A comprehension intervention for children with reading comprehension difficulties

Abstract

Many students in Australian schools today experience difficulty understanding read text beyond Year 3 despite early intervention and rich learning experiences. Often the first indications that such students may have reading comprehension difficulties is from poor performance on comprehension tests in fourth grade. After Year 3 the written text becomes more complex and there is an increasing emphasis on reading comprehension. Less skilled comprehenders experience difficulties because they often use inefficient memory strategies and do not normally visualise story content. Readers with comprehension difficulties can be taught to construct mental imagery that will enable them to link verbal and imaginal information more efficiently into their working memory by reducing the cognitive load. The indications are that engaging readers in elaborative questioning and discussion of the text improves reader's own language and mental imagery as well as enhancing comprehension of read text. For readers who have struggled for years and have developed a resistance to reading, a literacy tutoring intervention framework that focuses on a personalised responsive relationship‐based approach to reading, combined with interesting text and student choice of appropriate material, can facilitate improved reading. The Comprehension of the Narrative intervention program is an example of a multiple strategy training intervention program that utilises explicit strategy instruction in a framework of measured stages while also increasing the level and complexity of the reading texts used. It has been shown that participating students are enabled to build on previously mastered skills and develop more effective higher order comprehension outcomes through focused dialogue with trained tutors.     

Predictive and concurrent relations between literacy skills in Grades 1 and 3: A longitudinal study of Italian children

A sample of 170 Italian children was assessed for reading accuracy, reading speed, text comprehension and spelling in Grades 1 and 3 in order to investigate the concurrent and longitudinal relationships among literacy skills. Main results from multivariate analyses (regression, discriminant and path analyses) indicated that reading speed was the best predictor of later literacy and that spelling was the most stable measure and influenced text comprehension and reading speed. An asymmetry was also observed in the longitudinal relationship between reading and spelling errors, with reading errors predicting later spelling errors and a non-significant result in the opposite direction.     

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.     

Adults With Poor Reading Skills and the Inferences They Make During Reading

Millions of U.S. adults lack the literacy skills needed for most living-wage jobs. We investigated one particular comprehension process for these adults: generating predictive inferences. If a sentence says that someone falls from a 14th-story roof, a reader should infer almost certain death. On any test of comprehension, there are two dependent variables: the speed of the response to a test item and accuracy. To address both simultaneously, we used a decision model that separates how much information an individual understands from a text and the individual’s speed/accuracy trade-off settings. We found that adult literacy students do differentiate between predictive inference sentences and control sentences, a finding that illustrates how a decision-making model combined with tests of particular comprehension processes can lead to further understanding of low-literacy adults’ reading skills.     

Characterizing Reading Comprehension of Mathematical Texts

This study compares reading comprehension of three different texts: two mathematical texts and one historical text. The two mathematical texts both present basic concepts of group theory, but one does it using mathematical symbols and the other only uses natural language. A total of 95 upper secondary and university students read one of the mathematical texts and the historical text. Before reading the texts, a test of prior knowledge for both mathematics and history was given and after reading each text, a test of reading comprehension was given. The results reveal a similarity in reading comprehension between the mathematical text without symbols and the historical text, and also a difference in reading comprehension between the two mathematical texts. This result suggests that mathematics in itself is not the most dominant aspect affecting the reading comprehension process, but the use of symbols in the text is a more relevant factor. Although the university students had studied more mathematics courses than the upper secondary students, there was only a small and insignificant difference between these groups regarding reading comprehension of the mathematical text with symbols. This finding suggests that there is a need for more explicit teaching of reading comprehension for texts including symbols.     

The role of two reading strategies in text comprehension: An eye fixation study in primary school children

This study examined whether 10–12‐year‐old children use two reading strategies to aid their text comprehension: (1) distinguishing between important and unimportant words; and (2) resolving anaphoric references. Of interest was the question to what extent use of these reading strategies was predictive of reading comprehension skill over and above decoding skill and vocabulary. Reading strategy use was examined by the recording of eye fixations on specific target words. In contrast to less successful comprehenders, more successful comprehenders invested more processing time in important than in unimportant words. On the other hand, they needed less time to determine the antecedent of an anaphor. The results suggest that more successful comprehenders build a more effective mental model of the text than less successful comprehenders in at least two ways. First, they allocate more attention to the incorporation of goal‐relevant than goal‐irrelevant information into the model. Second, they ascertain that the text model is coherent and richly connected.     

The relations among L1 (Spanish) literacy skills,L2 (English) language,L2 text reading fluency,and L2 reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking ELL first grade students

We investigated the relations of L2 (i.e., English) oral reading fluency, silent reading fluency, word reading automaticity, oral language skills, and L1 literacy skills (i.e., Spanish) to L2 reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking English language learners in the first grade (N = 150). An analysis was conducted for the entire sample as well as for skilled and less skilled word readers. Results showed that word reading automaticity was strongly related to oral and silent reading fluency, but oral language skill was not. This was the case not only for the entire sample but also for subsamples of skilled and less skilled word readers, which is a discrepant finding from a study with English-only children (Kim et al., 2011). With regard to the relations among L2 oral language, text reading fluency, word reading automaticity, reading comprehension, and L1 literacy skills, patterns of relations were similar for skilled versus less skilled word readers with oral reading fluency, but different with silent reading fluency. When oral and silent reading fluency were in the model simultaneously, oral reading fluency, but not silent reading fluency, was uniquely related to reading comprehension. Children's L1 literacy skill was not uniquely related to reading comprehension after accounting for other L2 language and literacy skills. These results are discussed in light of a developmental theory of text reading fluency.     

Simplifying informational text structure for struggling readers

Direct instruction of reading strategies, such as the ‘structure strategy’, is demonstrated to be effective for the development of more mature and skilled reading processes in struggling readers. This instructional intervention approach, aimed at directly improving reading ability, can be used in combination with text simplification. Text simplification is the modification of the text in order to make it more understandable or readable for target groups of readers. In this article, we discuss a theoretically-driven text simplification approach, inspired by cognitive models of reading comprehension. Differently from classical approaches to linguistic text simplification, the aim of cognitive text simplification is not simply to reduce the linguistic complexity of the text, but to improve text coherence and the structure of information in the text. This can be achieved by using rhetorical devices, like signaling or discourse markers, which specify relationships among ideas at a global level (macrostructural) and work as processing instructions for the reader, scaffolding reading comprehension. The goal of this paper is to discuss, in light of the literature, the effectiveness of these adaptations for improving struggling readers’ understanding and learning from informational texts.     

The effects of multimodal texts on science reading comprehension in Chilean fifth-graders: text scaffolding and comprehension skills

ABSTRACT

Reading comprehension is a crucial skill that elementary school students must develop in order to learn science. However, there is not yet enough research about the role that multimodal texts play in scaffolding student reading comprehension of complex scientific processes, such as energy transfer. This study explored how verbal and visual resources (scaffolding level) and individual differences (reading skills) contribute to science reading comprehension. One-hundred and sixty Chilean fifth-graders were assessed on reading skills, vocabulary, and prior science knowledge. A counterbalanced design was used to test two groups: Group 1 reads a text with low multimodal scaffolding and Group 2 reads a text with high multimodal scaffolding. Level of text scaffolding was determined by (1) image function, (2) visual-verbal relations, (3) presence of an explicit explanatory structure, and (4) lexico-grammatical resources. General monomodal and multimodal science reading comprehension were assessed with multiple-choice tests. An ANCOVA analysis revealed non-significant differences between groups after controlling for prior knowledge, fluency, and vocabulary. Likewise, a two-factor ANCOVA analysis showed that the high-multimodal scaffolding text significantly boosted science reading comprehension for low-skilled comprehenders. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for pedagogy and research, aiming to foster multimodal literacy for learning in content areas.     

Effects of text-belief consistency and reading task on the strategic validation of multiple texts

In the comprehension of multiple controversial scientific texts, readers with strong prior beliefs tend to construct a one-sided mental representation that is biased towards belief-consistent information. In the present study, we examined whether an argument in contrast to a summary task instruction can increase the resource allocation to and strategic validation of belief-inconsistent information which should be positively related to comprehension. Undergraduate students read one belief-consistent and one belief-inconsistent text about a controversial scientific issue either with an argument or a summary task instruction. The use of strategic validation and memorization strategies was assessed with think-aloud protocols, and a verification task was used to investigate comprehension outcomes. As predicted, readers following a summary task read belief-consistent information longer and used more memorization strategies for such information. Readers following an argument task spent similar time reading both text types and used more validation strategies when reading the belief-inconsistent text. In addition, the use of strategic validation during reading the belief-inconsistent text improved comprehension for this text type but hindered the comprehension of the belief-consistent text.     

The efficacy of reciprocal teaching in fostering the reading literacy of students with intellectual disabilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of strategy instruction on the reading literacy of students with mild and moderate intellectual disability. Students aged 15–21 with intellectual disability (n=35) participated in 24 sessions of literacy strategy instruction (experimental condition) or remedial literacy‐skill acquisition‐ lessons (control condition). The main objective of strategy instruction was to foster comprehension monitoring. Through shared dialogues, students were trained to generate questions about text, to summarise what was read, to clarify difficult words and to make predictions. The strategies were taught using the reciprocal teaching method developed by Palincsar and Brown. This method involves provision of support adjusted to students’ difficulties and peer teaching of strategies. Control subjects were exposed to direct instruction of basic reading skills that were presented sequentially and practiced solitarily by the students. Opportunities were given to respond to questions and to summarise but no strategy instruction was provided to foster comprehension monitoring. Two different measures of comprehension and a measure of strategy use were administered to test for variation across different methods of instruction. Findings on all measures provide support for the claim that strategy instruction is indeed superior to traditional remedial methods of skill acquisition in fostering reading literacy comprehension. These findings challenge the common perception that literacy is an organic impossibility for people defined as intellectually disabled. Moreover, the results add to recent research in sociocognitive instruction that supports the need to modify prevailing methods of reading curriculum and suggests a reconceptualisation of the comprehension process and its instruction to students with intellectual disabilities.     

Word reading and word spelling in French adult literacy students: the relationship with oral language skills

We analysed word reading and spelling in French adults with low levels of literacy (A‐IL). As well as examining phonological and lexical processes, we explored the relationship between literacy and oral language skills. Fifty‐two adult literacy students were compared with reading level‐matched pupils in Years 1–3 of primary school on reading tasks (pseudoword reading, word reading, text comprehension), spelling tasks (pseudoword spelling, text dictation) and oral language tasks. A‐IL scored the same as children on word reading and spelling but less well on pseudoword reading and spelling. They also produced fewer phonologically acceptable errors in the dictation. Regarding oral language skills, as a group A‐IL encountered greater difficulty in phonology than in morphosyntax and semantics, and correlations revealed strong relationships between literacy levels and oral skills, particularly in the domain of phonology. Within their group, however, A‐IL displayed several distinct language profiles. These could reflect different risk factors leading to functional illiteracy and are discussed regarding the cognitive and environmental causes of impaired reading acquisition.     

PISA2018阅读素养测评:内在架构、导向特征及对我国的启示

基于现代阅读认知理论,国际学生评估项目(PISA)以读者、 文本和任务为核心要素构建阅读素养框架,PISA2018的最新修订更是充分彰显了其促进学生未来发展的主旨,顺应数字信息化时代的努力以及强调在真实场景下对学生运用阅读认知策略解决实际问题能力的考查等导向特征.以其为鉴,我国阅读教学需拓展国际视野,实现从关注"阅读技...     

Vocabulary Is Important for Some,but Not All Reading Skills

Although there is evidence for a close link between the development of oral vocabulary and reading comprehension, less clear is whether oral vocabulary skills relate to the development of word-level reading skills. This study investigated vocabulary and literacy in 81 children aged 8 to 10 years. In regression analyses, vocabulary accounted for unique variance in exception word reading and reading comprehension, but not text reading accuracy, decoding, or regular word reading. Consistent with these data, children with poor reading comprehension exhibited oral vocabulary weaknesses and read fewer exception words correctly. These findings demonstrate that oral vocabulary is associated with some, but not all, reading skills. Results are discussed in terms of current models of reading development.     

国外语篇理解的推理研究述略

推理是语篇中没有明确提到却被激活的信息,或从语篇已知的语义信息中产生新语义信息的过程。对推理的研究一直是语篇阅读理解研究关键。通过从国外语篇推理研究的三个阶段、语篇理解中推理的分类以及语篇理解的推理理论与模型三个方面对国外语篇理解中的推理研究进行总结、回顾和探讨,希望有助于对语篇阅读理解的研究。     

Individual and developmental differences in reading monitoring: When and how do children evaluate their comprehension?

This paper examines evaluation in reading. Evaluation refers to the processes by which readers monitor their ongoing text comprehension to assess performance and task difficulties. Monitoring is assumed to explain a large proportion of individual differences in text comprehension, in that individuals need to be aware of their objectives and difficulties in order to adjust their strategies to match task requirements. The participants were French children in grades 3 and 5. Study 1 examined their evaluation-related knowledge (i.e., knowledge about reading objectives, sources of difficulties, comprehension awareness). Study 2 examined the children’s actual evaluation behavior during a comprehension task. The results showed that few children provided elaborate verbalizable knowledge about reading tasks, goals and corresponding skills, and that in most cases the children were highly confident in their responses to text comprehension questions, regardless of the correctness of their answer. The contribution of metalinguistic awareness to literacy acquisition as well as the implications of this type of study for educational practice are discussed.     

Student Team Reading and Writing: A Cooperative Learning Approach to Middle School Literacy Instruction

The goal of this project was to create a middle school literacy program that was more responsive to the needs and abilities of early adolescents in urban middle schools. The program components included: (a) cooperative learning classroom processes; (b) a literature anthology for high interest reading material; (c) explicit instruction in reading comprehension; (e) integrated reading, writing, and language arts instruction; and (f) a writing process approach to language arts. The study was conducted in 5 schools in a large urban school district, 2 implementing Student Team Reading and Writing (STRW) and 3 comparison schools. The results indicated that the students in STRW had significantly higher achievement in reading vocabulary, reading comprehension, and language expression. The results suggest that a multifaceted approach to restructuring can effectively improve the achievement of students in urban middle schools.     

Impact of text availability and question format on reading comprehension processes

We conducted two experiments to analyze how text availability and question format affect readers’ processes and performance on measures of expository text reading comprehension. Junior high school students read expository texts and answered both multiple choice and open-ended questions on a computer that recorded reading times and readers’ actions with Read&Answer software. The results showed that readers reread prior text segments during initial reading of the text more often when they knew that the text would be unavailable when answering questions than when they knew that the text would be available. In addition, readers made more search decisions in the text- available condition when answering open-ended questions than when answering multiple-choice questions. Regarding performance, we repeatedly found an interaction effect between availability and question format: text availability benefited the open-ended but not the multiple-choice format. We concluded that the two availability conditions are useful in assessing different discourse processes. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for the development of models of reading and new ways to assess reading literacy skills that emphasize purposeful reading.     

语篇与英语阅读教学

阅读是一个复杂的心理语言活动过程，是作、语言信息和读三方面共同作用的结果。阅读理解实际上是一个人的概念能力、背景知识和加工策略三之间相互作用的结果。语篇阅读教学的目的是把阅读材料的感知输入转化为对阅读材料的最佳理解过程。章阐述了语篇语言学的四种理论模式，分析了三种语篇阅读的推理模式，并提出了语篇阅读的具体处理过程和方法。     

The Role of Executive Functions in Reading Comprehension

Our goal in this paper is to understand the extent to which, and under what conditions, executive functions (EFs) play a role in reading comprehension processes. We begin with a brief review of core components of EF (inhibition, shifting, and updating) and reading comprehension. We then discuss the status of EFs in process models of reading comprehension. Next, we review and synthesize empirical evidence in the extant literature for the involvement of core components of EF in reading comprehension processes under different reading conditions and across different populations. In conclusion, we propose that EFs may help explain complex interactions between the reader, the text, and the discourse situation, and call for both existing and future models of reading comprehension to include EFs as explicit components.