Abstract
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) describes Reading Comprehension as the product of distinct child-level variance in decoding (D) and linguistic comprehension (LC) component abilities. When used as a model for educational policy, distinct classroom-level influences of each of the components of the SVR model have been assumed, but have not yet been demonstrated in basic research. Hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) of the SVR is thus explored here in a longitudinal experiment with 701 children in 50 grade 1 (year 1) classrooms. Multilevel results showed independent distinct classroom-level effects for both D and LC with up to 68% of the classroom-level shared variance explained by these two components. Overall, the model fit thus suggests that the SVR is a good model for framing the underlying structure of classroom-level literacy attainment in grade 1.