Preschool predictors of later reading comprehension ability: a systematic review

A variety of language skills related to both language comprehension (e.g., vocabulary and grammar) and code-related skills (e.g., phonological awareness and letter knowledge) is important for developing decoding skills and, in turn, reading comprehension in school. Thus, reading comprehension instruction is more likely to be successful if it focuses on a broad set of language skills. Determining how to provide the best instruction to support children’s reading comprehension requires an understanding of how reading comprehension actually develops. To promote our understanding of this process, this review summarizes evidence from observations of the development of language and reading comprehension from the preschool years into school. The main outcome in this review is reading comprehension skills. Understanding the development of reading comprehension and its precursors can help us develop hypotheses about what effective instruction must comprise to facilitate well-functioning reading comprehension skills. These hypotheses can be tested in randomized controlled trials. This Campbell systematic review examines the relationships between skills in preschool and later reading comprehension. The review summarizes evidence from 64 longitudinal studies that have observed these relationships. The studies spanned 1986 to 2016 and were mostly performed in the USA, Europe and Australia.