Phonological and syntactic processing and the role of working memory in reading comprehension among secondary school students

The performance of 60 13-year-old students was examined on tasks measuring phonological processing, syntactic processing, and reading comprehension. The students were also tested on several measures of working memory relating to the phonological loop and central executive. A series of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that phonological processing and syntactic processing were both predictors of reading comprehension, and that the presence or absence of the latter distinguished good and poor readers respectively. The phonological loop, but not the central executive, was found to play a small but significant role in the processes involved in reading comprehension.