Abstract word comprehension in sentences for primary school readers: its effects on first graders with different levels of equal sign knowledge proficiency

Children’s word problem competence is a major determinant of their career prospects. Abstract word (AW) comprehension and equal sign knowledge (ESK) are considered the foundation of discourse comprehension and pre-algebra skills, respectively. However, the link between AW and ESK in relation to the meaningful agent representative information process remains unclear. Whether higher level of ESK result higher performances in AW comprehension requires further exploration. Therefore, this study compared the AW comprehension performance of Chinese early primary school readers with various levels of ESK proficiency. This study recruited 248 Chinese primary school Grade 1 readers, and their nonverbal intelligence, verbal working memory, Chinese receptive vocabulary, Chinese grammatical knowledge and Chinese character reading were controlled. The AW accuracy and fluency of these students in addressing AW sentences were selected for further comparison. The results of a mixed-effect model analysis show that the participants with good and poor ESK proficiency levels demonstrated similar levels of detailed information search ability, regardless of the presentation position of AW at either the beginning or at the end of the sentences. Students with good ESK proficiency also demonstrated better performance in comprehending AW than those with poor ESK proficiency. In addition, differences in ESK proficiency did not significantly affect the students’ shallow detailed information processing. Overall, the results distinguish the pre-algebraic skills on verbal abstract meaningful information process for early primary school students.