Lin Jiexin, Zhang Haomin
School of Foreign Languages, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.
The Psycholinguistics Lab, School of Foreign Languages, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Cogn Process. 2025 Feb;26(1):133-148. doi: 10.1007/s10339-023-01143-3. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
Advocates of the science of reading have invoked the simple view of reading (SVR) to justify an approach that foregrounds decoding in early reading instruction. SVR describes reading comprehension as the product of decoding and listening comprehension. The current study examined the complexity of the SVR, focusing on the phonological and orthographic decoding in third-grade readers of Chinese. One hundred and forty-three students participated in this study. The measures included phonological decoding (pinyin invented spelling), orthographic decoding, listening comprehension and reading comprehension. Drawing upon regression analyses and multivariate path models, the study found that phonological decoding at both segmental and suprasegmental processing significantly predicted Chinese reading comprehension, yet a more significant effect of orthographic decoding surfaced. And the best-fitting model suggested listening comprehension was better characterized as a mediator rather than a covariance with decoding component in the decoding-reading relation when orthographic decoding was incorporated into decoding component to evaluate the validity of the SVR in Chinese. The results imply that orthographic decoding is a legitimate decoding component and that the two decoding constructs alone are insufficient for higher-level reading ability (reading comprehension) since the contribution appears to be mediated through the path route of oral language capacity (indexed by listening comprehension). This enriches the current understanding of the SVR in non-alphabetic languages and indicates that decoding training on both phonological and orthographic dimension should be highlighted in early Chinese reading instruction.
阅读科学的倡导者援引阅读简单观（SVR）来证明一种在早期阅读教学中突出解码的方法是合理的。SVR将阅读理解描述为解码和听力理解的产物。本研究考察了SVR的复杂性，重点关注三年级中国读者的语音和正字法解码。143名学生参与了本研究。测量方法包括语音解码（拼音自创拼写）、正字法解码、听力理解和阅读理解。通过回归分析和多元路径模型，研究发现，在音段和超音段处理层面的语音解码均能显著预测汉语阅读理解，但正字法解码的影响更为显著。并且，当将正字法解码纳入解码成分以评估SVR在汉语中的有效性时，最佳拟合模型表明，在解码-阅读关系中，听力理解更适合被描述为一种中介，而非与解码成分的协变量。研究结果表明，正字法解码是一个合理的解码成分，而且仅这两种解码结构对于高级阅读能力（阅读理解）而言是不够的，因为这种贡献似乎是通过口语能力（以听力理解为指标）的路径来介导的。这丰富了当前对非字母语言中SVR的理解，并表明在早期汉语阅读教学中应突出语音和正字法维度的解码训练。
