Reading Comprehension Is Not Always the Product of Nonsense Word Decoding and Linguistic Comprehension: Evidence From Teenagers Who Are Extremely Poor Readers

Abstract

In the influential "simple view of reading" (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), Reading Comprehension (R) = Decoding (D) × Linguistic Comprehension (C). To evaluate this model, this article explores the performance of 15-year-olds with severe reading delays. Results showed that D and C described reading comprehension better than D and verbal cognitive ability as long as nonword reading was used to measure D. If text-reading accuracy was used to index D, then verbal ability, not C, provided the best fit. An additive model (D + C) fitted the data well when either nonsense-word decoding or text-reading accuracy was used as an index of D. The addition of the product term (D × C) did not add to the predictive power of the model. Implications of findings for the simple view of reading are considered in the light of different measures of D.