Conciencia sintáctica y comprensión de lectura en niñez vulnerable

(analytical): Syntactic awareness is one of the metalinguistic skills used in reading comprehension that has been less researched in the Spanish language. This study aims to analyze the development of syntactic awareness and its relation to the development of reading comprehensionskills among socially disadvantaged children who attend schools classified as vulnerable. The study uses a descriptive correlational and transversal methodology. The sample consists of 161 children of both sexes: 61 in the 2nd Grade, 55 in the 3rd Grade and 57 in the 4th Grade in two schools. The results of the study indicate a level of performance that is below the expected average in terms of reading comprehension skills based on students' age, as well as below average results for syntactic awareness. The study also reveals a high significant correlation between both variables. Key words: Reading, cognition, language development, academic achievement, reading research, disadvantaged children, disadvantaged schools, learning disabilities (Unesco Social Science Thesaurus).