The Efficacy of Multimedia Stories in Preschoolers’ Explicit and Implicit Story Comprehension

Oral language provides a foundation for reading comprehension. Story comprehension is a fundamental oral language skill; it covers making inferences, identifying main ideas, monitoring, perspective-taking, and applying working memory capacity. Complex reasoning and perspective-taking are key factors in deep reading comprehension. Preliterate children’s deeper story comprehension skills can be initial indicators of their later reading comprehension. Thus, the purpose of this research is to investigate preliterate preschool children’s story comprehension skills in detail. This study focuses on the additional multimedia features of digital storybooks and whether they hinder or promote young children’s explicit and implicit comprehension in a small group reading activity. The findings revealed that (a) children in the multimedia-enhanced storybook group outperformed the print storybook group in terms of both explicit and implicit story comprehension, (b) explicit story comprehension was higher than implicit story comprehension for both groups, and (c) the children recalled significantly more story elements and the length of the story retellings was greater with the aid of animated illustrations. The findings indicate that a digital storybook provides close temporal contiguity of text and visuals and may enhance story understanding by concretizing the narration. The study provides evidence that multimedia stories can foster children’s implicit story comprehension and inferential thinking about the content of the story.     

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.     

Going beyond the author: what retellings tell us about comprehending narrative and expository texts

This research examines the nature of comprehended meanings that do not match those of the author. These meanings were generated by two groups of fourth graders after reading a narrative or expository text. Readers read their respective texts aloud, followed by a recall and probes. Reading behaviours were examined to establish that processing difficulties did not significantly impact reader comprehension. Retold clauses that did not match those in the text were classified using a retelling taxonomy: substitution, addition, summary, conflict, rearrangement, omission. It was discovered that both groups of readers went beyond the information given, approximately 18 per cent of the time for the narration and 59 per cent of the time for the exposition. Additionally, the profiles of this information varied between the two groups. Narrative retellings contained a high percentage of conflicts, with very few substitutions, summaries or rearrangement of ideas. In contrast, expository retellings had significant numbers of substitutions and summaries, with fewer additions and rearrangements. It is hypothesised that reader background knowledge accounted for the variation in the retelling profiles and that this background facilitated as well as inhibited understanding. Given such variation even among these proficient readers, teachers not only need to help students develop background knowledge related to the text, but also encourage readers to cross‐check their understandings with the text. Interestingly, this cross‐checking is especially needed when there is an alignment between reader background and text content.     

Understanding readers' differing understandings

This research examines the characteristics of reader understandings that vary from those stated in the text. Eighty‐seven fourth graders orally read complex academic literary and scientific texts, followed by probed retellings. Retold ideas not directly supported by, or reflective of, the texts were identified. These differing understandings served as a foundation for the development of a taxonomy that classified them by type: conflation, conceptual knowledge, text/rhetorical structure, lexical knowledge, cause/effect, extension, association and misremembering. Approximately 60% of the differing understandings across the texts were conflations and extensions. However, particular texts did reflect particular types of differing understandings. In general, differing understandings were found to be reflective of the very active nature of the comprehension process. These meanings serve as a challenge to the current emphasis on close reading and the generation of text‐based meanings because the natural consequence of such activity are differing understandings.     

综合英语教学中语篇分析模式的尝试性应用

将语篇分析运用于综合英语教学,不仅教会学生词句知识,而且使学生掌握整个语篇的结构及其语篇意图,从而在语篇层面上提高其阅读和写作能力。从语篇角度出发,结合实例探讨如何将语篇分析应用在综合英语教学中。     

大学英语精读教学中的篇章教学途径

在英语精读教学中采用篇章教学途径,可以避免传统教学的不足,帮助学生全面、整体、透彻地理解文章,掌握篇章结构和意图,更好地记忆大量语言材料,提高阅读能力。     

大学英语精读教学中的篇章教学途径

在英语精读教学中采用篇章教学途径,可以避免传统教学的不足,帮助学生全面、整体、透彻地理解文章,掌握篇章结构和意图,更好地记忆大量语言材料,提高阅读能力.     

Reciprocal peer tutoring and repeated reading: Increasing practicality using student groups

Previous research has investigated the efficacy of peer‐mediated repeated reading (RR) interventions carried out by student dyads. This research extends the existing research by investigating the impact of RR on oral reading fluency and comprehension when carried out by a teacher in small groups of fourth‐grade students. Outcomes were analyzed using a multiple baseline single case design across groups in addition to supplementary analyses (dual level and trend criteria, percentage of non‐overlapping data, class box plots). Visual analysis of results indicated that RR was effective in improving levels of reading fluency and reading comprehension skills of four targeted students as well as classwide performance in fluency and comprehension. Acceptability ratings showed that the small group format was easy to implement and acceptable to the teacher and students. Despite positive findings, RR may need to be supplemented by other instructional and practice strategies to promote consistent and comprehensive changes beyond fluency. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

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.     

Transfer of a Listening Comprehension Strategy to Independent Reading in First-Grade Students

Instruction in narrative text structure on first graders' listening and reading comprehension was examined with a view to documenting strategy instruction and transfer of learning in beginning readers. Of interest was whether or not first-grade students (n=35) would, following instruction within the context of listening to stories, gain in listening comprehension and transfer this knowledge to support reading comprehension. A comparison group (n=31) received basal activities including listening to and reading stories. Results support teaching text structure concepts to beginning readers. At post-test, the intervention group demonstrated significantly higher listening comprehension, but not free recall, than the comparison group. Persistent group differences were found for reading comprehension. Intervention group students demonstrated superior comprehension in relation to all story elements and more frequently displayed metalinguistic awareness of text structure by labeling and giving examples of story structure concepts.     

Students’ genre expectations and the effects of text cohesion on reading comprehension

This study raises the question what makes school texts comprehensible by analyzing whether students’ genre expectations about literary or expository texts moderate the impact of different forms of text cohesion on reading comprehension, even when the texts are similar regarding their genre. 754 students (Grade 9) from comprehensive schools read one of four text versions with similar content, but different degrees of local and global text cohesion. The four more or less cohesive texts were introduced as literary texts (part of a story) or as expository texts (newspaper article), although the different genres were only purported and the texts contained both literary and expository passages. Reading comprehension was assessed with multiple-choice-items, semi-open, and open-ended questions. Results demonstrate that global cohesion was profitable for reading comprehension with expository expectations, but not with literary ones. Local text cohesion and both forms of cohesion in combination did not interact with students’ genre expectations and had no main effect on comprehension. When students reading skills and prior knowledge were considered, the interaction was still apparent. Moreover, students with lower levels of reading skills tended to profit especially from texts with global cohesion, whereas the readers with higher reading skills achieved equal means in reading comprehension irrespective of the degree of global text cohesion. The findings are discussed with respect to theoretical aspects of text–reader-interactions, cognitive and emotional components of genre expectations, and the composition and instruction of comprehensible school texts.     

Does Text Complexity Matter in the Elementary Grades? A Research Synthesis of Text Difficulty and Elementary Students’ Reading Fluency and Comprehension

Prompted by the advent of new standards for increased text complexity in elementary classrooms in the USA, the current integrative review investigates the relationships between the level of text difficulty and elementary students’ reading fluency and reading comprehension. After application of content and methodological criteria, a total of 26 research studies were reviewed. Characteristics of the reviewed studies are reported including the different conceptualizations of text, reader, and task interactions. Regarding the relationships between text difficulty and reading fluency and comprehension, for students’ reading fluency, on average, increased text difficulty level was related to decreased reading fluency, with a small number of exceptions. For comprehension, on average, text difficulty level was negatively related to reading comprehension, although a few studies found no relationship. Text difficulty was widely conceptualized across studies and included characteristics particular to texts as well as relationships between readers and texts. Implications for theory, policy, curriculum, and instruction are discussed.     

Differences in reading strategies among 7 to 8 year old children

In the theoretical context of compensatory processing, the research studied the syntactic, semantic and grapho-phonic miscues made by groups of first year Junior school pupils of high, average and low reading attainments. 60 children aged between 7.5 and 8.5 years of age were asked to read aloud passages from the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability. All miscues were recorded and scored. Analyses of variance were then performed on these scores at two levels of text complexity. Reading attainment and sex were used as independent variables to test specified hypotheses related to miscue quality. The high reading attainment group typically made better quality syntactic, semantic and grapho-phonic miscues at the lower level of text complexity. Passage complexity affected the ability of some children to make effective use of syntactic and semantic cues. As text complexity increased, the miscue quality of high and above average reading attainment groups deteriorated. Higher scores on a word recognition reading test were significantly related to effective use of grapho-phonic miscues, but not to the use of syntactic and semantic cues, in reading material from more demanding texts. Limitations in the methodology used and suggestions for future work are discussed.     

Prior knowledge,reading skill,and text cohesion in the comprehension of science texts

This study examined how text features (i.e., cohesion) and individual differences (i.e., reading skill and prior knowledge) contribute to biology text comprehension. College students with low and high levels of biology knowledge read two biology texts, one of which was high in cohesion and the other low in cohesion. The two groups were similar in reading skill. Participants' text comprehension was assessed with open-ended comprehension questions that measure different levels of comprehension (i.e., text-based, local-bridging, global-bridging). Results indicated: (a) reading a high-cohesion text improved text-based comprehension; (b) overall comprehension was positively correlated with participants' prior knowledge, and (c) the degree to which participants benefited from reading a high-cohesion text depended on participants' reading skill, such that skilled participants gained more from high-cohesion text.     

Schema effects in EFL reading comprehension

Schemata are known to play an important a role in reading comprehension. Comprehension is seen as the interaction between top-down processing from activated schemata and bottom-up processing from concepts expressed by the text. If readers activate an inappropriate schema, they may miss the meaning of the text. The present study examines the effects of faulty schemata on reading comprehension. At the end of an advanced English reading course at Haifa University, a test of reading comprehension was administered to 125 students. One section of the test contained an advanced level text about love and marriage, a text close to the personal experience of the examinees. Using dictionaries, students translated expressions and sentences and answered short-answer comprehension questions in English. Results indicated that 23% of the wrong answers to the comprehension questions were driven by schemata which differed substantially from the actual content of the text.     

Accuracy and Fluency in List and Context Reading of Skilled and RD Groups: Absolute and Relative Performance Levels

The purpose of this study was to examine (1) the performance levels and the magnitude of performance difference between students with reading disabilities (RD) and skilled readers when reading a typical classroom text; (2) the hypothesis that students with RD have specific difficulty using context in such a way that reading fluency is affected; and (3) whether RD subtypes may be differentiated according to performance on contextual and context‐free reading tasks. Two groups of fourth graders (85 skilled readers and 24 students with RD) completed a standardized test of reading comprehension, read aloud a folktale, and read aloud the folktale's words in a randomly sequenced list. Performance was scored as correct rate and percentage correct. Based on the number of words per idea unit in the passage, we also estimated the rate at which reader groups encountered and processed text ideas. Compared to the RD group, skilled readers read three times more correct words per minute in context, and showed higher accuracy and rates on all measures. Both context and isolated word‐reading rates were highly sensitive to impairment. We found no evidence for RD subtypes based on these measures. Results illustrate differences in reading levels between the two groups, the temporal advantage skilled readers have in linking text ideas, how word reading differs as a function of task format and performance dimension, and how limited word‐identification skills (not comprehension) produce contextual reading difficulties for students with RD.     

Developmental Relations Between Vocabulary Knowledge and Reading Comprehension: A Latent Change Score Modeling Study

The present study followed a sample of first‐grade (N = 316, M_age = 7.05 at first test) through fourth‐grade students to evaluate dynamic developmental relations between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Using latent change score modeling, competing models were fit to the repeated measurements of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension to test for the presence of leading and lagging influences. Univariate models indicated growth in vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension was determined by two parts: constant yearly change and change proportional to the previous level of the variable. Bivariate models indicated previous levels of vocabulary knowledge acted as leading indicators of reading comprehension growth, but the reverse relation was not found. Implications for theories of developmental relations between vocabulary and reading comprehension are discussed.     

The influence of question type,text availability,answer confidence and language background on student comprehension of an expository text

Reading is an essential activity for learning at university, but lecturers are not always experienced in setting appropriate questions to test understanding of texts. In other words, their assessments may not be ‘constructively aligned’ with the learning outcomes they hope their students to exhibit. In examination conditions, questions may be set with insufficient time for re-reading available texts, thus drawing more on students' powers of recall than on deeper learning and comprehension. Previous research has been undertaken on reading comprehension generally, but no research has yet explored the interaction of factors such as text availability (re-reading of texts), text layout, question type and respondents' language background. This study explores the correctness of 50 participants' responses to a set reading task based on an expository text, and participants' confidence in giving those answers, in relation to four factors: the effects of question type; text availability; text layout; and language background. The main findings are that non-native speakers of English have more difficulty and less confidence in answering implicit questions and that reviewing the text has a significant effect on response correctness for implicit questions. The form of text layout did not show a significant effect, however. Our results have implications for lecturers who set readings and questions for comprehension and others who use reading comprehension as part of their ‘hidden curriculum’. Further research in this area is required to determine more precisely the effects of language background.     

Development and Validation of an Online Dynamic Assessment for Raising Students’ Comprehension of Science Text

This article reports on the development of an online dynamic approach for assessing and improving students’ reading comprehension of science texts—the dynamic assessment for reading comprehension of science text (DARCST). The DARCST blended assessment and response-specific instruction into a holistic learning task for grades 5 and 6 students. The DARCST, a layer-cake approach (interspersed responses and feedback) to assessment as learning, takes a graduated-prompts perspective on the criteria for reading comprehension of science text. The item response theory (IRT) analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) over an instructional period indicated that the DARCST was applicable for most students with a wide range of reading abilities. Based on the acceptable psychometrics, the DARCST appears to be appropriate for use in middle-years science programs where enhanced science reading is a goal.     

Does rhetorical competence moderate the effect of rhetorical devices on the comprehension of expository texts beyond general comprehension skills?

Many studies have demonstrated the facilitating role of rhetorical devices in text comprehension, but there are also studies where rhetorical devices have not shown such effect. The present study sets out to explore whether readers’ knowledge of rhetorical devices (that is, rhetorical competence) moderates their effectiveness beyond general comprehension skills and, consequently, whether rhetorical competence may be considered a component skill of reading comprehension. 192 sixth- to seventh-grade students were assessed on rhetorical competence and were required to read a difficult marked text with specific rhetorical devices (a refutation, an objective, and four organizational signals) or the same text without them. After reading, students produced a summary in order to obtain three dependent variables: main ideas (as a measure of participants’ ability to select relevant information from the text), causal links between them (as an indicator of participants’ ability to grasp the logical structure of the text and to organize its ideas), and the combination of main ideas plus causal links (as an indicator of participants’ global comprehension of the text). Analyses controlling for general comprehension skills and other important variables (working memory, prior knowledge, decoding) demonstrated that: (a) readers of the marked text scored higher in terms of all dependent variables, and (b) rhetorical competence level moderated the effect of rhetorical devices on the composite measure (main ideas plus causal links) and on the organization of the summary by means of causal links.