Expository text comprehension in secondary school: for which readers does knowledge of connectives contribute the most?

The present study examined whether knowledge of connectives contributes uniquely to expository text comprehension above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge. Furthermore, it was examined whether this contribution differs for readers with different language backgrounds or readers who vary in reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge or metacognitive knowledge levels. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that knowledge of connectives explained individual differences in eighth graders' text comprehension (n = 171) on top of the variance accounted for by the control variables. Moreover, the contribution of knowledge of connectives to text comprehension depended on a reader's level of metacognitive knowledge: more metacognitive knowledge resulted in a larger association between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension. Reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge and language background did not interact with knowledge of connectives. Findings are interpreted in the context of the strategic use of connectives during expository text reading.

What is already known about this topic?

• Connectives (words such as moreover, because and although) help the reader in establishing coherence between text parts.
• In primary school, for fifth graders, knowledge of connectives has been shown to be uniquely related to English text comprehension controlling for reading fluency and general vocabulary knowledge.
• For fifth graders, the relationship between knowledge of connectives and English text comprehension was higher for English‐only students than for their peers who learned English as a second language.

What this paper adds:

• The present study found that knowledge of connectives also has a unique relation with Dutch expository text comprehension for eighth graders above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge (about text structure and reading and writing strategies).
• The relationship between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension was not moderated by reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and language background (monolingual versus bilingual Dutch).
• Metacognitive knowledge did impact the relationship between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension: the higher the metacognitive knowledge, the higher the association between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension.

Implications for theory, policy or practice

• Secondary school readers are assumed to benefit from knowing connectives because these words are frequent in expository texts and signal relationships that students may often not infer without the help of these devices (i.e., with the use of background knowledge). This seems to apply in particular for expository texts that are intended to convey new information and relationships to students (see also Singer & O'Connell, 2003 ).
• We found a significant interaction between knowledge of connectives and metacognitive knowledge, which seems to indicate that knowing more connectives does not help much in improving expository text comprehension when metacognitive knowledge about text structure and reading strategies is low. This result suggests that it may be wise to couple instruction on the meaning of connectives with instruction about the structure of expository texts and ways to strategically deal with these texts.
• More specifically, besides instruction on the meaning of connectives, we advise teachers in secondary school to get students to understand the importance of connectives as markers of local and global coherence in texts, and to teach them how to strategically use connectives during reading.

     

The effect of phonics instruction on the reading comprehension of beginning readers

This study investigated whether two groups of6-year-old beginning readers taught to read by aphonics and by a ``book experience' non-phonicsapproach would differ in reading comprehension as wellas the processes of word recognition. The two groupswere matched for word recognition but despite this, thephonics taught children had higher readingcomprehension. Phonics taught children produced morecontextually appropriate errors, and in both singleword and text reading made more spoken attempts atreading unknown words. The non-phonics taught childrenhad much faster reading reaction times to familiarwords but they scored less in phoneme segmentation andnonword reading tasks. Compared with the nonphonicsgroup, the phonics group spent more time in attemptsat identifying unknown words and this included usingcontextual information, which apparently resulted inmore rehearsal of the meaning of the story text andhence better reading comprehension performance.     

Calling Iranian learners of L2 English: effect of gloss type on lexical retention and reading performance under different learning conditions

This study sought to compare how three different gloss types (text–picture, text–audio and text–picture–audio) affected English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. The study also compared how results on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition differed across three learning conditions (i.e., incidental, intentional and explicit instruction). A between‐groups design was employed with four groups (N = 135) of Iranian university learners of L2 English. The participants (with upper‐intermediate proficiency level) read English texts. Written recall and multiple‐choice questions were used to measure reading comprehension; vocabulary knowledge scale (VKS) and contextualized vocabulary knowledge test (CVKT) were used to assess vocabulary acquisition. Results of statistical analyses revealed that while the text–picture–audio gloss type consistently resulted in better vocabulary learning and reading comprehension, the learning conditions varied in terms of their immediate and delayed effect on vocabulary and reading scores. This study suggests that learner performances across gloss types are condition specific and provides both pedagogical and theoretical implications. What is already known about this topic

• Electronic glosses foster reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition.
• There are different positions about the effectiveness of form focused instruction in grammar, with the focus on forms approach having a higher acceptable rate in SLA. But, this issue has been rarely researched in vocabulary acquisition.

What this paper adds

• This study supports the complementary nature of dual annotations in vocabulary learning and reading comprehension.
• This study extends the issue of form focused instruction to vocabulary learning by comparing the incidental, intentional and incidental–intentional learning orientations.
• This study evaluates the interaction between the multiple gloss types and the learning orientations.

Implications for theory, policy or practice

• This study provides both pedagogical and theoretical implications.

     

Using new vocabulary in writing: Exploring how word and learner characteristics relate to the likelihood that writers use newly taught vocabulary

Understanding academic vocabulary is essential to student success in school. Use of academic vocabulary words in writing is considered one of the strongest measures of how well a reader understands a given word. In theory, willingness to use academic vocabulary in writing indicates the complexity of acquiring representations of the word’s orthography, phonology, and semantics based on the word’s characteristics. In addition, a learner’s overall literacy skills should relate to whether they attempt to use words. In the present study, sixth graders (n = 66), seventh graders (n = 60), and eighth graders (n = 41) learned 25 academic vocabulary words in a supplementary academic vocabulary intervention and were then asked to use those words in short persuasive essay drafts. We measured whether these students attempted to use a word (a binary uses outcome) and the number of times a student used a word (a continuous attempts outcome) and used cross-classified random effects models to examine how (a) the orthographic, phonological, and semantic characteristics of words and (b) the students’ literacy-related characteristics related to their uses and attempts. For word characteristics, students were more likely to use and attempt high frequency than low frequency words. For student characteristics, students proficient on the state exam were more likely to use and attempt the words, and students learning English were less likely to attempt the words. Implications for vocabulary intervention and writing instruction are discussed.     

Effects of multimedia annotations on incidental vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of advanced learners of english as a foreign language

The study investigates immediate and delayed effects of different hypermedia glosses on incidental vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of advanced foreign language learners. Sixty-nine freshman TEFL students studying at a Turkish university were randomly assigned to three types of annotations: (a) definitions of words, (b) definitions coupled with associated pictures, and (c) definitions coupled with associated short videos. Subjects were asked to read an annotated text with the intention of comprehension. The data were collected through a vocabulary pre-test, a vocabulary post-test, a delayed vocabulary test as well as a reading comprehension test. In order to measure incidental vocabulary learning, subjects were not told that they were going to be given vocabulary tests. Results showed that the groups that had access to definitions along with both types of visuals had significantly higher vocabulary scores on both immediate and delayed post-tests than the definition only group. However, no differences were observed on the reading comprehension test. Finally, the qualitative data revealed that hypermedia reading had positive impact on participants’ attitudes towards foreign language reading and vocabulary learning.

Unconventional word segmentation in Brazilian children’s early text production

An important element of learning to read and write at school is the ability to define word boundaries. Defining word boundaries in text writing is not a straightforward task even for children who have mastered graphophonemic correspondences. In children’s writing, unconventional word segmentation has been observed across a range of languages and contexts with more occurrences of hyposegmentation (failure to separate two or more written words with a space) than hypersegmentation (written words are split into more than one segment). However, it is still unclear how frequent these errors are and the relationships of these written error patterns to the child’s development in oral language, spelling and reading remains relatively unexplored. To address these issues, unconventional written lexical segmentations in Brazilian Portuguese children’s text production during their first years at primary school (Year 1 to Year 3) were examined in relation to different cognitive and linguistic measures and patterns of spelling errors. Results reveal that in Portuguese the establishment of word boundaries in written text is not explained by visuospatial skills or limitations in processing resources (working memory). In contrast higher occurrences of hyposegmentation patterns were associated with lower levels of reading, vocabulary, verbal ability and morphological awareness whereas hypersegmentations were rarer and related to lower levels of reading and morphological awareness and typically only occurred in the initial stages of learning to write (Year 1). Occurrences of hyposegmentations as well as hypersegmentations were also related to spelling errors which reflected children’s poor phonological skills.     

浅析英语词汇的时代色彩

在语言三要素中,词汇是最敏感、最具活性的部分。社会文化的变迁,直接、快速地在词汇中得到反映。尤其是在世界局势急剧演化的转型时代,新词汇的涌现、旧词汇的消失或内涵变换尤为频繁。通过现代英语词汇的变化,可以透视人们现时的生活追求和审美情趣,可以折射出一个民族的社会心理和价值取向。英语学习者须与时俱进,才不致为社会所淘汰。     

The contribution of vocabulary knowledge and semantic orthographic fluency to text quality through elementary school in Catalan

Building a text is a multidimensional endeavor. Writers must work simultaneously on the content of the text, its discursive organization, the structure of the sentences, and the individual words themselves. Knowledge of vocabulary is central to this endeavor. This study intends (1) to trace the development of writer’s vocabulary depth, their vocabulary fluency in writing, and the features of the text they produce (productivity, lexical richness, and text structure) through elementary school and (2) to determine the contribution of the writer’s performance and the text features to the quality of the text. One hundred and eighty bilingual Spanish/Catalan speakers from first, third, and sixth grade took part in the study. They participated in three researcher-created tasks; a synonyms/antonyms task to orally assess vocabulary depth; a semantic orthographic fluency task to examine their vocabulary fluency in writing; and a text writing task to evaluate text quality. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling in order to examine the relationship between the target writer’s performance and the text features of the written compositions, and the externally evaluated text quality. Results revealed that both writer’s performance on vocabulary depth and semantic orthographic fluency and text features improved with school level. However, the capacity to establish meaning relations between words contributed more directly to the quality of texts than the speed to find words with a specific phonographic correspondence. External evaluation of text quality was more variable for younger students than for older students and was affected by school level mediated by writer performance and text features.     

阅读对英语词汇记忆的重要作用

阅读是符合艾宾浩斯记忆遗忘规律的有效的词汇学习方法.阅读可分为反复精细阅读及快速而大量的广泛阅读两类.不同阅读类型对词汇记忆有不同的影响.反复精细阅读有利于短时间把“新词汇”转化为“积极词汇.快速而大量的广泛阅读有利于把大量“新词汇”转化为“消极词汇”,并逐渐把它们转化为“积极词汇”.为了获得良好的词汇学习效果,学习者应当选择有趣的阅读材料并控制阅读的难度.为了获得良好的词汇记忆效果,学习者应当多管齐下,把阅读与听力、写作及口语表达有机结合起来.     

The empirical derivation of equations for predicting subjective textual information

Parameters pertaining to information processing by human beings have, in the past, been determined by learning and memory experiments with nonsense syllables, number sequences, etc. However, in the real world we are concerned with the processing of meaningful information, not senselles texts. Therefore, the determination of subjective information directly from meaningful material becomes extremely important in the instruction-learning process.This study derives an equation for predicting the subjective textual information contained in a text of material written in the English language. Specifically, this investigation describes, by a mathematical equation, the relationship between the subjective information content of written textual material and the relative number of errors committed by a learner when asked to predict, letter by letter, the content of given textual material. This relationship shows that the subjective information of a given text for a specific learner is directly proportional to the number of wrongly guessed signs made by that learner. This is expressed mathematically by% MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaafeart1ev1aaatCvAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaerbuLwBLn % hiov2DGi1BTfMBaeXatLxBI9gBaerbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharqqtubsr % 4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbbL8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9 % vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpepae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-x % fr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaamaabaabaaGcbaGaamysaiabg2 % da9iaaiodacaGGUaGaaGymaiaabccacaWGfbaaaa!3B57! \[ I = 3.1{\rm{ }}E \] 0935 0212 VWhere: I = Information in bits E = Number of wrongly guessed signsThe application of Shannon's guessing procedure (1951) in this study permits the measurement of the subjective information of a given text for a specific learner. Unlike senseless texts, the subjective information of a meaningful text varies from learner to learner. Therefore, the derived equation permits the measurement of information in terms of a value that is dependent not only upon the inherent qualities of the subject matter, but also upon the internal state of the learner.The derived equation for the English language is then compared to an equation derived by Weltner (1967) for the German language and found to be remarkably similar.This work was, in part, supported by United States Air Force Contract F41609-71-C-0027 entitled Flying Training Research on Airborne and Ground Training Systems, and a research grant from Arizona State University.     

Lexical characteristics of Spanish and English words and the development of phonological awareness skills in Spanish-speaking language-minority children

The lexical restructuring model (LRM) is a theory that attempts to explain the developmental origins of phonological awareness (PA). According to the LRM, various characteristics of words should be related to the extent to which words are segmentally represented in the lexicon. Segmental representations of words allow children to access the parts of words needed to complete PA tasks. This study examined the relations between various lexical characteristics of Spanish and English words and the PA skills of Spanish-speaking language-minority children. Participants came from two independent samples of Spanish-speaking preschool children (Sample 1 N = 553, Sample 2 N = 600). For children in both samples, only phonotactic probability was related to children’s likelihood to respond correctly to Spanish PA items. Age of acquisition and word frequency were related to children’s likelihood to respond correctly to English PA items for children in both samples. Phonological neighborhood density and phonotactic probability were also related to children’s likelihood to respond correctly to English PA items; however, these effects were sample-specific. Children’s Spanish vocabulary knowledge moderated the effects of Spanish age of acquisition and word frequency on responses to Spanish PA items. Children’s English vocabulary knowledge moderated the effects of English phonological neighborhood density and phonotactic probability on responses to English PA items. These findings have implications for the development of PA assessments to be used with language-minority children.     

Designing Instructional Text

The context of the book and its contents are outlined; its aim of providing guidelines derived from empirical research for the design of instructional text is emphasized. One of the book's particular proposals-structuring of text by the controlled use of vertical space-is examined, and the relative merits of vertical and of horizontal space are discussed. The review then presents the book's arguments from research evidence for certain design practices. These arguments are found to be, typically, ease of production and cost-benefit, rather than the justification of benefit for the user. The book is held to be putting forward a programme-not merely a set of guidelines-the chief characteristic of which is simplicity of form, in contrast to what the book sees as the irrational forms of traditional typography. The review considers some possible virtues of traditional typography, and, in the design of some tabular matter, alternatives are suggested to the approaches of the book and of traditional typography. In a concluding evaluation of the book, the attempt to provide for typographic design generally applicable to research findings is questioned. Alternative paths for research in this field are suggested.     

大学英语词汇教学方法论思考

词汇是英语学习中的核心问题。为了解决大学英语课堂词汇教学问题和消除大学生课下词汇积累方面的疑惑,将词汇教学原理运用于《新视野大学英语》教材中,探讨出教师教授词汇的侧重点和学生积累词汇的努力方向。教师可以通过注重动词讲授、课文中的词块以及各种言语交流活动来提高词汇授课效果;学生要树立词汇质与量同步发展的意识,充分掌握构词法规律和经常查阅全英文词典来巩固词汇。     

Books and babies

One of the most satisfying forms of verbal communication between child and adult is that magical moment of being read to. Read me a story is the preschooler's frequent refrain, and even the youngest toddler will manage self and book into the cozy lap of a willing adult.Reprinted by permission of the publisher from Nuba-Scheffler, Hannah, Sheiman, Deborah Lovitky, & Watkins, Kathleen Pullan, INFANCY: A GUIDE TO RESEARCH & RESOURCES. (New York: Teachers College Press, © 1986 by Hannah Nuba-Scheffler, Deborah Lovitky Sheiman, & Kathleen Pullan Watkins. All rights reserved.), pp. 143–154.     

Computer-Assisted Vocabulary Acquisition: The CSLU Vocabulary Tutor in Oral-Deaf Education

Deficits in vocabulary have a negative impact on literacy and interpersonal interaction for deaf children. As part of an evaluation, an outcomes assessment was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a computer-based vocabulary tutor in an elementary auditory/oral program. Participants were 19 children, 16 profoundly deaf and 3 hearing. The vocabulary tutor displays line drawings or photographs of the words to be learned while a computer-generated avatar of a "talking head" provides synthesized audiovisual speech driven from text. The computer system also generates printed words corresponding to the imaged items. Through audiovisual reception, children memorized up to 218 new words for everyday household items. After 4 weeks, their receptive vocabulary was tested, using the avatar to speak the name of each item. Most of the students retained more than half of the new words. The freely available vocabulary tutor, whose characteristics can be tailored to individual need, can provide a language-intensive, independent learning environment to supplement classroom teaching in content areas.     

Vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) reading comprehension ability

This study explored the role of vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in reading comprehension ability of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) learners. One hundred ninety five CHL students participated in this study and completed a series of measures including two sets of vocabulary knowledge (one consisting of items pertaining to early exposure to spoken Chinese and the other comprised of items selected from a pool of words in Chinese as a foreign language classrooms), morphological awareness (structural awareness and functional awareness), and reading comprehension ability (lexical inference and passage comprehension). Drawing upon structural equation modeling with a bootstrap estimation method, the study found that vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness both contributed to reading comprehension among CHL learners. More critically, the results indicated that morphological awareness mediated the relation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in CHL learners. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses probed the relative contributions of vocabulary knowledge measures to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, and found that vocabulary knowledge acquired in formal Chinese instruction contributed to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, to a greater extent, than that gained through early exposure to spoken Chinese.     

阅读文本中词汇出现频率对词汇附带习得的影响研究

该文论述用同一篇阅读文本对高校非英语专业学习者进行研究,考察文本中词汇出现频率对词汇附带习得所产生的影响。研究结果显示:1)阅读文本中词汇出现频率对学习者掌握这些词汇的情况有明显影响。2)高频词汇比低频词汇更易被学习者掌握。3)词汇量大的学习者与词汇量小的学习者附带习得词汇的效果无明显差异。     

The effect of vocabulary knowledge on novel word identification

The study investigated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and novel word reading. Fourth-grade students were assessed on standardized measures of word identification, decoding, and receptive vocabulary, as well as on an experimental word identification measure using words that students in the fourth grade are unlikely to have seen before in print. In the experimental measure, pairs of words were matched on printed frequency and orthographic pattern (with a variety of spelling patterns represented), but differed in terms of the frequency of expected oral exposure for children (i.e., higher vs. lower). Results showed that students’ receptive vocabulary knowledge was significantly related to performance on both the standardized and experimental measures of word identification, even after accounting for the substantial amount of variance explained by decoding ability. Students performed better reading the words with higher expected oral frequencies on the experimental task than on those items with lower expected oral frequencies. The results point to the benefits, albeit modest, of oral word familiarity for reading words when they are first encountered in print and suggest that this top-down effect is not limited to exception words, as has been suggested, but has a wider scope.     

Cognitive models and problem spaces in “purely random” situations

As part of a study on the natural interpretations of probability, experiments about elementary purely random situations (with dice or poker chips) were carried out using students of various backgrounds in the theory of probability. A prior study on cognitive models which analyzed the individual data of more than 600 subjects has shown that the most frequent model used is based on the following incorrect argument: the results to compare are equiprobable because it's a matter of chance; thus, random events are thought to be equiprobable by nature. The present paper is divided into two parts. In the first, the findings of a series of experiments are summarized. In the second, the following two hypotheses are tested: (1) Despite their incorrect model, subjects are able to find the correct response. (2) They are more likely to do so when the chance aspect of the situation has been masked. An experiment testing 87 students showed, as expected, that there is a way to induce the utilization of an appropriate cognitive model. However, the transfer of this model to a classical random situation is not as frequent as one might expect.     

Processing inflected morphology in second language word recognition: Russian-speakers and English-speakers read Hebrew

This paper reports on an investigation into the morphosyntactic processing of second language (L2) learners who differ in terms of language learning experience. The chief area of interest was the relationship of L2 learning patterns and experience to the acquisition of automatized processing skills in the morphological domain. English- and Russian-native speakers of Hebrew as L2 were assessed on their sensitivity to complex morphological structures which do not exist in their respective native languages (L1). The Hebrew word formation rule which was the focus of investigation was the affixation of prepositions to nouns, resulting in single words which are also full prepositional phrases. In both English and Russian, prepositions and nouns in prepositional phrases must be autonomous. Participants named high frequency words of one (e.g., /parah/ cow) and three morphemes (e.g., /bakis/ in the pocket), which were presented in a control condition and also presented in conditions which either preserved or disrupted the natural morpheme boundaries through the manipulation of font-size. In addition to the experimental measure, participants were also asked to read an expositional passage from a popular Israeli newspaper. Results showed that the Russians, although significantly more accurate than the English speakers at text reading, were significantly less accurate and slower than the English at the naming task, and less impaired by the experimental manipulations. The results are discussed in terms of automaticity, print exposure and age of L2 acquisition.