From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme

Bing Zhang; Jia Huo; Hui Shi

doi:10.47297/wspiedWSP2516-250037.20261008

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From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme

10卷第8期

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From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme
From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, China
2026年10卷第8期页码：179-184
纸质出版：2026-08-30
DOI：10.47297/wspiedWSP2516-250037.20261008
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Bing Zhang, Jia Huo & Hui Shi. (2026). From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme. 国际教育与发展（英文版）, 10(8), 179-184.

Bing Zhang,Jia Huo,Hui Shi.From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme[J].Journal of International Education and Development,2026,10(08):179-184.
Bing Zhang, Jia Huo & Hui Shi. (2026). From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme. 国际教育与发展（英文版）, 10(8), 179-184. DOI： 10.47297/wspiedWSP2516-250037.20261008.

Bing Zhang,Jia Huo,Hui Shi.From Word Recognition to Text Comprehension: AI Tool Use and Reading Difficulties Among German Learners in a Sino-German Joint Education Programme[J].Journal of International Education and Development,2026,10(08):179-184. DOI： 10.47297/wspiedWSP2516-250037.20261008.

摘要

Abstract

Many students in Sino-German joint education programmes pass the CEFR B1 examination and meet syllabus vocabulary benchmarks

yet still find that they recognise most words in a CEFR B2 passage without understanding the text as a whole. The study examines that difficulty

conceptualised as a word-to-text integration gap: accessed word meanings are not integrated into a coherent text representation. Drawing on teaching observations and interviews with 16 learners in a Sino-German joint education programme at a Chinese university

the study specifies the phenomenon and evaluates three established explanations. Vocabulary-centred

cognitive resource and strategy accounts each explain part of the difficulty

but all three confine explanation to the individual reader and overlook the conditions created by AI tools

which have cut the cost of lexical look-up to near zero. The study proposes a four-layer framework in which the shallow structure hypothesis accounts for sentence-level processing

cognitive load theory for resource occupation

the construction-integration model for incomplete integration

and cognitive offloading for habitual tool use. The framework yields testable expectations and implies that instruction should train cross-sentence integration rather than expand vocabulary alone

and should distinguish disciplinary reading

where offloading may be legitimate

from language-test reading

where it bypasses the assessed ability.

关键词

Keywords

references

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