Leisure Reading and Reading Comprehension: the Moderating Role of Executive Functions

Abstract

Reading comprehension is an important contributor to school success. A positive direct relation between leisure reading and reading comprehension has often been found, however, most of this research has been conducted with English-reading students, and in the early years of primary school. Additionally, it is not clear why there are between-person differences in the strength of the relation. The influence of the executive functions working memory and inhibition on the relation has not been studied, even though a moderating relation seems probable. Therefore the current study mainly aims to examine if working memory and inhibition have a moderating role in the relation between leisure reading and reading comprehension. The Cito Reading Comprehension test, a Survey for Demographic Information and Leisure Reading, the Monkey game and an adoption of the Flanker task are used to gather data of a sample of 108 Dutch speaking Grade 5 and 6 students. Correlation analyses show significant direct relations from leisure reading, working memory and inhibition to reading comprehension. However, no moderating roles of the executive functions were found. The study indicates leisure reading to be equally beneficial for reading comprehension, for all Dutch Grade 5 and 6 students regardless their working memory and inhibition