Examining reading comprehension text and question answering time differences in university students with and without a history of reading difficulties

The current study aimed to examine performance times during text reading and question answering of students with and without a history of reading difficulties. Forty-three university students with a history of reading difficulties (HRD) were compared to 124 university students without a history of reading difficulties on measures of word and nonword reading rate, text reading rate and comprehension, and question answering times. Results showed that students with HRD demonstrated slower word, nonword, and text reading rates than their peers, but had comparable reading comprehension scores. Results also showed that students with HRD took longer to answer specific types of questions even when reading rate was controlled. Specifically, when word reading rate was controlled, students with HRD took longer to answer vocabulary, literal, inferential, and background knowledge questions. When text reading rate was controlled, they still took longer to answer literal, inferential, and background knowledge questions. These results suggest that students with a history of reading difficulties require extra time to complete reading comprehension measures for reasons other than just slower word and text reading rate. Findings of this study have implications for supporting university students with a history of reading difficulties.     

How do people read the passages during a reading comprehension test? The effect of reading purpose on text processing behavior

In this study, we investigate the effect of reading purpose on students’ processing behavior during a reading comprehension test. In a repeated measures design, sixty undergraduates answered multiple-choice (MC) reading comprehension questions in a condition with no overarching goal for reading and in an alternate condition where the same students were first provided with the goal of summarizing the text before answering MC questions. Results from eye tracking analysis showed that when students read and answered questions without an overarching goal, they spent much less time reading the passages before answering the questions, more time re-reading the texts while answering the questions, and more time on parts of the text that were not necessary to answer the questions. We conclude that providing examinees without an explicit goal for reading may inadvertently encourage a “search for the answer” reading process, rather than on building a coherent mental model of text content.     

Using Informational and Narrative Picture Walks to Promote Student-Generated Questions

The purpose of this article is to explore the use of picture walks in narrative and informational text as a method to encourage question generation. This article overviews the instructional benefits of having students generate their own questions before, during, and after reading. Featured are two classrooms where students pose questions through narrative and informational text features.     

Impact of question-answering tasks on search processes and reading comprehension

This study examined the effect of (a) high- and low-level questions and (b) reading the text before the questions asked on performance, delayed text recall, and deep text comprehension, as well as on specific text-inspection patterns. Participants were 37 undergraduate students who answered either high- or low-level questions using the software Read&Answer to read and answer questions on the computer screen. Additionally, half of the sample read first a text and then answered the questions (reading-first condition), whereas the other half answered the questions without having read the text in advance (no-reading-first condition). All participants had the text available to search for the answer. Results indicated that high-level questions facilitated deep comprehension but not immediate performance or delayed recall of text, independently of the reading condition, and that high- and low-level questions differentially affected text-inspection patterns.     

文学文本如何与读者对话——兼谈张若虚《春江花月夜》的阅读

文学文本也是主体性的存在,具有潜在的对话性,它从多种层次和角度不断地发出自己的声音,它执着地期待着阅读主体的应答和追问。     

The limited benefits of rereading educational texts

Though rereading is a study method commonly used by students, theoretical disagreement exists regarding whether rereading a text significantly enhances the representation and retention of the text’s contents. In four experiments, we evaluated the effectiveness of rereading relative to a single reading in a context paralleling that faced by students in the classroom. Participants read educational texts (textbook chapters or a Scientific American article) under intentional learning instructions. Learning and memory were tested with educationally relevant summative assessments (multiple choice, short-answer questions, and text summaries). With only several exceptions, rereading did not significantly increase performance on the assessments. We also found that reading comprehension ability did not alter this pattern. It appears that when using ecologically valid materials such as a textbook chapter, immediate rereading may have little or no benefit for improving performance on educationally relevant summative assessments.     

Exploring the effect of background knowledge and text cohesion on learning from texts in computer science

In this study, we examine the effect of background knowledge and local cohesion on learning from texts. The study is based on construction–integration model. Participants were 176 undergraduate students who read a Computer Science text. Half of the participants read a text of maximum local cohesion and the other a text of minimum local cohesion. Afterwards, they answered open-ended and multiple-choice versions of text-based, bridging-inference and elaborative-inference questions. The results showed that students with high background knowledge, reading the low-cohesion text, performed better in bridging-inference and in elaborative-inference questions, than those who read the high-cohesion text. Students with low background knowledge, reading the high-cohesion text, performed better in all types of questions than students reading the low-cohesion text only in elaborative-inference questions. The performance with open-ended and multiple-choice questions was similar, indicating that this type of question is more difficult to answer, regardless of the question format.     

Preschool teachers’ literal and inferential questions and children's responses during whole-class shared reading

This study examined the extent to which preschool teachers used literal and inferential questions during classroom-based shared reading. Specific foci included (a) investigating the association among the level of literal or inferential language in the text, teachers’ text-related questions, and children's responses using sequential analysis, and (b) examining the relation between teachers’ inferential questioning and children's vocabulary outcomes. Participants included 25 preschool teachers and 159 four-year-old children. Teachers videotaped their whole-class shared reading of an informational narrative text. Teachers and children's extratextual talk was analyzed and children completed standardized vocabulary assessments in fall and spring of the academic year. When reading this informational narrative text, teachers posed, on average, slightly more inferential questions than literal questions. Significant sequential associations were observed between the level of teachers’ questions and child responses, with inferential questions consistently eliciting inferential child responses. Few characteristics of teachers’ questions were associated with children's vocabulary outcomes. Results suggest that preschool teachers can use inferential questioning to encourage children to participate in conversation at complex, inferential levels; informational texts appear to provide a successful context for this inferential discourse. Implications for teachers and allied professionals are discussed.     

Improving advanced reading comprehension in a foreign language: summaries vs. short-answer questions

Summarizing appears to be an activity well suited to sensitizing advanced foreign language readers to the inner workings of a text and weaning them away from word-to-word decoding. Indeed, recent research has emphasized the importance of summarizing as an aid to reading comprehension (Cohen, 1987; Bernhardt, 1986; Brown et al., 1981). We were interested in using summary writing as a tool in promoting reading comprehension and hypothesized that students who gained practice in extracting the main points of a text would become more effective readers. The main purpose of the study was to determine whether the comprehension of students who were trained to summarize improved more than that of students who responded to short-answer questions. The researchers, who teach EFL (English as a foreign language) at Haifa University, taught 6 classes totalling 179 students. Three classes summarized 10 academic texts of general interest, while the other three classes answered short-answer questions on the same texts. At the same time we collected information on the students’ background in order to identify possible non-linguistic factors that may affect reading comprehension. Since the reading comprehension of all the classes improved significantly, it was not possible to say that either summarizing or the answering of questions was a major cause of this improvement. However, results suggest that writing summaries helped students read more efficiently. Results of MANOVA pointed to the conjoint effects of three factors: task (summary vs. short-answer questions), gender (male vs. female), and native language (Hebrew vs. Arabic). Perhaps the most interesting finding is that classroom discussion in which students negotiated the scoring key of both summaries and responses to short-answer questions (after handing in assignments) proved to be extremely valuable. This negotiation motivated students to become intensely involved with the text and more critical of their own responses.     

Effect of a Combined Repeated Reading and Question Generation Intervention on Reading Achievement

Research was conducted to ascertain if a combined repeated reading and question generation intervention was effective at improving the reading achievement of fourth through eighth grade students with learning disabilities or who were at risk for reading failure. Students were assigned to a treatment or control group via a stratified random sampling. Instructional components and training were based on best practices reported in the literature. Students receiving intervention significantly improved their reading speed and ability to answer inferential comprehension questions on passages that were reread. Compared to the control group, students in the intervention group also made significant gains in oral reading fluency on independent passages.     

The role of background knowledge in text comprehension for children learning English as an additional language

Children learning English as an additional language (EAL) often experience difficulties with reading comprehension relative to their monolingual peers. While low levels of vocabulary appear to be one factor underlying these difficulties, other factors such as a relative lack of appropriate background knowledge may also contribute. Sixteen children learning EAL and 16 of their monolingual peers, matched for word reading accuracy, were assessed using a standard measure of reading comprehension and an experimental measure of reading comprehension for which relevant background knowledge was taught before assessing understanding. Tests of receptive and expressive vocabulary were also completed. Results confirmed lower levels of reading comprehension for children learning EAL for both standard and ‘background’ controlled measures. Analysis of comprehension by question type on the experimental measure showed that while both groups made use of taught knowledge to answer inferential questions, children learning EAL had specific difficulties with both literal questions and questions requiring the interpretation of a simile. It is suggested that relevant background information should be used to facilitate children's text comprehension. Furthermore, several factors, especially vocabulary differences, but also text search strategies, context use and comprehension monitoring skills, may contribute to the comprehension difficulties experienced by children learning EAL.     

The Effects of Retelling Upon Reading Comprehension and Recall of Text Information

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of retelling (free recall) upon the comprehension and recall of text information for 93 fourth-grade students. Subjects were assigned randomly to one of two generative learning strategy treatment conditions: retelling or illustrating. Subjects participated in four training sessions and one test session. For each of the four training sessions subjects silently read a passage and then, according to treatment condition, either retold the important parts of the passage or illustrated the important parts of the passage. For the test passage all subjects silently read the passage, and then rendered a free recall. Two days later all subjects rendered a delayed free recall and answered 10 literal and 10 inferential questions about the test passage. Statistically significant differences were found on all measures of reading comprehension and recall (immediate free recall, two-day delayed free recall, and responses to literal and inferential questions) in favor of the subjects who received practice in retelling. The results suggest that retelling is a highly potent generative learning strategy and that retelling has direct, beneficial consequences for children's processing of subsequent text.     

A STUDY ON ENGLISH READING PROFICIENCY OF STUDENTS IN COLLEGE

The study attempted to investigate the mean level of the participants' reading proficiency and identify what levels of reading comprehension questions (literal,reorganization and inferential)the participants are able to answer. A written reading comprehension test wag administered. The participants consisted of 45 students enrolled in college English class. The data obtained from a written reading comprehension test,a background questionnaire,and a structured interview which was analyzed by using SPSS. The results indicated that the participants' mean level of reading proficiency Was below the standard.     

Looking back: reasoning and metacognition with narrative texts

This study explored the abilities of 5th, 8th, and 10th graders, and College students to reason logically about what they read. Both students’ metacognitive behavior (looking back at previously read text) and their performance on logical deduction questions were recorded and analyzed in a reading task. Conditional logic premises and deductive questions were embedded in three narratives containing premise information that was factual (True Story), contrary to fact (False Story), or unverifiable via common world knowledge (Neutral Story). The texts and questions were presented one sentence at a time on a computer screen; participants controlled the presentation of sentences. For answering the questions, three response tasks were devised. One task (labeled Generate) required readers to generate their own logical conclusions in response to deduction questions. Two tasks (labeled Valid and Invalid) required readers to evaluate logically valid or logically invalid conclusions drawn by story characters in the texts. Students in early and late adolescence looked back more when asked to evaluate logical conclusions than when asked to generate conclusions on their own; College students’ lookback frequencies were not significantly affected by response task, but were greater overall than those of younger students. With conditional forms requiring an uncertainty response (Affirmed Consequent and Denied Antecedent), readers looked back more when evaluating logically invalid conclusions than when evaluating logically valid ones. Readers of all ages were more likely to agree with story characters’ (valid) uncertain conclusions with the AC and DA forms than they were to disagree with story characters’ (invalid) certain conclusions to these forms. Both lookback frequency and performance on logic questions were lowest when readers were required to reason from contrary to fact premises.     

Role of epistemological understanding and interest in interpreting a controversy and in topic-specific belief change

This study focuses on the influence of high school students’ (10th and 11th grade) epistemological understanding and topic interest on their interpretation of a dual-position expository text about genetically modified food, as well as on the change in their beliefs about the topic. After reading, students were given different tasks: (1) to write a conclusion for the text, which presented two opposing positions but lacked an overall concluding paragraph, (2) to write personal comments on the text, (3) to answer questions on conceptual understanding, and (4) to rate their interest in the text. Participants were also asked to rate their beliefs about transgenic food before and after reading the text. The findings show the effects of students’ level of epistemological understanding when writing conclusions to the text, and commenting on (a) the role of science and scientists’ work with respect to nature, (b) the need for further scientific investigation, and (c) the effective value of transgenic food production. Students’ topic interest affected their answers to the questions on the text arguments and their text-based interest. In addition, after reading, a change emerged in students’ beliefs about the topic in relation to their epistemological understanding.     

Self-questioning and prose comprehension : A sample case of ESL reading

An experiment was conducted to find out if self-questioning as a reading strategy would help improve comprehension of prose texts in English, a second language for Filipinos. Following a pretest-posttest design, students enrolled in Developmental Reading were randomly assigned to the control group, which read the assigned text, and the experimental group, which used self-questioning as a reading strategy. The control and experimental groups took the same test in the pretest and posttest and their performances were compared. Overall, the experiment showed that self-questioning did not have a significant effect on comprehension of a prose text in English. Although results showed that verbal ability was a factor in the ability to generate questions, the type and number of questions asked were not significant factors in test performance. The cultural background of the participants, time constraints, the method of comprehension evaluation used by the study, and the nature and duration of question-formulation training could all help to explain the results achieved. This study was made possible with funds from URCO (DLSU-Manila).     

Using Prompt Fading to Teach Self‐Questioning to Fifth Graders with LD: Effects on Reading Comprehension

Students with LD who struggle with reading comprehension can benefit from instruction on how to read strategically. One strategy that has been demonstrated to increase reading comprehension is self‐questioning. In this study, two fifth graders with LD were taught to self‐generate questions using a prompt fading procedure. The participants were provided with expository reading passages with embedded questions. As each participant demonstrated proficiency with answering the embedded questions correctly, the embedded questions were systematically faded and replaced with a prompt for the students to generate their own questions. A multiple baseline across participants design demonstrated that the self‐questioning intervention resulted in improvements in reading comprehension for both students. Additionally, the students demonstrated evidence of maintenance and generalization of reading comprehension outcomes.     

The role of feedback in e-assessments for engineering education

The aim of this investigation was to compare two differently designed e-assessments (formative assessments) which supported the same engineering courses for two academic years. In this investigation two group of students participated (Control Group: CG and Experimental Group: EG). The teachers followed exactly the same teaching approach using the same learning tools (apart from the e-assessments) in the same learning environment. The first group of students (CG) had the opportunity to timely receive grades along with the correct answers, when they submitted the e-assessments on-line. The teachers themselves designed these e-assessments in BlackBoard Vista© learning environment. The second group of students (EG) had the opportunity to receive feedback each on their own individual responses having unlimited attempts to participate in the e-assessments designed by PhD students. We will demonstrate that the addition of individual feedback and the unlimited attempts increased the EG group performance at the end of the courses (summative assessment) in comparison to the CG group of students.     

提高现代文阅读教学效率的探讨

现代文阅读教学是语文教学的重要组成部分。要提高现代文阅读教学效率,应重视培养学生良好的阅读习惯和科学和学习方法。具体可从四个方面着手：１．引导学按整体性原则来理解文章;２．引导学生根据生活的阅历来理解文章;３．引导学生用已有的知识来理解文章;４．引导学生培养归纳总结解堤技巧的能力。     

Metacognition,comprehension monitoring,and the adult reader

This article provides an overview and synthesis of the current literature on metacognition and comprehension monitoring among adult readers. It is organized around three major research questions: (1) How do adults conceptualize their own comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities? (2) How effectively do adults evaluate and regulate their ongoing efforts to understand? (3) How successfully do adults assess the final products of their comprehension efforts? Cutting across these broad issues are questions concerning metacognitive differences as a function of reading ability, academic success, domain expertise, developmental level, and task variables. The research reveals that adults' conceptions of how they comprehend and how they monitor their comprehension are quite variable. In general, those who have more expertise, who are better readers, and who are more successful students seem to have greater awareness and control of their own cognitive activities while reading. The research also reveals that adults evaluate and regulate their ongoing efforts to understand, although there is considerable room for improvement in these skills. Finally, the research shows that adults are remarkably unsuccessful at assessing how well they have comprehended a text and whether or not they are ready to take a test on the material. The article closes with a discussion of recent intervention efforts aimed at enhancing the metacognitive skills of adult readers.