Revisiting the "simple view of reading" in a group of children with poor reading comprehension

According to Gough and Tunmer's Simple View of Reading, Reading Comprehension = Decoding (D) x Listening Comprehension (C). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the model with a sample of First Nations children, known to have average decoding and listening comprehension but poor reading comprehension. In addition, the authors examined the contribution of naming speed and phonological awareness to reading comprehension beyond the effects of D and C. Consistent with the findings of previous studies, the children exhibited poor reading comprehension despite average performance in decoding and listening comprehension, a finding that challenges the simple view of reading. The results also revealed that an additive model (D + C) fitted the data equally well as a product model (D x C). Neither naming speed nor phonological awareness accounted for unique variance.