Is Reading Prosody Related to Reading Comprehension? A Meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

We examined the relation between reading prosody and reading comprehension, using a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the strength of the relation and to understand whether the strength of the relation varies by prosody feature (adult-like contour, F0 sentence-final declination, grammatical pauses, ungrammatical pauses, prosody scale), students’ developmental phase of reading skill as examined by grade level, and orthographic depth. A total of 35 studies (N = 9,349; Grades 1–9, 8 languages) met inclusion criteria. Overall a moderate relation (.51) was found between reading prosody and reading comprehension. Furthermore, the strength varied by prosody feature such that the relation was stronger for prosody rating scale than for pitch indicators such as adult-like contour and F0 sentence-final declination. However, grade and orthographic depth were not significant moderators. These results suggest that the relation between reading prosody and reading comprehension is not unitary and should consider specific aspects of reading prosody.

Acknowledgments

The authors declare there is no conflict of interest.

Notes

1. Data are available upon request from the first author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by Grants R305A120147 and R305A180055 by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, and by the Eunice Kennedy Schriver National Institute of Child Health and HumanDevelopment (P50HD052120) to the second author. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does notnecessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.