Implicit and explicit syntactic knowledge and reading in pre-adolescents

This aim of this paper is to analyse the links between syntactic awareness and reading, in its recoding and comprehension aspects, in pre-adolescent readers. The study, conducted with 83 sixth grade pupils, examined the relation between (1) seven syntactic and morpho-syntactic tasks (repetition, judgment, correction, localization, explanation, replication and identification) and (2) several indicators of recoding and comprehension in reading. Regression analyses revealed differential contributions as a function of syntactic task, type of agrammaticality, and the aspect of reading tested, after we had controlled for the influence of reasoning, memory, and linguistic competences. Contribution…