TY  - JOUR
A1  - Meixner, Johannes M.
A1  - Warner, Greta J.
A1  - Lensing, Johanna Nele
A1  - Schiefele, Ulrich
A1  - Elsner, Birgit
T1  - The relation between executive functions and reading comprehension in primary-school students
BT  - a cross-lagged-panel analysis
JF  - Early Childhood Research Quarterly
N2  - Higher-order cognitive skills are necessary prerequisites for reading and understanding words, sentences and texts. In particular, research on executive functions in the cognitive domain has shown that good executive functioning in children is positively related to reading comprehension skills and that deficits in executive functioning are related to difficulties with reading comprehension. However, developmental research on literacy and self-regulation in the early school years suggests that the relation between higher-order cognitive skills and reading might not be unidirectional, but mutually interdependent in nature. Therefore, the present longitudinal study explored the bidirectional relations between executive functions and reading comprehension during primary school across a 1-year period. At two time points (T1, T2), we assessed reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and text levels as well as three components of executive functioning, that is, updating, inhibition, and attention shifting. The sample consisted of three sequential cohorts of German primary school students (N = 1657) starting in first, second, and third grade respectively (aged 6-11 years at T1). Using a latent cross-lagged-panel design, we found bidirectional longitudinal relations between executive functions and reading comprehension for second and third graders. However, for first graders, only the path from executive functioning at T1 to reading comprehension at T2 attained significance. Succeeding analyses revealed updating as the crucial component of the effect from executive functioning on later reading comprehension, whereas text reading comprehension was most predictive of later executive functioning. The potential processes underlying the observed bidirectional relations are discussed with respect to developmental changes in reading comprehension across the primary years.
KW  - Reading Comprehension
KW  - Executive Functions
KW  - Longitudinal Study
KW  - Latent Variable Analysis
KW  - Cross-Lagged-Panel Design
KW  - Bidirectional Relations
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.04.010
SN  - 0885-2006
SN  - 1873-7706
VL  - 46
SP  - 62
EP  - 74
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - New York
ER  -