Reading Comprehension and Orthographic Consistency: Modeling Direct and Indirect Pathways in Children With Reading Difficulties

PURPOSE: This study examined how orthographic transparency shapes reading comprehension (RC) among third-grade students with reading difficulties (RD). Hebrew provides a within-language test case that features both transparent and opaque scripts, thus minimizing confounds that arise in cross-language comparisons. METHOD: Using path analysis, we modeled the direct and indirect associations of phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA), orthographic processing, morphosyntactic awareness (MSA), vocabulary, word reading fluency, and executive function (EF) skills with RC in each script. Participants were 231 monolingual Hebrew-speaking students with RD. RESULTS: Results revealed that, in vowelized texts, PA had the strongest association with RC, while in unvowelized texts, cognitive flexibility, MA, MSA, and vocabulary played more central roles. Word reading fluency was associated with RC in both scripts, although the association was stronger in the opaque script. EF skills were indirectly associated with RC via linguistic and literacy pathways in both models, with cognitive flexibility additionally showing a direct association in the unvowelized condition. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide empirical support for the shifting cognitive and linguistic demands across scripts. Implications for instruction suggest that interventions for RD be adapted based on orthographic consistency. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.33213498.