title: The relevance of receptive vocabulary in reading comprehension.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To characterize the performance of students from the 5th year of primary school, with and without indicatives of reading and writing disorders, in receptive vocabulary and reading comprehension of sentences and texts, and to verify possible correlations between both.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution (no. 098/13). Fifty-two students in the 5th year from primary school, with and without indicatives of reading and writing disorders, and from two public schools participated in this study. After signing the informed consent and having a speech therapy assessment for the application of inclusion criteria, the students were submitted to a specific test for standardized evaluation of receptive vocabulary and reading comprehension. The data were studied using statistical analysis through the Kruskal-Wallis test, analysis of variance techniques, and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient with level of significance to be 0.05. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (was constructed in which reading comprehension was considered as gold standard.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The students without indicatives of reading and writing disorders presented a better performance in all tests. No significant correlation was found between the tests that evaluated reading comprehension in either group. A correlation was found between reading comprehension of texts and receptive vocabulary in the group without indicatives.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In the absence of indicatives of reading and writing disorders, the presence of a good range of vocabulary highly contributes to a proficient reading comprehension of texts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, BR.
authors.forename: Ana Flávia de Oliveira
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Nalom
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, BR.
authors.forename: Aparecido José Couto
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Soares
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, BR.
authors.forename: Maria Silvia
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Cárnio
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D017150:Public Sector; D011932:Reading; D012574:Schools; D013067:Speech Perception; D013334:Students; D014825:Vocabulary