The Simple View, The Active View, & Multilingual Learners

A former colleague recently asked me a couple of pertinent questions regarding The Simple View of Reading, The Active View of Reading, and implications for Multilingual Learners. I’ve posted the questions and my responses below.

Q1: How would you articulate the difference between The Simple View of Reading (SVR) and The Active View of Reading (AVR)?

David’s response:

The key distinction between these models is the perspective each takes. The SVR is concerned with the big picture of reading. It aims to capture the variables that most directly impact reading comprehension. These are called proximal factors. The two proximal factors that the SVR identifies are word recognition (WR) and language comprehension (LC). Other variables that impact reading comprehension, such as vocabulary knowledge, syntactic knowledge, and morphological awareness are considered distal factors in the SVR. These variables are thought to affect reading comprehension indirectly through their impact on either word recognition, language comprehension, or both.

The AVR, in contrast, emphasizes additional variables–i.e., motivation and engagement, executive function, and strategy use–which fall under the category of active self regulation as labeled by Duke and Cartwright (2021). The AVR implies that these variables are more proximally related to reading proficiency, meaning that they are posited to impact reading comprehension apart from either WR or LC.

I believe there are reasons to be skeptical about this claim. Let’s take motivation and engagement as an example. No one argues that these factors are unimportant. But the claim that they aren’t filtered through WR and LC would require strong empirical evidence to substantiate. That is, you would need to demonstrate experimentally the existence of large groups of students who are substantially low in either WR, LC, or both, but who are nevertheless good readers (meaning on par in RC with those readers that are high in WR and LC). You would then need to produce evidence that this result is due in large part to them being highly motivated and engaged.

In fact, when researchers closely examine the constructs of motivation and engagement in relation to WR and LC, they find substantial empirical support for the relationship being one of reciprocal causality. That is, motivation and engagement coupled with knowledge and skill development within WR and LC can lead to greater motivation and engagement, which then precipitates more engagement with text, which then can lead to more knowledge and skill development in WR and LC and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, the inverse is also true. Struggles, especially within WR early on in a reader’s development, often lead to reduced reading experience and less motivation to engage productively with text. This snowballs over time to produce students who struggle with both the WR and LC sides of the equation. Stanovich (1986) describes this phenomenon as Matthew effects, and it’s a concrete example of motivation and engagement (distal factors) affecting reading comprehension to the degree that they affect WR and/or LC (proximal factors).

Perhaps this sports analogy will help further clarify the importance of perspective when thinking about reading research and practice. I call it "The Simple View of Baseball (SVB), and it postulates that being skilled in baseball is the product of a player’s ability to hit, throw, catch, and run bases. The SVB equation is represented below.

Hit X Throw X Catch X Run Bases = Skilled Baseball Player

In the SVB, distal factors such as motivation, hand-eye coordination, speed, strength, and concentration are important; however, they affect the skill level of the player through proximal factors, that is, by making the player a better hitter, thrower, catcher, or base runner. The same principle is true for the SVR. Distal factors, such as those involved in active self-regulation, are important insofar as they affect WR and LC (Hoover & Tunmer, 2021).

Implicit here is the issue of specificity. In my SVB analogy, although motivation, speed, strength, hand-eye coordination, and concentration are important for baseball, they’re not specific enough to the game to be included as proximal factors, as they are critical to just about any sport you might want to play. Likewise, in reading, a variable like executive function, which Duke and Cartwright (2021) give special attention to in the AVR, is critical for a myriad of cognitive tasks and therefore may not be specific enough to the task of reading to be included as a proximal factor. Again, this is not to imply that EF skills are not important to reading, but rather that they are mediated through their impacts on WR or LC.

Another defining feature of the AVR is that it argues for print concepts, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency, and graphophonological-semantic cognitive flexibility to be viewed as processes that bridge WR and LC. This conclusion is based on research findings that show a considerable amount of shared variance between WR and LC. Indeed, these two constructs tend to overlap a great deal as predictors of RC. However, Hoover and Tunmer (2021) make a convincing case that this shared variance is more adequately and parsimoniously explained by the Matthew effects mentioned above. If correct, this would negate the need to add additional theoretical complexity in the form of bridging processes.

In terms of instructional implications, I think keeping the focus on the primary factors involved in reading comprehension is something the SVR does well, and so I continue to rely on it rather than the AVR in my work with schools and districts. With that being said, an advantage of the AVR is that it reminds educators that developing reading proficiency is an active process. To use a computer metaphor, literacy development requires the active formation of new software in the brain. As educators, we can’t just download ‘Literacy Program 1.0’ into kids’ heads like they did in The Matrix when Neo needed to learn Jujitsu quickly (remember that part?). Factors explicitly stated in the AVR like self-regulation, motivation, and strategy use most certainly come into play as students actively construct their literacy program. Nevertheless, it’s critical for educators to first understand that in the big picture of reading these variables are more adequately categorized as distal rather than proximal factors. They should be viewed in light of their effects on WR and/or LC, not separate from them.

Of course, the SVR is just the starting point. As Mark Seidenberg recently pointed out in a series of blog posts, the SVR doesn’t go into detail about the capacities underlying WR or LC, or how they are best developed for that matter. We must look to other models and research for the nuances. For a more complete picture of the underlying capacities of WR and LC, I recommend Hoover and Tunmer’s (2020) The Cognitive Foundations Framework and Kim’s (2020, 2023) DIER model. These models could be especially helpful to educators because they posit various hierarchical relationships that may exist among key factors involved in reading comprehension, and therefore have the potential to inform a systematic approach to instruction and assessment.

Q2: What implications do these models have for Multilingual Learners (MLLs)?

David’s Response:

I'll focus on the SVR here, as I believe it to be a fruitful starting point for thinking about MLLs. First and foremost, let me clarify that the SVR is not a monolingual model, despite what you might see promulgated on social media. On the contrary, it’s received considerable research support from studies involving children and adolescent language learners, both in the U.S. and abroad (e.g., Gottardo & Mueller, 2009; Kahn-Horwitz, Shrimron & Sparks, 2005; Pasquarela et al., 2012; Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2012).

Furthermore, the SVR has proved useful in identifying nuanced implications for MLLs at different stages of literacy and language development. For example, an important insight from the SVR comes from longitudinal studies of L1 learners that demonstrate performance in word recognition skills in the early years of schooling is a key predictor of reading comprehension in later years. However, as word-reading skills become more automatic in the later grades, language comprehension becomes a more reliable predictor of reading comprehension (e.g., Storch & Whitehurst). This general observation–i.e., what predicts reading comprehension is not static–extends to MLLs who have received schooling in the L2 beginning in the primary grades (Geva & Farnia, 2012; Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2012). However, a study by Pasquarella et al. (2012) found that when learners are not exposed to English until adolescence, word recognition continues to be a strong predictor of reading comprehension alongside language comprehension skills. These examples demonstrate how research conducted within the SVR framework offers clear pedagogical implications across developmental stages and grade levels, benefiting both monolingual learners and MLLs.

I’ll close with an assurance that the SVR, as I understand it, in no way negates other critical variables (e.g., L1 literacy skills, metalinguistic awareness, cross-linguistic transfer, executive function, etc.) that can affect MLL literacy development . My point here is that while focusing on the importance of each on of the variables I just listed, we will do well to keep the two universal, non-negotiables of reading comprehension (WR and LC) in mind.

In science, no theory is immune to criticism, and the SVR is no exception. It may undergo substantial revision or replacement based on future research findings. Nonetheless, at present, educators can benefit greatly from the clarity and perspective this seminal model of reading offers.

Resources

Duke, N.K., & Cartwright, K.B. (2021). The science of reading progresses: Communicating advances beyond the simple view of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(S1), S25-S44.

Geva, E., & Farnia, F. (2012). Developmental changes in the nature of language proficiency and reading fluency paint a more complex view of reading comprehension in ELL and EL1. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25, 1819-1845.

Gottardo, A., & Mueller, J. (2009). Are first and second language factors related in predicting school language reading comprehension? A study of Spanish-speaking children acquiring English as a second language from first to second grade. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 330-344.

Khan-Horwitz, J. Shimron, J., & Sparks, R.L. (2006). Weak and strong novice readers of English as a freign language: Effects of first language and socioeconomic status. Annals of Dyslexia, 56, 161-185.

Kim, Y.-S.G. (2020). Hierarchical and dynamic relations of language and cognitive skills to reading comprehension: Testing the direct and indirect effects model of reading (DIER). Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(4), 667-684.

Kim, Y.-S.G. (2023). Simplicity meets complexity: Expanding the simple view of reading with the direct and indirect effects model of reading. In S. Cabell, S. Neuman, & N. Terry (Eds.), Handbook on the science of early literacy (pp. 9-22). The Guilford Press.

Hoover, W., Tunmer, W. (2021). The primacy of science in communicating advances in the Science of Reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 57(2), 399-408.

Hoover, W. A., & Tunmer, W. E. (2020a). The cognitive foundations of reading and its acquisition: A framework with applications connecting teaching and learning. Springer

Pasquarella, A., Gottard, A., & Grant, A. (2012). Comparing factors related to reading comprehension in adolescents who speak English as a first (L1) or second (L2) language. Scientific Studies of Reading, 16, 475-503.

Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360–407. https://doi.org/10.1598/rrq.21.4.1

Storch, S. A., & Whitehrust, G. J. (2002). Oral language and code-related precursors to reading. Evidence from a longitudinal structural model. Developmental Psychology, 38, 934-947.

Verhoeven, L., & van Leeuwe, J. (2012). The simple view of second language reading throughout the primary grades. Reading and writing, 25(8), 1805–1818. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9346-3