Taking the long view: understanding the precursors and consequences of poor reading comprehension identified in mid-childhood

基础研究和教育政策一直关注儿童如何学习阅读单词的挑战，这是有充分理由的：能够很好地阅读单词是阅读的关键“前端”，因为它提供了从印刷品中获取语言的手段。然而，阅读的最终目的是理解所读的内容——从文本中构建意义。阅读理解是一个复杂的、多方面的过程，涉及一系列认知和语言操作。有些孩子觉得这格外困难。大约5-10%的儿童理解能力差：他们的阅读能力在他们的年龄中是很好的，但这种明显的成功是肤浅的，因为他们很难理解他们所读的内容。在理解阅读理解不良的本质方面已经取得了很大的进展。我们知道，理解能力差的人的困难并不具体，而是更普遍地发生在语言问题的背景下。实验表明，理解能力差的人在阅读和听语言时很难形成连贯和综合的理解。令人高兴的是，这一证据基础的质量推动了教学方法的发展，从而在课堂上取得了具有教育意义的改进。然而，关键的是，现有的研究规模小，重点窄。这样做的后果是，我们目前的科学知识存在重大差距。这就制约了我们的理论，也限制了我们得出指导教育实践的结论。其中一个限制是，大多数研究都集中在儿童中期。人们普遍认为，理解能力差的类别可能是异质性的。然而，对于这种异质性的性质和程度，以及导致一些孩子在进入学校时面临理解能力低下风险的各种因素之间复杂的相互作用，人们知之甚少。更好地了解这些问题对于科学知识、指导早期识别和在课堂上进行有针对性的干预至关重要。在发展的后期，人们对中学阶段理解能力差的学生的教育成果知之甚少。他们在小学的困难是暂时的，还是与中学的成绩不佳有关，也许会延伸到整个课程？就毕业后目的地而言，阅读理解能力差与哪些功能结果相关？在啃老族（既没有接受教育、就业也没有接受培训的年轻人）中，理解能力差的人是否过多？最后，对理解能力差的人的研究往往侧重于语言和读写能力，然而语言和读写能力并不是在真空中运作的。鉴于语言在幸福、同伴关系和生活成功方面的中心地位，我们有理由预测，理解能力差的年轻人将面临一系列不太积极的社会、情感和行为结果的风险。为了完善理论，需要更好地理解复杂的共现现象，它们也对课堂教学和支持儿童语言、识字和社会情感需求所需的干预类型具有重要意义。我们的目标是通过分析作为雅芳父母和儿童纵向研究（ALSPAC）的一部分收集的数据来填补这些关键的科学知识空白。这项研究招募了14000多名孕妇，并一直跟踪她们的孩子直到成年早期。这个非常丰富的数据集将使我们能够确定英国9岁时理解能力差的最大样本。然后，我们将在广度、规模和时间尺度上评估理解问题的前兆和相关后果，这是以前的研究所无法比拟的。ALSPAC对健康和幸福的广泛关注使我们能够解决儿童在社交，学术和专业发展过程中理解困难的现实相关问题。

Basic research and education policy have focused on the challenge of how children learn to read words, and for good reason: being able to read words well is the critical "front end" of reading as it provides the means to access language from print. The ultimate goal of reading, however, is to understand what has been read - to construct meaning from text. Reading comprehension is complex and multi-faceted, drawing on a range of cognitive and linguistic operations. Some children find this disproportionately difficult. Approximately 5-10% of children are poor comprehenders: they read well for their age in terms of word reading, but this apparent success is superficial as they struggle to understand what they have read. Excellent progress has been made in understanding the nature of poor reading comprehension. We know that poor comprehenders' difficulties are not specific, but tend to occur in the context of language problems more generally. Experiments have revealed that poor comprehenders find it difficult to form a coherent and integrated understanding as they read and listen to language. Pleasingly, the quality of this evidence base has motivated the development of teaching approaches that have led to educationally meaningful improvements in the classroom. Critically, however, existing studies are small in scale and narrow in focus. The consequence of this is that there are significant gaps in our current scientific knowledge. This constrains our theories, and it also limits the conclusions that can be drawn to guide educational practice.One limitation is that most research has focused on mid-childhood. It is generally accepted the poor comprehender category is likely to be heterogenous. Yet little is known about the nature or extent of the heterogeneity, or the complex interplay of factors that lead some children to be at risk for poor comprehension by the time they enter school. A greater understanding of these issues is critical for scientific knowledge, and to guide early identification and targeted interventions in the classroom.Turning to later on in development, little is known about the educational outcomes of poor comprehenders in secondary school. Are their difficulties in primary school transient, or are they associated with under-achievement in secondary school, perhaps extending across the curriculum? What functional outcomes are associated with poor reading comprehension in terms of post-school destinations? Are poor comprehenders over-represented in NEETs - young people not in education, employment or training? Finally, studies of poor comprehenders have tended to focus on language and literacy, yet language and literacy do not operate in vacuum. Given the centrality of language for well-being, peer relations and life success, it is reasonable to predict that young people with poor comprehension will be at risk for a range of less positive social, emotional and behavioural outcomes. Complex co-occurrences need to be better understood in order to refine theory, and they also have important implications for the classroom and the type of intervention needed to support children's language, literacy and socio-emotional needs.We aim to fill these critical gaps in scientific knowledge by analysing data collected as part of The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). This study recruited over 14,000 pregnant women and has since followed their children into early adulthood. This extraordinarily rich dataset will allow us to identify the largest sample of UK poor comprehenders at 9 years of age. We will then assess the precursors and associated consequences of comprehension problems at a breadth, scale and time scale unparalleled by previous studies. ALSPAC's broad focus on health and wellbeing enables us to address the real-world correlates of comprehension difficulties as children develop socially, academically and professionally.