The present study examines the applicability of the simple view of reading (SVR) (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) model of reading comprehension in Kiswahili, a language that has a transparent orthography. We examined the developmental relationships among nonword decoding, listening comprehension, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension using longitudinal data from a sample of 628 Kenyan children, enrolled in first and second grade. Children completed eight different tasks. We fit autoregressive cross-lagged path models with maximum likelihood estimation to examine the developmental relationships. Our findings showed support for the SVR model, given that both nonword decoding and listening comprehension were significant predictors of reading comprehension in Kiswahili. Nonword decoding was the stronger predictor. The results further revealed that both accuracy and speed of nonword decoding played significant roles in reading comprehension in Kiswahili for beginning readers. Our findings suggest that oral reading fluency and accuracy were significant predictors of reading comprehension.

本研究检验了斯瓦希里语（一种具有透明正字法的语言）阅读理解的简单阅读观点（SVR）（Gough & Tunmer，1986）模型的适用性。我们研究了非单词解码、听力理解、口语阅读流畅度和阅读理解使用来自 628 名肯尼亚儿童样本的纵向数据，这些儿童就读于一年级和二年级。孩子们完成了八项不同的任务。我们用最大似然估计拟合自回归交叉滞后路径模型来检查发展关系。我们的研究结果表明支持 SVR 模型，因为非单词解码和听力理解都是斯瓦希里语阅读理解的重要预测因素。非字解码是更强的预测器。结果进一步表明，非单词解码的准确性和速度在斯瓦希里语初学者的阅读理解中发挥了重要作用。我们的研究结果表明，口语阅读的流畅性和准确性是阅读理解的重要预测因素。