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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.