阅读能力(理解与流畅性)的影响机制。结果表明,对于低学段的儿童而言,语素意识与快速命名通过字词识别准确性影响半年后的阅读能力,且字词识别流畅性在快速命名影响阅读流畅性的过程中发挥中介作用。对于中、高学段的儿童而言,语素意识与快速命名对半年后阅读理解的间接影响均不显著;字词识别准确性在语素意识影响阅读流畅性的过程中发挥中介作用,而字词识别流畅性的作用仅体现在中学段;快速命名通过字词识别准确性和字词识别流畅性影响到阅读流畅性。结果揭示了在小学不同学段,阅读理解与阅读流畅性的影响机制存在一定的共享性与特异性。

Reading is important for children’s future academic success.Clarifying the mechanisms underlying reading ability has been a heated issue in reading research for decades.Most previous studies have focused solely on reading comprehension but scarcely paid attention to the mechanisms underlying reading fluency throughout elementary school.Reading fluency at the text level has been acknowledged as one of the indicators of children’s overall reading competence.Therefore,the present study aimed to clarify the shareability and specificity of the mechanisms underlying Chinese children’s reading comprehension and reading fluency across different developmental stages.We recruited a total of 416 Chinese children in grades 2,4 and 6(lower,middle and higher stages)of elementary school and were then followed up for half a year.In the fall semester(Time 1),a series of tasks,including general cognitive ability;working memory;phonological,orthographic and morphological awareness;rapid automatized naming(RAN);word recognition accuracy;word recognition fluency and vocabulary knowledge,were administered.In the second or spring semester(Time 2),reading comprehension and reading fluency were administered.Three mediation models were fitted to the data with T1 morphological awareness and RAN as predictors,T1 word recognition accuracy,word recognition fluency,and vocabulary knowledge as mediators and T2 reading comprehension and reading fluency as outcomes.The remaining variables were controlled in all the three models.Results indicated that morphological awareness and RAN significantly predicted reading comprehension and reading fluency at T2 via word recognition accuracy among children in the lower stage after controlling for the effects of T1 general cognitive ability,T1 working memory and T1 phonological and orthographic awareness.The mediating effect of T1 word recognition fluency in the contribution of T1 RAN to T2 reading fluency was also significant.However,in the middle and higher stages,the indirect effects of T1 morphological awareness and T1 RAN on T2 reading comprehension were not significant;for T2 reading fluency,the mediating role of T1 word recognition accuracy in the effect of T1 morphological awareness was significant in both stages,but the mediated role of T1 word recognition fluency was only significant in the middle stage.Moreover,T1 RAN contributed to it via T1 word recognition accuracy and fluency.These findings attest to both the shareability and specificity in the mechanisms underlying reading comprehension and reading fluency across different developmental stages.These findings suggest that reading fluency should be incorporated as a legitimate index of children’s reading ability.They further imply that the developmental stages require consideration when exploring the mechanisms underlying the effects of morphological awareness and RAN on reading abilities(comprehension and fluency).This study provides empirical evidence for understanding the science of reading development among Chinese children and has important implications for future reading research and educational intervention.