Chinese EFL Middle School Learners’ Reading Skills: A Latent Profile Analysis

Abstract This study classifies profiles of readers by combining good readers, poor comprehenders, dyslexia, and generally poor readers based on the Simple View of Reading (SVR) model that individual readers have different profiles of reading skills. A total of 501 ninth-grade Chinese middle school students participated in the study. They engaged in five tests pertaining to English reading-related skills (decoding, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic knowledge, morphological knowledge, and reading comprehension) and completed a survey questionnaire to provide information on their SES and English learning background. Results showed six profiles (top readers with highest decoding and language comprehension, good readers with good decoding and language comprehension, average readers with average decoding and language comprehension, poor comprehenders with average decoding but low language comprehension, poor decoders with specific decoding difficulties, poor readers with mixed reading difficulties) were drawn from latent profile analysis. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that each profile of reading skill was influenced by the education level of parents, number of English books, English private tutoring lessons, and English advanced prior learning.