Processing of expository and narrative texts by low- and high-comprehending children

The present study investigated comprehension processes and strategy use of second-grade low- and high-comprehending readers when reading expository and narrative texts for comprehension. Results from think-aloud protocols indicated that text genre affected the way the readers processed the texts. When reading narrative texts they made more text-based and knowledge-based inferences, and when reading expository texts they made more comments and asked more questions, but also made a higher number of invalid knowledge-based inferences. Furthermore, low- and high-comprehending readers did not differ in the patterns of text-processing strategies used: all readers used a variety of comprehension strategies, ranging from literal repetitions to elaborate knowledge-based inferences. There was one exception: for expository texts, low-comprehending readers generated a higher number of inaccurate elaborative and predictive inferences. Finally, the results confirmed and extended prior research by showing that low-comprehending readers can be classified either as readers who construct a limited mental representation that mainly reflects the literal meaning of the text (struggling paraphrasers), or as readers who attempt to enrich their mental representation by generating elaborative and predictive inferences (struggling elaborators). A similar dichotomy was observed for high-comprehending readers.     

Reasoning in a reading context: Deductive inferences in basal reading series

This study examined three basal reading programs published by Heath (1989), Silver Burdett Ginn (1993) and Houghton Mifflin (1993), to determine how frequently logically necessary relationships are expressed in text used by basal readers, and whether direct instruction in making logically necessary inferences accompanies such expressions in basal reader series. The complete contents of the basal readers, from grades one through eight, and all teachers' instructions pertaining to content read by students, were examined for each series. Frequency counts made by independent raters indicated that readers of these three series have a steady and frequent rate of opportunities to make logically necessary inferences, and to observe such inferences being modeled by the text; no significant differences were found between any of the series in the number of such opportunities. We found that while children's reading materials clearly offer a natural context in which logical understanding may be constructed, instructions for teachers in the basal series we examined did not include directly teaching students to use this kind of reasoning in reading comprehension. Suggestions are offered for how such instruction might be integrated with current teaching strategies in inference-making.     

Speech and Language Difficulties in Children With and Without a Family History of Dyslexia

According to recent psychological theories of situation model construction, readers routinely and quickly construct inferences that elaborate causal antecedents of explicit events in the text, but not inferences about causal consequences. The process of forecasting lengthy causal chains into the future is taxing on working memory, so these inferences are either not constructed or their construction consumes a comparatively large amount of reading time. This study collected self-paced sentence reading times from younger and older adults who read expository texts on scientific and technological mechanisms. Readers were also measured on working memory span, general world knowledge, reasoning ability, and reading frequency. Multiple regression analyses on the reading times revealed that (a) causal consequence inferences were more time consuming than causal antecedent inferences and (b) noncausal elaborative inferences were not constructed. The pattern of beta weights for inference variables was remarkably similar for younger and older adults and was unaffected by other measures of individual differences. The process of constructing causal inferences is therefore stable and predictable across different groups of readers.     

Facilitating Knowledge-Based Inferences in Less-Skilled Readers

The present study replicated Long, Oppy, and Seely's (1994) finding that skilled readers make knowledge-based inferences spontaneously during reading whereas less-skilled readers do not. However, the study also showed that less-skilled readers can make knowledge-based inferences with appropriate textual support. Evidence for knowledge-based inferences was obtained by examining whether readers were faster to make lexical decision responses to theme-appropriate targets (e.g.,burglar) than to theme-inappropriate targets (e.g.,blueprint), when reading short passages (e.g.,The old woman awoke to a sound from downstairs. She reached into her purse and found only a file.). Whereas skilled readers generated knowledge-based inferences under all text conditions, less-skilled readers only showed evidence of having generated knowledge-based inferences when the text incorporated a question inviting the inference (e.g.,The old woman awoke and said, ‘Why is there a sound downstairs?’ She reached into her purse and found only a file.) and text-presentation speed was slower.     

How generalization inferences are constructed in expository text comprehension

Three questions regarding adult readers’ processing of generalization inferences (conceptually broad statements that subsume several specific statements) are investigated. College students (N = 193) read expository texts containing target statements that were consistent, inconsistent, or off-topic in relation to a generalization implied by one paragraph. Reading times were faster for consistent than inconsistent statements and faster for inconsistent than off-topic statements, indicating adult readers construct generalization inferences online during initial reading of a text and that the inference they construct is relatively narrow in scope. This pattern of faster reading time for consistent sentences occurred under different reading goals, suggesting generalization inferences are a pervasive component of expository text comprehension.     

Summary versus argument tasks when working with multiple documents: Which is better for whom?

This article reports on two experiments where undergraduates read five documents on a scientific topic and afterwards answered comprehension questions and wrote either summaries or argument essays on the topic. In the first experiment, students who were instructed to work with the documents for the purpose of summarizing their contents displayed better comprehension and integration of document contents than did students instructed to construct arguments from the documents. In the second experiment, focusing on whether the effects of task instructions on multiple-documents comprehension and integration could be moderated by students’ prior knowledge, it was found that only students with high prior knowledge were able to take advantage of instructions to construct arguments while reading, whereas low-knowledge readers seemed to be more hindered than helped by such task instructions. Theoretical as well as educational implications of these findings are discussed.     

Exploring how relevance instructions affect personal reading intentions,reading goals and text processing: A mixed methods study

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate how relevance instructions influence readers’ personal reading intentions, reading goals, text processing, and memory for text. Undergraduates (n = 52) were randomly assigned to one of three pre-reading relevance instruction conditions that asked them to read from a perspective or to read for understanding. Experimental results showed that information was read slower and remembered better when it was relevant. However, some readers spent more time reading irrelevant information, whereas others spent less time reading this information. Post-reading interviews were analyzed to explain these reading time differences. The interview data indicated that relevance instructions influenced readers’ goals and the strategies they used to meet those goals. The data sets were complementary: the quantitative data indicated differences in reading time and recall, and the qualitative data allowed us to explain why these differences occurred. These data revealed three distinct reader profiles within and across conditions, and demonstrate how relevance instructions affect reader goals, processing, and comprehension.     

Morphological awareness and reading in second and fifth grade: evidence from Hebrew

Research suggests that morphological awareness facilitates word decoding, improves lexical knowledge, and helps reading comprehension (Carlisle, 2010; Nagy et al., 2014; Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2011). The present study examined the relationship among morphological awareness, word recognition and reading comprehension in 153 second- and fifth-grade Hebrew speakers at an elementary school in Israel. Students were given morphological awareness tests and tests for word recognition and reading comprehension. Three types of morphological awareness were analyzed: inflection, derivation and construct formation. Overall, students with low morphological awareness in derivation and construct formation showed relatively poor achievement in word recognition and comprehension. All three types were found to correlate with reading comprehension in readers with high morphological awareness. These readers also exhibited good reading skills. The results are discussed with regard to the special characteristics of Hebrew morphology and reading process, which aid morphological decomposition.     

Warning readers to avoid irrelevant information: When being vague might be valuable

Students are often provided with instructions that are intended to influence their attention to particular sections or elements of their reading materials. To date, the bulk of the work on such prereading instructions has focused on drawing reader attention to relevant text information. In the current project, we examined whether instructions might also be useful in helping readers ignore irrelevant (albeit inherently interesting) information in text. In two experiments, prereading instructions asked readers to (a) focus on specific relevant text segments, (b) ignore specific irrelevant text segments, (c) maintain an awareness that the text contained irrelevant segments without specifically identifying them, or (d) read without warnings. Participants generally exhibited longer reading times and enhanced recall for irrelevant segments compared to base content, except in cases for which general instructions warned about but did not specifically identify those irrelevant elements. The implications of these findings for research on seductive details and text processing, as well practical applications for the design of reading instruction, are discussed.     

Interpretation and Experience: Two Pedagogical Interventions Observed1

In light of the hard times in which literary education has been finding itself, this paper evaluates the merits of two instructional interventions. It describes an experiment which contrasts interpretive and experiential approaches to reading carried out with 17 Comparative Literature Canadian university students. Two different sets of pre‐reading and reading instructions were prepared. The group working under the control condition followed a set of ‘interpretive instructions’ while the one working under the experimental condition followed ‘experiential instructions’. Participants in both conditions completed four measures: three questionnaires and a response essay. Video‐recording of small group discussions also occurred. Intervention effects were evaluated statistically. No differences were found in any of the measurements except for story‐driven reading, in which the control group scored higher than the experimental one. This means that participants preferred to focus on the plot or story‐line and showed interest for action and compelling conclusions. The video recording, however, indicated higher voluntary participation in the experimental condition. As regards class assessment, the results were rather contradictory and unexpected, leading to the conclusion that interpretation and experiencing may not present us with an either‐or situation but may most productively be regarded as complementary. Ultimately, this study advances the debate on the need to examine instructional interventions in literature classes empirically.     

Time course of elaborative inferences in reading as a function of prior vocabulary knowledge

Elaborative inferences during reading were assessed by means of a naming task and eye-fixation monitoring in low- and high-vocabulary undergraduates. A context sentence was followed by a target word to be named or read. Evidence for inferences involved facilitation in naming latencies or reading times for the target word when this was predictable by the context. The results indicated that high-vocabulary readers were faster and more likely to make inferences on-line than low-vocabulary readers. Those low in vocabulary, generated inferences only after 1050 ms of the end of the inducing context sentence, whereas those high in vocabulary made inferences 500 ms earlier. Furthermore, when the stimuli involved reading of continuous text, rather than discrete naming of target words, only the high-vocabulary readers drew inferences, which suggests that low-vocabulary readers are unlikely to make inferences in natural reading conditions.     

Building reading resilience: re-thinking reading for the literary studies classroom

This paper introduces the concept of ‘reading resilience’: students’ ability to read and interpret complex and demanding literary texts by drawing on advanced, engaged, critical reading skills. Reading resilience is a means for rethinking the place and pedagogies of close reading in the contemporary literary studies classroom. Our research was across four Australian universities and the first study of its kind in the Australian context. We trialled three working strategies to support students to become consistent and skilled readers, and to equip teachers with methods for coaching reading: ‘setting the scene’ for reading, surveying students on their reading experiences and habits, and rewarding reading within assessment. We argue that the nature and pedagogy of close reading has not been interrogated as much as it should be and that the building of reading resilience is less about modelling or outlining best practice for close reading (as has traditionally been thought) and more about deploying contextual, student-centred teaching and learning strategies around reading. The goal is to encourage students to develop a broad suite of skills and knowledge around reading that will equip them long term (for the university and beyond). We measured the effectiveness of our strategies through seeking formal and informal student feedback, and through students’ demonstration of skills and knowledge within assessment.     

Julia in Ricoeur's World

Student readers/writers need the opportunity to bring to literary texts the imaginative knowledge crucial for retelling the author's story (concretizing the author's schema) in order to complete the act of reading. Paul Ricoeur's analysis of reading as a three-fold mimesis as articulated in his multi-volume series Time and Narrative suggests the necessary role of the reader as implementer of the text. This essay looks in detail at one 'free response' essay written by Julia, a bicultural student fluent in Japanese and English as she makes sense for herself of Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon . Arguing for the necessarily heightened sensitivity and engagement of bicultural readers in questioning texts to make sense of both texts and life, this essay links Julia's writing about the novel with Ricoeur's theories and suggests a few principles for the teaching of literature in order to engage them in mimesis 3 as Ricoeur envisions the reader's role in the act of reading.     

Reading and spelling error analysis of native

This study was an investigation of reading and spelling errors of dyslexic Arabic readers (n=20) compared with two groups of normal readers: a young readers group, matched with the dyslexics by reading level (n=20) and an age-matched group (n=20). They were tested on reading and spelling of texts, isolated words and pseudowords. Two research questions were the focus of this study: What are the reading and spelling profile errors of dyslexic native Arabic speakers? What is the effect of the Arabic orthography on these types of errors? The results of the reading error analysis revealed a clear contribution of the uniqueness of the Arabic orthography to the types of errors made by the three different groups. In addition, the error profiles of the dyslexic readers were similar to the error profiles made by the younger reading-level-matched group in percentages and in quality. The most prominent types of errors were morphological and semiphonetic, which highlighted the contribution of the Arabic orthography to these types of errors. Consistently, the profile of the spelling errors was similar in percentages and quality among the dyslexics and the reading-level-matched group but different from the age-matched group on the spelling measures. The analysis of the spelling errors revealed that the dominant type of error was mostly phonetic due to the limited orthographic lexicon. In addition, the Arabic orthography also contributed to these types of errors because many spelling mistakes were made due to poor knowledge of the spelling rules. The results of the reading and spelling errors are discussed from a reading development point of view. Further, two models are suggested, one for reading and one for spelling, to illustrate the cognitive processes that underlie the reading and spelling mistakes in this type of orthography.     

Teaching comprehension and critical literacy: investigating guided reading in three primary classrooms

With the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy, England's primary school teachers were asked to replace “listening to children read”–a practice deeply embedded in UK pedagogy–with guided reading, a practice focused on interpretive and critical comprehension rather than accuracy and fluency. This small‐scale research project addresses the perceptions of the author's Primary B.Ed. student teachers that what goes on under the name of guided reading in the classrooms in which they undertake teaching practice does not do justice to the term. In particular, it examines the claim that fluent readers are still engaged in reading aloud, rather than being taught how to develop analytical strategies for comprehension and engage in collaborative dialogue to develop cognition and promote interpretive critical literacy. Using interpretive methodology, this small‐scale study examines episodes of guided reading in three case study classrooms. In each episode examined, although some form of group reading was conducted, there was no opportunity for children to read silently or engage in collaborative discussion, little teaching of inferential comprehension and none of evaluative strategies. The study reaches tentative rather than conclusive answers. These suggest that the effective teaching of guided reading depends both upon the understanding of its psychological underpinning, and also on the teacher's ability, through sharing responsibility for problem solving with the children, to build bridges between what is known and what is new.     

Phonological sensitivity in severely and profoundly deaf readers of French

In order to become expert readers of an alphabetical language like French, students must develop and adequately use phonological knowledge. Considering that the phonological knowledge used in reading largely comes from knowledge of the oral language, what happens when the oral language is not accessible, as is the case for many deaf children? In this study, graphophonemic and syllabic processes in pseudoword reading were assessed with a similarity judgment task. Gestual deaf subjects aged 10–18 years old (N = 24) were compared to 24 age-matched hearing subjects. The results show that deaf readers are less sensitive to the graphemic and the syllabic structures of pseudo-words than hearing readers. In deaf subjects, the results are different than chance-level in the 13–15 and the 16–18-year-old groups. These results indicate that gestual deaf readers can develop phonological knowledge even in settings where sign language is promoted.     

Reading as Experience: Literature,Response and Imagination

This article uses the findings from an empirical study on Hong Kong students’ reading practices as collected through face-to-face interviews on major university campuses in Hong Kong to argue for the importance of affective and imaginative engagement with literary texts if students are to develop an interest in reading. Until now, few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate the actual interaction between the text and student readers, especially in situations that go beyond the usual classroom contexts. This student-centred narrative inquiry, which is grounded in literary and language research, demonstrates that while the notion of relevance, in terms of students’ socio-cultural background and their own life experiences, has long been considered as a key factor in the choice of texts used in a literature classroom, it is important to recognize the creativity that is embedded in students’ reading processes.     

Eye movements reveal readers’ lexical quality and reading experience

Two experiments demonstrate that individual differences among normal adult readers, including lexical quality, are expressed in silent reading at the word level. In the first of two studies we identified major dimensions of variability among college readers and among words using factor analysis. We then examined the effects of these dimensions of variability on eye movements during paragraph reading. More experienced readers (who also were higher in reading speed) read words more quickly, especially less frequent words, while readers with higher lexical knowledge showed shorter early fixations, especially for more frequent words. These results suggest that individual differences in reading may reflect differences in the quality of lexical representations and in reading experience, which is a source of lexical quality. In a second study, we controlled the lexical knowledge readers obtained from new words through a training paradigm that varied exposure to a word’s orthographic, phonological, and meaning constituents. Training exposure to orthographic and phonological constituents affected first pass reading measures, and phonological and meaning training affected second pass measures. Incomplete knowledge of word components slowed first pass reading times, compared to both more complete knowledge and no knowledge. Training effects were mediated by individual differences, pointing to lexical quality and reading experience—which, combined reflect reading expertise—as important in word reading as part of text reading.     

Learning to Read and Learning to Teach Reading

The National Curriculum for Initial Teacher Education in English is specific and detailed about the knowledge expected of primary teachers. Shulman (1987) argued that teachers transform this sort of subject content knowledge into something accessible and meaningful to their pupils and this knowledge is described as ‘pedagogic content knowledge’. Medwell et al. (1998) found that effective literacy teachers only knew literacy in the way that they taught it. The research project underpinning this article aimed to explore student teachers' conceptions of the teaching of reading in order to find out what they thought they were teaching when they taught reading. It was thought that the personal reading histories of the students would impact on their developing conceptions of teaching reading. This article traces one student, Gordon, through the year of his PGCE course. In the form of dialogue between Gordon and the researcher developing understanding is articulated. Three different types of reading are described: decoding, making meaning and engaging. Reading is seen as a transformative process, where the reader is both within and outside the text. This has implications both for the conception of reading contained within the curriculum and the way it is implemented within the classroom. A teacher can only introduce children to experiences and ways of reading that are known to herself. It is argued, therefore, that student teachers need to extend the boundaries of their own reading and so appreciate the wide range of ways in which meaning is constructed and readers are created.