The contribution of emotion vocabulary to the reading comprehension of the text and the task

Abstract This study investigates the contributions of emotion vocabulary, non-emotion vocabulary, and reading fluency to various aspects of reading comprehension in monolingual Hebrew-speaking children. We examined these contributions across different levels of understanding (simple and complex) and text types (narrative and informative). The study included the Herut test, a novel vocabulary measure incorporating emotion words (ɑ = 0.81). A comprehensive battery of measures was administered to 960 fourth- and fifth-grade students from 21 schools. Multilevel modelling analyses revealed that emotion vocabulary consistently emerged as the strongest predictor across all reading comprehension tasks, surpassing both non-emotion vocabulary and reading fluency. Emotion vocabulary showed a particularly strong association with complex comprehension tasks and narrative texts. Significant classroom-level effects were also observed. These findings challenge existing models of reading comprehension and suggest the need for a more integrated approach that incorporates emotion vocabulary as a core component. The results have important implications for both theory and practice in literacy education.