What component of executive functions contributes to normal and impaired reading comprehension in young adults?
Planning skill, not working memory, separates good and poor college readers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tested 178 university students on reading comprehension and three parts of executive function: planning, working memory, and inhibition.
They split the group into skilled and less-skilled comprehenders using reading scores, then looked for the EF piece that best predicted the difference.
What they found
Planning skill was the only EF factor that explained who read well and who did not. Working memory and inhibition scores added no extra power.
Poor planners understood markedly less, even after the team controlled for IQ and vocabulary.
How this fits with other research
Ben-Yehudah et al. (2019) extend the story to ADHD. They show that digital text hurts comprehension in college students with ADHD, but they still point to attention control, not planning, as the weak link. Together the papers suggest different EF routes to the same poor outcome.
Blom et al. (2017) look at younger readers with hearing or language impairments. They found visuospatial working memory, not planning, predicted hypertext comprehension. The disagreement is useful: planning may matter most after basic language is secure, while working memory helps when the text structure itself is tricky.
Vargas et al. (2024) drop the age to upper-elementary kids. Leisure print reading predicted better comprehension regardless of special-ed status. Their habit angle pairs nicely with the current EF angle: give kids print books and teach them to plan, and you hit two levers at once.
Why it matters
If a college client struggles to understand assignments, screen their planning skill first. Quick pencil-and-paper planning tests take ten minutes and flag who needs support. Then embed planning prompts—outlines, sequence charts, think-aloud goals—into every reading task. Skip the extra working-memory games; they did not pay off here.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was two-fold: (a) to examine what component of executive functions (EF) - planning and working memory - predicts reading comprehension in young adults (Study 1), and (b) to examine if less skilled comprehenders experience deficits in the EF components (Study 2). In Study 1, we assessed 178 university students (120 females; mean age=21.82 years) on planning (Planned Connections, Planned Codes, and Planned Patterns), working memory (Listening Span, Digit Span Backward, and Digit Memory), and reading comprehension (Nelson-Denny Reading Test). The results of structural equation modeling indicated that only planning was a significant predictor of reading comprehension. In Study 2, we assessed 30 university students with a specific reading comprehension deficit (19 females; mean age=23.01 years) and 30 controls (18 females; mean age=22.77 years) on planning (Planned Connections and Crack the Code) and working memory (Listening Span and Digit Span Backward). The results showed that less skilled comprehenders performed significantly poorer than controls only in planning. Taken together, the findings of both studies suggest that planning is the preeminent component of EF that is driving its relationship with reading comprehension in young adults.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.12.001