The authors report data from a longitudinal study that addresses the relations between working memory capacity and reading comprehension skills in children aged 8, 9, and 11 years. At each time point, the authors assessed children's reading ability, vocabulary and verbal skills, performance on 2 working memory assessments (sentence-span and digit working memory), and component skills of comprehension. At each time point, working memory and component skills of comprehension (inference making, comprehension monitoring, story structure knowledge) predicted unique variance in reading comprehension after word reading ability and vocabulary and verbal ability controls. Further analyses revealed that the relations between reading comprehension and both inference making and comprehension monitoring were not wholly mediated by working memory. Rather, these component skills explained their own unique variance in reading comprehension.
Cain was lead author and wrote the manuscript. She co-designed the study with Oakhill and Bryant. Cain constructed stimuli, collected and analysed data. She presented these data at the BPS Cognitive Section conference (2001) and the 9th annual meeting of SSSR (2002). RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Psychology