Syntactic Awareness and Reading Comprehension: A Meta-Analytic Review of Research

• In Event: Fostering Student Awareness of Literacy Strategies and Processes

Abstract

This study synthesized conflicting findings on the relation between syntactic awareness (SA) and reading comprehension using meta-analytic techniques. The 25 studies in this analysis included a total of 6,020 participants in kindergarten through adulthood. The studies reported correlations for 4,109 native English-speaking students (NS) and 1,911 language minority (LM) learners. The results showed a strong average correlation between SA and comprehension (r =.515). Differences in the strength of this correlation by age or language backgrounder were not statistically significant. There was a significant difference between correlations when grouped according to the type of measurement task used to assess SA (e.g. grammaticality judgment versus oral cloze). The implications for a revised definition of the SA construct are discussed.

Authors

• Brianna Avenia-Tapper, New York University

• Michael J. Kieffer, New York University