| Abstract: | An experiment was conducted with 151 primary school children from three year levels, in a suburban primary school, set in a moderately high socio-economic area. The object of the investigation was to test the understanding of twelve anaphoric pronouns, which were embedded in passages of continuous text. The relationship between the perception of the cohesive items, and general reading comprehension was studied, as was the difference between the performance of girls and boys. A further question related to the understanding of anaphoric items set within direct speech. Results showed a significant relationship between the comprehension of the selected anaphoric personal items and ability in reading, as measured by a standardised test. In the early school years, girls were superior to boys in their perception of the items, but no difference was found at the upper level of the school. Children of all levels found the items set within quoted speech more difficult to comprehend than the items in the rest of the text. Some practical teaching strategies are discussed, and attention is drawn to areas where teachers' awareness of cohesion could prove useful. |
