Naila Fethi1
Krisztián Józsa2,3*†- 1Doctoral School of Education, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
- 2Institute of Education, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kaposvár, Hungary
- 3Institute of Education, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
Reading is an essential skill that shapes success in both academic and everyday life. However, assessing how well students understand written materials remains a complex task, particularly in multilingual contexts, where different languages interact. Therefore, this mini-review aims to explore relevant studies and highlight the potential of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) as a clear and practical cognitive vertex for developing reliable reading comprehension assessments across languages. This mini-review is based on structured searches in Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC using key terms related to the SVR, decoding, language comprehension, and multilingual reading, and the retrieved studies were synthesized thematically. The main strength of the SVR lies in its simple and well-defined framework that makes it adaptable to diverse orthographies and contexts. Grounding assessment design in the SVR enables cross-language comparison, exploring the simultaneous development of literacy skills in multilinguals. It also identifies sources of reading difficulty, as decoding and language comprehension are measured separately to guide diagnosis and instruction. Moreover, it supports practical use in the classroom, using simple and low-cost assessment tools that allow teachers to obtain useful reading comprehension profiles for their students despite limited time and resources.
1 Introduction
Reading is a cognitively complex decoding process (Meneghetti et al., 2006) involving ongoing interaction, comprehension, and communication between reader and author (Brantmeier, 2005; Grabe and Stoller, 2001). As a foundational skill integral to all academic domains, reading is performed daily and among the most frequently assessed abilities worldwide (OECD, 2018). However, measuring such an internal cognitive process poses significant challenges. Unlike observed physical traits such as height or weight, mental processes cannot be directly accessed (Pellegrino et al., 2001). Instead, assessment offers partial evidence requiring careful interpretation based on observed behaviors during tasks (Pellegrino et al., 2001). These challenges become even more pronounced for multilingual readers, where linguistic diversity further complicates the reading process (Razkane and Diouny, 2024; Tachakourt and Rassili, 2024).
Reading in multiple languages is no longer rare; it is a widespread reality in countries all over the world, such as Algeria (Laaredj-Campbell, 2023; Rouabah, 2022), Luxembourg, the Basque Country (Saiegh-Haddad and Geva, 2010), Kazakhstan (Akhmetova et al., 2022a,b), and China (Feng and Adamson, 2015). In similar contexts, students are often expected to develop literacy across languages, raising critical questions for educators and researchers about how to assess reading comprehension in ways that are both theoretically sound and pedagogically relevant. Research shows that individuals who read in at least two or more languages engage in more complex thinking than monolinguals (Pirooz and Khaghaninejad, 2023), and tend to have stronger metalinguistic awareness, better working memory, and a greater ability to transfer reading skills across languages, such as making inferences and connecting ideas across texts (Hofer and Spechtenhauser, 2024; Shepard-Carey, 2021).
Despite its complexity, assessing reading comprehension remains essential. Wigfield et al. (2016) emphasized that “proficient reading comprehension is crucial for success in every academic domain” (p. 190). It is also critical for effective teaching and learning in both first and additional languages (Akhmetova et al., 2022a). Moreover, research on the simultaneous development of reading skills across multiple languages is still limited, and little is known about how reading emerges and develops when it involves many languages (Bérubé et al., 2022; Pathak et al., 2025; Saiegh-Haddad and Geva, 2010). This lack of research highlights the need for a theoretical framework that can guide assessment across languages. Unlike frameworks targeting a specific age group (e.g., PISA: OECD, 2016, 2018) or approaches focused solely on second or foreign language reading (e.g., bottom-up model: Gough, 1972), the Simple View of Reading (SVR) framework is adaptable across languages and age groups (Hsu et al., 2023; Xu and Zhang, 2024). Therefore, this study aims to conceptualize the SVR framework for multilingual reading comprehension assessment, aligning with the National Research Council’s (NRC) general assessment principles: cognition, observation, and interpretation.
2 Mini-review method
The current study employs a narrative mini-review approach to synthesize research on the SVR in multilingual reading assessment. Relevant peer-reviewed studies were included through structured searches in Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC. While searching, a combination of keywords was used, like “Simple View of Reading,” “decoding,” “language comprehension,” “reading comprehension,” monolingual,” “multilingual,” “bilingual,” and “cross-linguistic transfer.” Studies were included if they examined decoding (D), language comprehension (LC), or reading comprehension (RC) in relation to the SVR framework, or if they addressed reading development across multiple languages. The search focused primarily on publications from the past two decades, reflecting the ongoing relevance of the SVR for reading assessment and multilingual literacy development. After reviewing the literature, studies were read in full and synthesized thematically, consistent with narrative review principles, to align findings with the NRC assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001; Opfer et al., 2012). This approach allowed the review to integrate theoretical and empirical contributions while developing a coherent argument about the SVR as a cognitive foundation for multilingual reading comprehension assessment.
3 Mini-review of the literature
3.1 General assessment principles outlined in the NRC assessment triangle
Well-designed assessments are essential tools for educators and play a central role in shaping decisions made by teachers, learners, families, and policymakers (Varier and Yun, 2023). According to the National Research Council (NRC), an organization providing guidance on educational assessment, general assessment principles form an assessment triangle (Opfer et al., 2012; Pellegrino et al., 2001). The assessment triangle comprises three interconnected components as an inverted triangle, with cognition at the bottom point and observation and interpretation at the top corners. Together, these form the basis of educational assessment. The cognitive vertex refers to “a model of how students represent knowledge and develop competence in the subject domain” (Pellegrino et al., 2001, p. 53). It provides a theoretical foundation for understanding learning within a certain domain and guides assessment design. The cognitive vertex should be sufficiently detailed to support valid inferences about student understanding. Overall, cognition plays a central role in shaping both what is assessed and how results are interpreted. The second vertex, observation, involves identifying tasks or situations that best reflect students’ knowledge and skills (Opfer et al., 2012). These tasks must align with the chosen cognitive model, producing observable behaviors indicative of a student’s understanding. Interpretation is defined as “…methods for drawing inferences from the performance evidence thus obtained” (Pellegrino et al., 2001, p. 53). This may involve formal statistical models or informal teacher evaluations, linking observations to conclusions about student competence. Whether acknowledged explicitly or implicitly, each element (cognition or observation, or interpretation) must be considered as “…an assessment cannot be designed and implemented without some consideration of each” (Pellegrino et al., 2001, p. 44).
3.2 Simple View of Reading (SVR)
Despite the complexity of reading, the SVR was proposed to simplify reading comprehension by dividing it into two components: decoding and comprehension. The SVR framework is illustrated in Figure 1, which outlines its structure in both monolingual and multilingual contexts.
Figure 1. Simple View of Reading in monolingual and multilingual contexts. (A) Monolingual context. (B) Multilingual context.
In a monolingual context, the SVR posits that reading comprehension (RC) is the product of decoding (D) and language comprehension (LC), expressed as RC = D × LC (Hoover and Gough, 1990; Gough and Tunmer, 1986). Decoding refers to the ability to recognize words quickly and accurately, which enables access to their meaning. Decoding and LC are not individually sufficient, but each independently contributes to the reading process (Gough and Tunmer, 1986). Hoover and Tunmer (2018) noted that insufficient decoding could burden short-term memory and hinder comprehension. Conversely, LC involves “the ability to take lexical information (i.e., semantic information at the word level) and derive sentences and discourse interpretations” (Hoover and Gough, 1990, p. 131). Catts et al. (2006) note that LC encompasses vocabulary, sentence-level interpretation, and discourse-level understanding. Kamhi (2007), (p. 28) further differentiates D from LC by emphasizing that D is “teachable due to its narrow scope (letters, sounds, words), whereas LC is broader and less easily taught.” In the multilingual context, the SVR extends to account for reading across several languages. While decoding and LC operate within each language, their transfer differs. Decoding skills developing in a first language (L1) often support additional languages (L2, L3), especially when orthographies are similar (Bérubé et al., 2022). In contrast, LC remains largely language specific, as it depends on vocabulary and syntactic knowledge unique to each language (Catts et al., 2006; Saiegh-Haddad and Geva, 2010). However, higher-order cognitive processes such as inferencing and comprehension monitoring may interact across languages (Pérez et al., 2025). Consequently, reading comprehension in each language (RC2, RC3) reflects both within-language components and cross-linguistic transfer. Therefore, the SVR defines the core components of reading comprehension and offers valuable insights into how these processes work and interact across languages. It is also an essential consideration for both research and educational practice in multilingual settings.
3.3 Aligning the SVR with the NRC’s general assessment principles
Within the NRC assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001), the cognitive vertex defines the theoretical understanding of what is being assessed. The Simple View of Reading (SVR) serves as this cognitive foundation, specifying reading comprehension as the product of decoding and language comprehension (Hoover and Gough, 1990). Beyond cognition, the SVR also informs the observation vertex of the NRC model by guiding what kinds of evidence should be collected to reflect each component of reading comprehension. For example, assessments grounded in the SVR can include separate measures for decoding (e.g., word recognition or oral reading fluency) and for language comprehension (e.g., listening or inferential understanding tasks), ensuring that both skills are observed independently but interpreted jointly (Hoover and Tunmer, 2018). This structure supports valid inferences about a learner’s reading strengths and weaknesses across languages.
The SVR also supports the interpretation vertex, which concerns how evidence is analyzed and conclusions are drawn about students’ reading development. By distinguishing between decoding and LC difficulties, the SVR provides a theoretical rationale for interpreting diverse learner profiles and diagnosing specific sources of reading problems (Cole et al., 2023; Kargiotidis et al., 2025). For instance, a learner with strong decoding but weak comprehension may require support with vocabulary and inferencing, while one with poor decoding but strong comprehension may benefit from phonics-based instruction. Aligning all three vertices of the NRC triangle with the SVR thus ensures conceptual coherence, guiding assessment design, data interpretation, and instructional decision-making in both monolingual and multilingual reading contexts.
4 Discussion
This review emphasized the importance of the SVR framework for the multilingual reading comprehension assessment, aligning with the NRC’s assessment triangle that explains general assessment principles, such as cognition, observation, and interpretation.
Although the SVR was introduced a few decades ago (Gough and Tunmer, 1986; Hoover and Gough, 1990), it remains widely acknowledged and practically supported for understanding reading development and difficulty across different contexts and samples (Alvares De Azevedo and Davidson, 2024; Ortiz-Villalobos et al., 2025; Nordström et al., 2025; Xu and Zhang, 2024). Originally designed to assess reading in bilingual fourth-grade students (Hoover and Gough, 1990), the SVR continues to inform studies assessing RC in one or more languages among multilingual learners (Al-Janaideh et al., 2022; Ortiz-Villalobos et al., 2025; Silawi et al., 2020). The latter demonstrates that SVR provides a valid structure for assessing reading comprehension (Sánchez-Vincitore et al., 2022). The SVR has also proven valuable in heritage language contexts, where LC explained most of the variance in reading comprehension (Ortiz-Villalobos et al., 2025).
The flexibility of the SVR framework enables meaningful comparisons of students’ RC across languages, which is essential in multilingual education (Saiegh-Haddad and Geva, 2010). Its two components, decoding and LC, remain central to reading comprehension assessment design. The SVR is also applicable across different orthographies, including semi-transparent (e.g., Swedish) and transparent scripts (e.g., Finnish, Dutch, Spanish) (Nordström et al., 2025; Sánchez-Vincitore et al., 2022). This makes it particularly useful in multilingual education, where learners engage with varied scripts. Furthermore, Bérubé et al. (2022) noted that the SVR accounts for cross-linguistic transfer effects, especially among students with strong language proficiency.
The SVR provides a reliable foundation for assessing students’ reading comprehension as it aligns with the NRC’s assessment principles. Within the NRC assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001), the SVR provides the cognitive foundation by defining reading comprehension as the interaction between decoding and language comprehension (Hoover and Gough, 1990). It also informs the observation vertex by guiding assessments to measure these components separately yet coherently (Hoover and Tunmer, 2018). At the interpretation vertex, the SVR helps explain learners’ reading profiles and identify specific sources of difficulty (Kargiotidis et al., 2025). Integrating the SVR across all three vertices ensures conceptual alignment and strengthens the validity of multilingual reading assessments.
4.1 Implications and practice
This mini-review presents several implications for educational assessment, teaching practice, and future research. Grounding assessments in a robust cognitive framework such as the SVR (Hoover and Gough, 1990) can enhance the validity and reliability of RC measures, particularly in multilingual contexts where learners acquire literacy in multiple languages. The SVR can help educators identify the root causes of reading difficulties (Cole et al., 2023; Hoover, 2024; Kargiotidis et al., 2025), rather than merely evaluating general performance. It offers practical guidance for designing diagnostic assessments that separately target decoding and LC, enabling more targeted interventions and aligning with the cognitive vertex of the assessment triangle. For instance, students with comprehension deficits may benefit from vocabulary and language enrichment, while those with decoding difficulties may benefit from phonics-based instruction.
The application of the SVR in multilingual settings underscores the need to consider language-specific profiles. As decoding and comprehension do not transfer equally across languages (Piper et al., 2016; Wawire and Kim, 2018; Wawire and Zuilkowski, 2021), assessment must account for the linguistic characteristics of each language involved. For example, students with the weak D but adequate LC generally understand spoken language but cannot access print reliably, reflecting how limited decoding constrains comprehension (Hoover and Tunmer, 2018). Those with strong D but weak LC may read fluently yet struggle with vocabulary, syntax, and discourse-level meaning (Catts et al., 2006; Cole et al., 2023). Learners showing weak skills in both components experience the most persistent challenges, as neither D nor LC can support understanding (Hoover, 2024; Kargiotidis et al., 2025). By contrast, students with adequate D and adequate LC are positioned to develop higher-order comprehension skills (Hoover and Tunmer, 2018). These profiles are observed across languages, with D transferring more easily than LC in multilingual contexts (Saiegh-Haddad and Geva, 2010; Bérubé et al., 2022). Consequently, policy decisions regarding curricula and national assessments should avoid one-size-fits-all models; instead, they should address the complexities of cross-linguistic development. Additionally, teacher-training programs could integrate the SVR-based assessment to help educators interpret profiles of strengths and weaknesses across different languages. This is particularly relevant in low-resource settings, where simple, low-cost tools such as short oral fluency checks could support teachers in diagnosing difficulties without relying on large-scale standardized assessments. As multilingual education continues to expand globally, developing theory-based, instructionally relevant, and context-sensitive assessments becomes highly demanded.
4.2 Conclusion and limitations
Reading comprehension is essential for academic achievement, as well as personal and professional growth (Wigfield et al., 2016). It is a complex cognitive process, further complicated in multilingual individuals (Razkane and Diouny, 2024; Tachakourt and Rassili, 2024). Given this complexity, this solid theoretical model (SVR) guides the assessment design to reflect how comprehension develops and varies across individuals and languages. This review highlights the relevance of the SVR framework with the NRC’s assessment triangle, the foundation for meaningful assessment design. It argues that the SVR (Hoover and Gough, 1990) provides a clear, valid, and reliable framework for assessing RC in multilingual contexts (Al-Janaideh et al., 2022; Nordström et al., 2025; Silawi et al., 2020; Xu and Zhang, 2024). The SVR remains a valid and adaptable model for assessing RC across languages, age groups, and orthographies (Ortiz-Villalobos et al., 2025; Nordström et al., 2025; Sánchez-Vincitore et al., 2022; Xu and Zhang, 2024).
Nonetheless, this study has certain limitations. As a theoretical study, it does not offer empirical evidence on the effectiveness of SVR-based assessments in multilingual contexts, which means the conclusion may be limited when applied to real-world educational settings. The focus on the SVR also means that other cognition models were not examined in depth in multilingual contexts, leaving space for broader theoretical comparisons. Future research should therefore test the applicability of the SVR-based assessments across different multilingual contexts. Empirical studies that design and pilot diagnostic tools based on the SVR, such as separate measures for D and LC, would provide stronger support for its utility and inform both teacher training and policy development.
To conclude, this mini-review suggests how the SVR can provide a powerful and adaptable cognitive framework for the assessment of reading comprehension across multiple languages. By the alignment of the SVR with the NRC’s assessment principles, this paper bridges theory and practice, catering to educators and researchers a clear model for diagnosis, instructional design, and equitable assessment. As multilingualism is globally widespread, applying theory-based and practical frameworks, such as the SVR, will be essential for the development of inclusive and evidence-based approaches to literacy assessment.
Author contributions
NF: Writing – original draft. KJ: Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. The research was funded by the Digital Society Competence Center of the Humanities and Social Sciences Cluster of the Center of Excellence for Interdisciplinary Research, Development and Innovation of the University of Szeged. The authors are members of the New Tools and Techniques for Assessing Students Research Group.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Keywords: Simple View of Reading, reading comprehension, decoding, language comprehension, cognitive vertex, assessment, multilingualism
Citation: Fethi N and Józsa K (2026) The Simple View of Reading as a cognitive framework for multilingual reading comprehension assessment. Front. Educ. 11:1737066. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1737066
Received: 31 October 2025; Revised: 17 November 2025; Accepted: 05 January 2026;
Published: 23 January 2026.
Edited by:
Eduardo Encabo-Fernández, University of Murcia, SpainReviewed by:
Shine Aung, University of Pretoria, South AfricaCopyright © 2026 Fethi and Józsa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Krisztián Józsa, am96c2FAc29sLmNjLnUtc3plZ2VkLmh1
†ORCID: Krisztián Józsa, orcid.org/0000-0001-7174-5067