The Role of Comprehension Monitoring, Theory of Mind, and Vocabulary Depth in Predicting Story Comprehension and Recall of Kindergarten Children

Recent studies have revealed that preschoolers' story comprehension is influenced by several basic as well as complex cognitive and linguistic processes. Among the abilities known to be relevant for young children's understanding of stories are the size of their vocabulary, their inference-making ability, and their working memory. In this study, we examine the role of other processes in explaining preschool children's story comprehension, in a sample of 257 Chilean kindergarten children from middle-income families. The processes we examine are comprehension monitoring, theory of mind, inhibition, and attention control. Mediation relations suggested by theory and previous research are examined between working memory and comprehension, through integrative processes, and between vocabulary breadth and comprehension, through vocabulary depth. We use two different measures of story comprehension to clarify the role that each predictor plays in different aspects of this complex skill. Results suggest that when the story comprehension measure requires construction of a coherent representation, vocabulary, monitoring, inferences, working memory, inhibitory skill, and attention, but not theory of mind, make a significant contribution. Effects of vocabulary breadth are mediated by vocabulary depth, and effects of working memory are partially mediated by monitoring and inferences. When story comprehension is measured through recall of isolated story elements, only working memory and vocabulary explain significant variance. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.

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