How Prosodic Sensitivity Contributes to Reading Comprehension: a Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis examined the contribution of prosodic sensitivity to reading comprehension, and characterized the pathways by which this contribution occurs and the factors affecting it. Using meta-regression with robust variance estimation to synthesize and quantify 53 papers comprising 62 studies on word reading (77 effect sizes, N = 6,043 participants) and 26 studies on reading comprehension (34 effect sizes, N = 2,736 participants), we found an overall significant correlation between prosodic sensitivity and both word reading (r = .34) and reading comprehension (r = .31). The subgroup moderation analysis indicated that readers’ first language rhythmic class significantly affected the strength of correlation between prosodic sensitivity and both word reading and reading comprehension, while the task-related prosodic level influenced only the strength between prosodic sensitivity and word reading. The two-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling revealed that prosodic sensitivity indirectly contributed to reading comprehension via metalinguistic skills, vocabulary, and word reading. These findings suggest that 1) despite the existence of a moderate association between prosodic sensitivity and reading comprehension, reader- and task-related factors should be considered when evaluating the strength of this association, and 2) prosodic sensitivity’s contribution to reading comprehension is largely contingent upon its link with other linguistic and cognitive skills.