Does linguistic comprehension support the decoding skills of struggling readers?

Abstract

This study investigated the contribution of linguistic comprehension to the decoding skills of struggling readers. Participants were 36 children aged between eight and 12 years, all below average in decoding but differing in linguistic comprehension. The children read passages from the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability and their first 25 miscues were categorised into syntactic, semantic, phonemic, and graphophonic similarity. Children were first grouped in terms of higher and lower linguistic comprehension levels. Analysis of miscues showed no differences between the groups in miscue similarity. They were then grouped according to pseudoword reading skill. There were significant differences between the groups for all miscue types except semantic similarity. An analysis of miscues using multiple regression showed that, after taking account of age, pseudoword reading was the best predictor of quality of miscues. In addition, linguistic comprehension contributed to syntactic similarity of miscues over and above decoding.     

A Comparison of Reader Strategies on Two Versions of A Newspaper Editorial

Reading is seen as a communication process, a meaningful interaction between the reader and his reading text. A number of factors are known to affect this interaction. One prominent factor is the type of text being read. That is, reader strategies may vary in relation to text characteristics. This study used miscue analysis to find out patterns of reader strategies on two types of texts: a syntactically complex and high vocabulary loaded text and a syntactically simple and low vocabulary loaded text. To this end, cloze tests of passages derived from two versions of a newspaper editorial completed by twenty undergraduate education students from the University of Jos were analysed. The results indicated that the readers of the difficult text had less access to semantic and syntactic cues than the readers of the simplified text. Readers for whom the difficult text was on frustration level made less use of context than did readers for whom the same text was on instructional level. There was very little difference in quality of miscues by readers of the simplified text reading on independent level as compared with those reading the same text on instructional level. Readers who performed on instructional level on the difficult passage used similar reading strategies to those who performed on instructional level on the simplified passage. The implications of the findings for reading instruction were discussed.     

The teacher response to children's miscues of substitution

The teacher response to the miscues of substitution, produced by two beginning readers (6 years old) during the course of a complete academic year within the naturalistic setting of an infant classroom, was explored. The teacher responses were categorised into five main types. The study demonstrated that the teacher response was determined, in part, by the nature of the miscue in terms of its graphophonic, syntactic and semantic link with the text word. The effectiveness of the teacher response was also explored. It was found that although ‘providing the word’ was the most effective strategy to employ for immediate results it was least effective for supporting the child during future readings. Non-response when used for meaningful substitutions did not impede the child's subsequent reading. Most effective was the restarting of the sentence for the child; this helped the child to repair the miscue immediately and had a continuing positive effect when the word was next met.     

Context Cues in Early Reading

An investigation was carried out to examine any significant differences in the use of four types of context cues by good and poor readers in the early stages of their reading development. Sentences incorporating proactive and retroactive syntactic, and proactive and retroactive semantic cues were presented in the form of deletions at three levels of difficulty. Sixty-four subjects, 32 of each sex, were drawn equally from the six to seven and seven to eight year age levels and subdivided into groups of good and poor readers. Results indicated that all groups other than the youngest poor readers found the proactive semantic cues the most useful and made miscues displaying semantic associations across cue types. Implications for an understanding of strategies employed in early reading and approaches for instruction are discussed.     

The Effects of Grade Level and Reading Ability on Children’s Miscue Patterns

Abstract

This study investigated the miscue patterns of 120 high and low ability readers in Grades 2, 4, and 6. The subjects’ miscues were analyzed with the Qualitative Analysis System, yielding percentages for the following variables: (a) graphic similarity, (b) acceptability in context, and (c) contextually unacceptable miscues, self-corrected. Results revealed that the percentage of miscues acceptable in context increased as a function of both grade level and reading ability. In addition, there were statistically significant grade X ability interactions for the other two miscue variables. It was concluded that both grade level and reading ability should be taken into consideration when interpreting children’s miscue patterns. The instructional implications of these findings are discussed.     

Reading to Children and Listening to Children Read: Mother–Child Interactions as a Function of Principal Reader

Research Findings: Although storybook reading has received considerable research attention, listening to children read has been the source of much less inquiry. In this study, 40 mother–child dyads were videotaped during adult-to-child and child-to-adult reading. Relations between book-related themes (e.g., types of talk), maternal evaluative feedback (e.g., praise, criticism), maternal miscue feedback (e.g., graphophonemic clues, terminal feedback), and child engagement (e.g., laughter, questions) were analyzed. The results suggest that the development of literacy appreciation and literacy skill can occur during the same storybook-reading session. Specifically, when mothers read to their children, communication about the illustrations was associated with increased child engagement, yet a positive correlation was also observed between text-related productions and child engagement. When children read to their mothers, text-related productions were featured more prominently. After children made reading errors (miscues), graphophonemic and terminal feedback were the 2 most frequent responses by mothers. In addition, graphophonemic cues were positively associated with child engagement. Practice or Policy: In sum, the results demonstrate that adult-to-child and child-to-adult reading serve the goals of both literacy acquisition training and literacy appreciation; furthermore, orienting children toward the text during either session did not hamper child engagement.     

Is systematic synthetic phonics enough? Examining the benefit of intensive teaching of high frequency words (HFW) in a year one class

A comparative analysis of systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) and the intensive teaching of high frequency words (HFW) revealed the latter had greater impact on pupils’ reading attainment and fluency. Data were collected using multiple methods, including miscue analysis, Salford Reading Test, a phoneme skills test and HFW audits.     

Readers' tellings: Narrators,settings, flashbacks and comprehension

This research explores the impact of flashbacks and changes in settings and narrators on reader comprehension. Individually, 34 fourth graders (9 and 10 years of age), mostly with above average reading abilities (5.0), orally read the first chapter of a novel. Both publisher and readability formulae estimated the text to be at a fourth‐ grade level. A content analysis of the text indicated no ideas that would have been new or difficult for the students to comprehend. However, across the five story episodes, there was a change in time, place and narrator in the beginning of each new episode. Following the oral reading, retellings were elicited from the students, followed by researcher probes. All readings and retellings were audiotaped. Oral readings were analysed using miscue analysis and retelling ideas were matched, when possible, with ideas in the text. An examination of the miscues indicated that the vast majority of miscues did not change the meanings intended by the author. That is, processing behaviours reflected an understanding of the text. However, there were considerable gaps within the retellings, whether measured on the clause, event or story grammar element level. The constant change in time, place and narrator appeared significantly to impact the reading comprehension abilities of the students. The use of retellings for instructional and future research purposes is recommended.     

Predictors of Reading Recovery book levels

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether predictor variables, selected from readability research and from teacher nomination, might be used to grade children’s early reading books. Two hundred Reading Recovery books were rated on five variables thought to represent ‘semantic’, ‘syntactic’ and ‘phonic’ features of text. The variables accounted for 83% of book level variance. In a cross‐validation exercise they were found to be stable and reliable. It is suggested that the data support the validity of the Reading Recovery book levels, and that the formula can be used by teachers to grade children’s early reading books.     

School Finance in Iowa

Abstract

This study examined the effect of pupil reading miscues and achievement levels on the prompting decisions of their tutors. Tutors were randomly assigned to high, medium, and low level readers. Subsequent analyses of tutor prompts revealed that the poorer readers received disproportionately more prompts than the better readers. Furthermore, teachers differentially responded to pupil errors on the basis of each miscue’s semantic acceptability. These results suggest that teachers were actively engaged in the process of decision making, and that pupil traits affected teacher behavior and teacher prompting decisions.     

‘You can't see what the words say’: word spacing and letter spacing in children's reading books

This paper describes two tests designed to find out whether children would be helped in their reading by the use of word and letter spacing that was looser or tighter than commonly used default values. In each test, 24 six‐year‐old children were asked to read aloud in a classroom; the realistic, high‐quality test material was set using a range of either word spacing or letter spacing values. Audiotapes of the children's reading were analysed to determine reading rates; miscue analysis was used to compare the number and kind of errors they made on the different settings. The children were also asked for their views about the texts they read. The results suggest that children in the test groups did not benefit significantly from spacing that was substantially looser or tighter than our default values, and that they noticed differences in letter spacing more easily than differences in word spacing.     

The monitoring and responding behaviours of proficient fourth grade readers to miscues on a complex scientific text

The monitoring of meaning and the correction of miscues that fail to make sense are a hallmark of a proficient reader. Much of the research, however, has focused on the reading of fictional, narrative texts. In contrast, this research examines the monitoring and response behaviours of 35 proficient fourth grade readers (nine and 10 years of age) to their miscues on a complex, scientific text. Specifically, reader reactions to their miscues that did and did not disrupt meaning were analysed. Regardless of their impact on meaning, the majority of miscues were ignored. Readers failed to correct, failed to attempt to correct, the majority of their meaning disrupting miscues. This behaviour may be due to an emphasis on reading rate in many classrooms, a failure to explicitly teach older students monitoring and correcting strategies, and the complexity of the text.     

An evaluation of the discrepancy definition of dyslexia.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children with dyslexia, that is, children whose reading levels were significantly lower than would be predicted by their IQ scores, constituted a distinctive group when compared with poor readers, that is, children whose reading scores were consistent with their IQ scores. The performance of children with dyslexia, poor readers, and normally achieving readers was compared on a variety of reading, spelling, phonological processing, language, and memory tasks. Although the children with dyslexia had significantly higher IQ scores than the poor readers, these two groups did not differ in their performance on reading, spelling, phonological processing, or most of the language and memory tasks. In all cases, the performance of both reading disabled groups was significantly below that of nondisabled readers. The findings were similar whether absolute difference or regression scores were used. Reading disabled children, whether or not their reading is significantly below the level predicted by their IQ scores, experience significant problems in phonological processing, short-term and working memory, and syntactic awareness. On the basis of these data, there does not seem to be a need to differentiate between individuals with dyslexia and poor readers. Both of these groups are reading disabled and have deficits in phonological processing, verbal memory, and syntactic awareness.     

An investigation of reading and language abilities of college freshmen

The purpose of this study was to compare a range of reading–related abilities in two groups of college freshmen with higher and lower reading comprehension abilities. Reading comprehension ability groups were formed using American College Test reading scores. The groups were compared on measures of oral language vocabulary and syntax, phonemic awareness and print decoding skills. Results indicated that abilities that appear to relate to reading comprehension include recognition of the order of phonemes in spoken syllables, recognition of words that are good semantic and syntactic fits for sentence frames, recall of meanings for spoken words and conversion of printed to spoken words.     

Oral Language and Reading in Bilingual Children

This article examines the question: Do lexical, syntactic, fluency, and discourse measures of oral language collected under narrative conditions predict reading achievement both within and across languages for bilingual children? More than 1,500 Spanish–English bilingual children attending kindergarten–third grade participated. Oral narratives were collected in each language along with measures of Passage Comprehension and Word Reading Efficiency. Results indicate that measures of oral language in Spanish predict reading scores in Spanish and that measures of oral language skill in English predict reading scores in English. Cross‐language comparisons revealed that English oral language measures predicted Spanish reading scores and Spanish oral language measures predicted English reading scores beyond the variance accounted for by grade. Results indicate that Spanish and English oral language skills contribute to reading within and across languages.     

Adults' prior exposure to print as a predictor of the legibility of text on paper and laptop computer

This study investigated the effects of variations in graphic elements that account for differences in speed and accuracy between reading text aloud from paper versus laptop computer. Variations in accurate reading-aloud performance are attributable to individual differences in the visual accessibility of information due to (1) the experimental manipulations of the independent variables, (2) the subjects' prior exposure to print within the culture, and (3) the educational attainment of the subject. A non-representative sample of 48 female survey interviewers (ages 38–72) were employed in the conduct of this study. Survey interviewers were selected because they gather information using laptop computers; the quality of the survey information collected may be directly associated with the legibility of computerized text on reader performance. Subjects completed a prior exposure to print questionnaire (Stanovich & West 1989) and a demographic data form (IDIQ). Repeated-measures analyses of variance were employed to examine individual differences in the speed and accuracy of reading-aloud performance for twenty-four conditions varying the levels of independent variables including: (1) Font (Times Roman, Helvetica, and Courier), (2) Justification (fully- justified versus left-justified), (3) Leading (single-spaced versus double-spaced), and (4) Mode of Presentation (paper versus laptop computer). Linear regression analyses found subjects' prior exposure to print significantly and positively related to predicting speed and miscue performance. The subjects' educational attainment significantly predicted miscue performance. Subjects' ages were not significantly related to performance. Results of this study inform computer programmers and designers who are responsible for developing standards and guidelines for legible computerized text for the effective access of accurate information.     

Comprehension of written sentences as a core component of children's reading comprehension

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that sentence processing is an essential mediatory skill between word recognition and text comprehension in reading. In Experiment 1, a semantic similarity judgement task was used with children from Grade 2 to Grade 9. They had to say whether two written sentences had the same (or very similar) meanings or whether the meanings of the two sentences were very different. As expected, performance improved with age both on the high‐frequency words and with increasingly complex sentences. In Experiment 2 with children in Grade 3, scores in written sentence comprehension and vocabulary made the most important unique contribution to the reading comprehension of an expository text. The results are discussed first, in the light of a general framework in which sentence‐level skill is at the core of reading comprehension and second, with reference to the issue of reading assessment.     

An observation study of reading instruction provided to elementary students with learning disabilities in the resource room

This study documents the amount and quality of reading instruction provided to second‐ through fifth‐grade students with learning disabilities provided resource‐room services. Reading instruction provided by 10 special education resource‐room teachers was observed. Findings reveal that teachers and students were on task during instructional time that included phonological awareness, word study, comprehension, reading fluency, and vocabulary instruction of average to high average quality. Although class size was small overall, whole‐group instructional delivery was most common. Students made statistically significant gains in oral reading fluency but did not increase their standard scores on measures of comprehension or word reading. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Reading comprehension in adolescents with learning disabilities: semantic and syntactic effects

Ninety-two adolescents with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to four groups to determine the effects of semantic and syntactic complexity on the reading comprehension of content area prose. One group served as a control and read a social studies passage without change. The three treatment groups read passages with syntactic and/or semantic modifications. Comprehension was significantly better for those groups reading passages with combined semantic and syntactic modifications and syntactic modifications alone, when compared to the control group. Semantic modifications alone did not significantly improve comprehension.