Abstract
This chapter presents a results from a study of reading comprehension skills in Czech primary school children aged approx. 7 - 9 years. 351 children participated in the study, where we tested theoretical model of skills predicting reading comprehension skill. This theoretical model was based on probably the only existing previous study assessing reading comprehension in Czech primary school aged children (Caravolas, Volín, & Hulme 2005).
We tested two different models based on two different formats of assessment of reading comprehension skill: 1) assessment with timed cloze test where children fill in missing words in short passages of text and 2) assessment of reading short text followed by a questions proposed by ad test administrator. In both models, we tested predictive power of a set of skills containing: nonverbal IQ, decoding (tested by reading word and pseudowords), rapid naming of digits, vocabulary ( passive), listening comprehension and morpho-syntactic awareness.
For both predictive models, morpho-syntactic knowledge measured at the onset of the school year proved to be the strongest predictor of reading comprehension skill (assessed at the end of the same academic year). For the timed cloze task format test of reading comprehension also decoding seems to be accompanying predictor of the same importance.
Generally the model for timed cloze task has got more predictive power than the model for answering questions task.