On the importance of listening comprehension

Abstract

The simple view of reading highlights the importance of two primary components which account for individual differences in reading comprehension across development: word recognition (i.e., decoding) and listening comprehension. While assessments and interventions for decoding have been the focus of pedagogy in the past several decades, the importance of listening comprehension has received less attention. This paper reviews evidence showing that listening comprehension becomes the dominating influence on reading comprehension starting even in the elementary grades. It also highlights a growing number of children who fail to develop adequate reading comprehension skills, primarily due to deficient listening comprehension skills (i.e., poor comprehenders). Finally we discuss key language influences on listening comprehension for consideration during assessment and treatment of reading disabilities.

Keywords::

• Listening
• comprehension
• language
• literacy
• poor comprehender

Acknowledgements

The first author’s research is partially supported by grant # R305F100002 of the Institute of Education Sciences and grant # R01DC010784 of the National Institutes of Health. The views presented in this work do not represent those of the federal government, nor do they endorse any products or findings presented herein. Drs. Hogan and Adlof thank their academic mentor, Hugh Catts, for helpful discussions around the topics in this publication.