ABSTRACT

Reading comprehension is a complex task that draws several skills and processes. Children with reading comprehension difficulties show impairments on a range of language tasks. As a result, it might appear a difficult task to either identify which skill(s) should be targeted in children’s instruction or to develop instruction that can target such a wide variety of skills. In this study we aimed to identify at least one of the skills and abilities that might be causally implicated in comprehension ability and which, therefore, might be fruitfully trained. The ability we have identified, and shown to be consistently and reliably related to comprehension skills, is sentence organization. In addition, we have provided evidence, according to which training this ability sustains the development of reading comprehension. This article is an attempt to integrate findings from research on comprehension processes, comprehension strategies, and teaching strategies in order to inform instructional practice in reading comprehension.

KEYWORDS: comprehension, verb meaning, semantic complexity, verb processing

PAGES:387-401