Showing papers in "Reading Research Quarterly in 1979"

A cross-cultural perspective on reading comprehension

Abstract: SUBJECTS FROM THE UNITED STATES and India read letters about an Indian and an American wedding and recalled them following interpolated tasks. Subjects read the native passage more rapidly, recalled a larger amount of information from the native passage, produced more culturally appropriate elaborations of the native passage, and produced more culturally based distortions of the foreign passage. Whether recalling the native or foreign passage, subjects recalled more of the text elements rated as important by other subjects with the same cultural heritage. The results were interpreted as showing the pervasive influence on comprehension and memory of schemata embodying knowledge of the content of a discourse.

Effects on poor readers' comprehension of training in rapid decoding

Abstract: comprehension of increasing the decoding speed of poor readers. In the first experiment, poor readers were trained to read a list of words as rapidly as good readers, and then were asked to read a passage comprised of the practiced words. Decoding speed measures on the word list and passage and comprehension measures were obtained. The performance of the trained poor readers was compared to their performance on an equivalent untrained passage and to the performance of good readers. The second experiment was essentially a replication of the first, with the addition of a training condition which emphasized rapid phrase reading. The results of both experiments indicated that decoding training, whether focusing on isolated words or on phrases, significantly increased the decoding speed of single words. However, it did not improve comprehension performance. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to a decoding sufficiency hypothesis.

Developmental Dyslexia in Relation to Other Childhood Reading Disorders: Significance and Clinical Utility.

Abstract: the clinical value of the distinction. The present study attempted such an assessment through an in-depth examination of 80 disabled readers who emerged from a population of 570 second grade boys participating in a longitudinal project. Comparisons of these children to a matched group of 80 normal readers suggest that poor readers as a group are deficient in numerous neurodevelopmental skills, that they face unfavorable consequences regarding later academic and personality functioning, and that their parents' reading and spelling skills are poor relative to those of parents of normal readers. Although a substantial percentage of the reading disabled sample was classified as dyslexic (50 percent), similar comparisons between these children and the remaining, nondyslexic disabled readers revealed no differences. The search for more meaningful subgroups of poor readers would seem to require either substantial revision of the concept of developmental dyslexia or alternative means of classification.

Effects of Polysemous Words on Sentence Comprehension.

Abstract: THE EFFECT ON COMPREHENSION of words containing more than one meaning was studied. In Experiment I children in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were assessed on their ability to recall polysemous words and identify their meanings after having read them in sentences. When words are placed in contexts which support their most common meanings, subjects remember the words and are more accurate in selecting the meanings than when the contexts support the less common meanings. Experiments 2 and 3 confirm the inability of third and fourth grade children to choose the less common meanings from disambiguating sentence contexts. Experiment 3 also indicates that adding a memory condition severely affects low ability readers' performance. In general, children in the middle elementary grades often incorrectly recall the context when a secondary meaning of the word is referenced in a sentence and either do not know less common meanings of words or fail to attend to the necessary contextual clues. It is apparent that word polysemy in reading tasks is a potential source of comprehension difficulty.

The reading processes of above average and average readers: a comparison of the use of reasoning strategies in responding to standardized comprehension measures

Abstract: THIS STUDY IDENTIFIED reasoning strategies used by above-average and average readers in responding to standardized measures of reading comprehension. Methodologically, protocol analysis techniques adapted from problem-solving research were used. Results indicated that readers used identifiable sequences representing reasoning strategies. The application of reasoning strategies, however, appeared to be influenced by the specific type of question to be answered. Reasoning strategies were considered analogous to algorithms found in problem-solving research. In comparing strategy use between groups, significant differences were found between average and above-average readers in the magnitude and variety of reasoning strategies used. Above-average readers showed more applications and successes with the most often used strategies and the preferred strategies for question types. In contrast, average readers showed greater variability in strategy use and more applications of less efficient reasoning strategies. The obtained process differences between reading groups were considered analogous to variations in the use of heuristic techniques found in problem-solving research which aid the search for the most appropriate algorithm (reasoning strategy). Finally, pedagogical implications were suggested concerning the relationship of reasoning strategies to teaching reading comprehension.

Improving Reading Comprehension: Effects of Sentence Organization Instruction.

Abstract: THIS STUDY INVESTIGATED the possibility of improving reading comprehension by training "sentence organization skills" (those that enable the reader to process sentence information in units larger than the single word). A sentence anagram task and word-grouping strategy were developed and implemented to explore the effects of training organizational skills on reading comprehension. The subjects were 31 third graders, 16 experimental and 15 control. Experimental students individually received sentence anagram training for 10 to 15 minutes 3 times a week.'Results indicated that training significantly improved sentence anagram performance and transferred to reading comprehension performance. This research supports the contention that sentence organization skills are an important aspect of reading comprehension and suggests the value of instruction explicitly designed to improve reading comprehension.

Imagery and the Recall of Connected Discourse.

Abstract: TWO EXPERIMENTS EXPLORED the effects of imagery and text organization on what is learned from reading a passage. In each experiment, all Ss read three different concrete prose passages. Three different forms of organization were used for the passage sentences. Instruction to the subjects required half of them to visualize the passage information and half to repeat it to themselves. Comprehension was assessed in experiment one by asking multiple choice questions and in experiment two by asking for written recall of correct text relations. Overall, grouping the substantive sentences pertaining to a particular object and its attributes into a single paragraph produced the best comprehension. Randomized text resulted in the poorest comprehension. Imagery was more successful for learning than repetition. There were also interaction effects between text organization and reading strategy. Regardless of text organization, imagery instructed Ss recalled significantly more correct text relations than repetition subjects. Imagery also resulted in a significantly higher level of inference making and in recall protocol organizations which were consistent with figural representations of text information.

The Effects of Certain Instructional Conditions and Response Modes on Initial Word Learning.

Abstract: TWO HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR beginning first graders were taught two sets of six words by standardized teaching methods. Both sets were taught in 3 instructional conditions: 1) correction-correct responses were acknowledged and incorrect responses corrected 2) criterion learning-continued instruction and practice with words not learned in the allotted time and 3) regular-no correction or extended instruction. In each instructional condition, students practiced reading the words in one of two response modes: 1) selection-a multiple choice situation in which the child selected the word pronounced by the teacher and 2) production-each word was read orally by the student. Although correction increased performance on the practice trials, it did not increase the actual number of words learned or retained. Providing additional instruction and practice did not increase learning or retention. Therefore, simply increasing the amount of instructional time of one lesson will not facilitate the acquisition of sight words or reading skills of first graders who have difficulty learning to read words. Words taught by a phonic method were better retained when practice was provided in the production mode than in the selection mode. Thus, requiring students to verbalize words taught by a phonic method appears to facilitate retention.