Diagnosing comprehension deficits through listening and reading

Assessment of students with reading comprehension difficulties should include measurement of both listening and reading comprehension of extended discourse in order to begin to identify the reason or reasons for their deficits. The problems of developing an effective comprehension test are discussed. An experimental screening test, Profiles in Listening and Reading (PILAR), is presented as one approach to assessing comprehension. Its potential as a screening and diagnostic test is considered, using students’ profiles from two studies. The second research study reported was supported by a grant from Northwestern University Research Grants Committee.     

Examining vocabulary,reading comprehension,and content knowledge instruction during fourth grade social studies teaching

Reading and Writing - Teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension during social studies instruction is critical for reading development and the acquisition of content knowledge. This study...     

Using self-regulation as a framework for implementing strategy instruction to foster reading comprehension

Research on the implementation of reading strategies suggests that self-regulated learning might be a powerful framework to optimize effects on reading comprehension. Models of self-regulation emphasize that the teaching of strategy knowledge (Strat) has to be complemented by offering skills of cognitive (CSR) and motivational (MSR) aspects of self-regulation. In order to investigate whether all aspects of this model have to be carried out under regular classroom conditions, three different strategy programs (Strat + CSR + MSR vs. Strat + CSR vs. Strat) and a control condition were compared. Within a pre-, post-, and retention-test design with 20 classes, comprising of 593 fifth-graders (11 years), development of strategy knowledge, reading comprehension, school-related self-efficacy, and motivational orientation towards learning goals were assessed. While all strategy-oriented programs proved to enhance reading competence, understanding of reading strategies and competence for application of reading strategies, gains in self-efficacy did not differ from the control condition. As regards the retention test, the program that covered all aspects of strategy instruction (MSR + Strat + CSR) showed strongest effects as predicted by self-regulation theory.     

Genetic and environmental influences on reading and listening comprehension

We report preliminary behaviour genetic analyses of reading and listening comprehension from The Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center. Although the twin sample with these new measures is still of limited size, we find substantial, and significant, genetic influences on individual differences in both reading and listening comprehension. In addition, word recognition and listening comprehension each accounted for significant independent genetic influences on reading comprehension. Together, they accounted for all the genetic influence on reading comprehension, indicating a largely genetic basis for the ‘simple model’ of individual differences in reading comprehension proposed by Hoover and Gough (1990) .     

元认知管理策略指导下的英语听力技能培养

元认知管理策略运用在英语听力学习中的具有显著作用,通过教学实践,证明了元认知管理策略融入到听力课堂中的效果明显。元认知管理策略指导下的英语听力技能培养策略包括根据现实水平制定相应训练计划,运用元认知管理策略调整学习训练计划等。     

Academic vocabulary and reading comprehension: exploring the relationships across measures of vocabulary knowledge

Reading and Writing - This study examined the relationship between knowledge of academic vocabulary and reading comprehension in data contributed by 5855 middle school students. Each student...     

Matthew effects in young readers: reading comprehension and reading experience aid vocabulary development

The authors report data from a longitudinal study of the reading development of children who were assessed in the years of their 8th, 11th, 14th, and 16th birthdays. They examine the evidence for Matthew effects in reading and vocabulary between ages 8 and 11 in groups of children identified with good and poor reading comprehension at 8 years. They also investigate evidence for Matthew effects in reading and vocabulary between 8 and 16 years, in the larger sample. The poor comprehenders showed reduced growth in vocabulary compared to the good comprehenders, but not in word reading or reading comprehension ability. They also obtained lower scores on measures of out-of-school literacy. Analyses of the whole sample revealed that initial levels of reading experience and reading comprehension predicted vocabulary at ages 11, 14, and 16 after controlling for general ability and vocabulary skills when aged 8. The authors discuss these findings in relation to the influence of reading on vocabulary development.     

The effects of reading practice with compressed speech on reading rate and listening comprehension

Conclusions Reading practice with accompanying compressed speech as a pacer resulted in a significantly greater increase in reading rate without an accompanying loss in comprehension for the experimental group when compared with the control group. Scores on the delayed posttest seemed to indicate that the increase in reading rate was more than temporary. The significant increase in reading rate was accomplished with only 10 practice sessions. The number of sessions in earlier studies using pacers ranged from 16 (Marvel, 1959) to 50 (Wilson & Leavell, 1956). The present study suggests that a smaller number of sessions using compressed speech as a pacer can be effective in increasing reading rate. Since there was no significant difference between gain scores for the experimental and control groups for listening, this study provided no evidence to support the use of practice with compressed speech to improve listening ability. It might be noted however that the training sessions consisted of reading short storieswhile listening to the compressed speech. Thus, subjects did not receive practice in which listening to compressed speech was the sole activity. It is perhaps for this reason that the experimental group did not improve more in listening than did the control group. This article is based in part on Thameśs masteŕs thesis which was completed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.     

阅读策略培训对学生阅读理解能力影响的元分析

国内外有关阅读策略培训对学生阅读理解能力影响的研究众多,但研究结果不尽相同。本研究以Comprehensive Meta-analysis V2软件为工具对国内外27项此类研究进行了元分析。研究结果如下:1)阅读策略培训对学生阅读理解能力影响的总效应值为0.816,达到大效应值;2)可能存在多种因素共同作用影响阅读策略培训对学生阅读理解能力影响的效果;3)语言环境和培训的策略类别对研究结果无显著影响,而实验周期和阅读理解能力测试方式对研究结果具有显著影响。     

Revisiting print exposure: exploring differential links to vocabulary,comprehension and reading rate

Undergraduates (N=171) completed a revised version of the Author Recognition Test ( Stanovich & West, 1989 ). The resulting print exposure scores were divided into two dimensions: personal reading experience (primary print knowledge – PPK) and secondary print knowledge (SPK). Both PPK and SPK were correlated with print exposure, but not with each other. PPK correlated more strongly with reading‐related variables (vocabulary, comprehension and reading rate) than did SPK. Of particular importance, PPK accounted for variance in all three criterion variables after the effects of SPK had been factored out. Thus, these data support the notion that it is the act of reading over and above memory for reading‐related information that furthers the development of linguistic skill.     

Gender differences in reading: Examining text-based interest in relation to text characteristics and reading comprehension

Reading is a key competence for knowledge acquisition and learning processes. One important source of reading motivation is interest. Even though students' text-based interest often differs by gender, it remains unclear which text factors underlie these differences and whether text-based interest relates to reading comprehension among boys and girls. In a sample of 514 elementary students (47.2% girls), this study examined whether text topic, protagonists' gender, and text difficulty affect boys' and girls' text-based interest and whether interest and reading comprehension are intertwined. Based on a repeated within-subject design using fourteen narrative texts, the results indicated that boys' interest was higher in texts with male-attributed topics, male protagonists, and in more difficult texts. In contrast, girls’ interest was only affected by text difficulty. Text-based interest and reading comprehension were significantly related, albeit stronger for boys than for girls. The findings are discussed regarding future implications for research and educational practice.     

Examining the relations between reading fluency and reading comprehension for english language learners

This study examined the relations between reading fluency and comprehension among elementary school students (N = 171) in Grades 2, 3, and 5, all of whom were designated as English language learners (ELL) at some point in their educational careers. Although the overall relation between reading fluency and comprehension (r = .56) was consistent with previous research using non‐ELL student samples, results also revealed a substantial number of students (55.5%) who exhibited a significant gap (SD, 0.67 ) between their scores on reading fluency and comprehension assessments. In addition, the prevalence of students with fluency/comprehension gaps varied significantly across grade and English language proficiency levels. The results suggested that, although reading fluency and comprehension are significantly related for ELL students, practitioners should be cautious when making identification and instructional decisions for ELL students based solely on oral reading fluency data. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Deaf college students' reading comprehension and strategy use

Two comprehension studies were conducted with 46 deaf college students. In the first, 20 deaf college students representing higher and lower reading-ability levels were tested for correctly stating the main idea of a passage, answering content questions, indicating their understanding of the words and phrases, and recognizing a topically incongruent sentence embedded in the passage. The results suggest that deaf students profess a better understanding of what they read than they are able to demonstrate. The students' inability to identify a topically incongruent sentence in the passage further suggests a need for them to more carefully and accurately evaluate their understanding of what they are reading. A second study investigated the effect of strategy review instruction on deaf college students' comprehension of short reading passages. Students reading at a higher level showed improved comprehension on the posttraining passage, but students reading at a lower level did not. Similarly, the control group of deaf students comparable to the higher-level readers did not show improved comprehension.     

Examining a motivational treatment and its impact on adolescents' reading comprehension and fluency

The authors' purpose was to examine adolescents' reading motivation in relation to standardized assessments of reading comprehension and fluency. After a reading pretest, 60 ninth-grade students (M age = 14.9 years) were randomly assigned to two groups. Compared to those in the control condition, those administered brief oral feedback intended to improve motivation indicated an increased focus on mastery goals and greater perceived control during a reading posttest. No differences were found with regard to four other aspects of motivation. Students in the treatment condition, including struggling readers more specifically, did not score better on the posttest measures of reading comprehension or fluency. Hence, results failed to replicate Zentall and Lee's (2012 Zentall, S. S., &; Lee, J. (2012). A reading motivation intervention with differential outcomes for students at risk for reading disabilities, ADHD, and typical comparisons: ‘Clever is and clever does’. Learning Disability Quarterly, 35, 248–259. doi:10.1177/0731948712438556[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) findings with younger readers. Findings are discussed with regard to the theoretical and practical implications for understanding reading motivation.     

Examining the role of vocabulary depth, cross-linguistic transfer, and types of reading measures on the reading comprehension of Latino bilinguals in elementary school

Given the increase of bilingual students in the K-12 public school system, understanding reading comprehension performance, especially among this population, has been a major focal point in the research literature. This study explores the nature of reading comprehension among a sample of 123 Spanish–English bilingual elementary students. We add to the existing knowledge base regarding reading comprehension in two significant ways: (1) augmenting the Simple View of Reading by testing the role of both vocabulary depth contribution and dual-linguistic ability in English reading comprehension; and (2) questioning the manner through which reading comprehension is understood through measurement and conceptualization. Specifically, we build a comprehensive model of reading comprehension that tests the effects for vocabulary depth, Spanish oral language, and biliteracy. In line with previous research that suggests different reading measures tap different abilities, we test our model for three different measures of reading comprehension: a cloze exercise, a passage and multiple choice based test, and a timed silent sentence reading judgment task. Our findings converge with previous research on the role of vocabulary depth in reading comprehension and also challenge prior work which has compared different reading measures. Implications for theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding reading comprehension, specifically among Spanish–English bilingual students, are discussed.     

The relationship between reading and listening comprehension: shared and modality-specific components

This study aimed to increase our understanding on the relationship between reading and listening comprehension. Both in comprehension theory and in educational practice, reading and listening comprehension are often seen as interchangeable, overlooking modality-specific aspects of them separately. Three questions were addressed. First, it was examined to what extent reading and listening comprehension comprise modality-specific, distinct skills or an overlapping, domain-general skill in terms of the amount of explained variance in one comprehension type by the opposite comprehension type. Second, general and modality-unique subskills of reading and listening comprehension were sought by assessing the contributions of the foundational skills word reading fluency, vocabulary, memory, attention, and inhibition to both comprehension types. Lastly, the practice of using either listening comprehension or vocabulary as a proxy of general comprehension was investigated. Reading and listening comprehension tasks with the same format were assessed in 85 second and third grade children. Analyses revealed that reading comprehension explained 34% of the variance in listening comprehension, and listening comprehension 40% of reading comprehension. Vocabulary and word reading fluency were found to be shared contributors to both reading and listening comprehension. None of the other cognitive skills contributed significantly to reading or listening comprehension. These results indicate that only part of the comprehension process is indeed domain-general and not influenced by the modality in which the information is provided. Especially vocabulary seems to play a large role in this domain-general part. The findings warrant a more prominent focus of modality-specific aspects of both reading and listening comprehension in research and education.

     

First and second language vocabulary affect early second language reading comprehension development

The aim of this study was to examine variation in early reading comprehension development for second language (L2) readers compared with first language (L1) readers and to investigate the impact of vocabulary knowledge in their first and second language. Participants were 75 Dutch monolingual children (L1 readers) and 71 Turkish–Dutch bilingual children (L2 readers), aged between 6 and 8 years old at the start of the study. In a longitudinal design, three waves of data were collected across second and third grades. The L2 readers had lower reading comprehension scores than the L1 readers on average, but this performance gap narrowed over time. To further investigate variation among the L2 readers, four categorical subgroups of L2 readers were identified with varying levels of L1 (Turkish) and L2 (Dutch) vocabulary knowledge by means of cluster analysis. Group membership was related to reading comprehension and showed an interaction with time, indicating that reading comprehension performance of the two L2 subgroups with high L1 vocabulary increased more over time compared with L1 readers. The L2 subgroup with high vocabulary in both languages even caught up with their monolingual peers in third grade. These findings demonstrate how individual differences in L1 and L2 vocabulary knowledge explain variation in early L2 reading comprehension development and highlight the importance of considering L2 readers' first language in research and education.