이 연구의 목적은 읽기 저성취 초등학생들을 대상으로 인지 변인(선행지식, 작업기억력)과 언어 지식(음운, 어휘, 구문)을 동시에 고려하되 언어 지식에 초점을 맞추어 독해력과의 관계를 검토하는데 있었다. 이를 위하여 서울에 소재한 초등학교 4, 5, 6학년인 읽기 저성취 학생 101명과 일반 학생 100명을 대상으로 고학년용 ACCENT 국어 영역 검사, 독해력 검사, 음운 검사, 어휘 검사, 구문 검사, 선행 지식 검사, 작업 기억력 검사 등의 자료를 수집하여 중다 회귀 분석을 실시하였다. 그 결과, 첫째, 인지 변인이 독해력을 설명하는 정도는 20%인데 반하여 인지 변인에 추가하여 언어 지식이 독해력을 고유하게 설명하는 정도는 27%인 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 음운 지식의 독해력에 대한 t 값은 1.05, 어휘 지식의 t 값은 3.40, 구문 지식의 t 값은 2.94로, 언어 지식의 하위 요인들 중에서는 어휘 지식이 독해력을 설명하는 데 가장 많이 기여하는 것으로 분석되었다. 마지막으로 교육 현장에 주는 실제적인 시사점을 중심으로 연구 결과가 논의되었다.
This study intended to examine the relationship between reading comprehension and its dependent variables such as linguistic component knowledge and cognitive variables, especially focusing on linguistic component knowledge. The participants in this study included 101 low achieving students in reading and 100 ordinary students with Grades 4 to 6 from an elementary school in Seoul. Several instruments were administered, including the Korean language Test in AChievement-Cognitve ability ENdorsement Tests (ACCENT-KT), a reading comprehension test, a phoneme test, a vocabulary test, a syntax test, a prior knowledge test, and a working memory test. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to analyze the relationship between linguistic component knowledge and reading comprehension for low achieving elementary students. The results of this study were as follows: First, it revealed that the unique contribution of linguistic component knowledge to reading comprehension was 27%. That is, when the cognitive variables such as prior knowledge and working memory were put in the first step of a multiple regression analysis, their contribution was 20%. In the next step, adding linguistic component knowledge such as phonemic, vocabulary, and syntactic knowledge led to increase their contribution to reading comprehension to 47%, which indicated that the unique contribution of linguistic component knowledge was 27%. Second, the vocabulary knowledge among the factors of linguistic component knowledge turned out to be the most explanatory variable in reading comprehension, with t-values of vocabulary knowledge, syntactic knowledge, phonemic knowledge corresponding to 3.40, 2.94, 1.05 respectively. This implies that the more vocabulary knowledge is accumulated, the better reading comprehension is likely to be developed. The implications of this study's findings were discussed in the context of some practical suggestions for schools.