There is intense public interest in questions surrounding how children learn to read and how they can best be taught. Research in psychological science has provided answers to many of these questions ...but, somewhat surprisingly, this research has been slow to make inroads into educational policy and practice. Instead, the field has been plagued by decades of 'reading wars.' Even now, there remains a wide gap between the state of research knowledge about learning to read and the state of public understanding. The aim of this article is to fill this gap. We present a comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children's earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. We explain why phonics instruction is so central to learning in a writing system such as English. But we also move beyond phonics, reviewing research on what else children need to learn to become expert readers and considering how this might be translated into effective classroom practice. We call for an end to the reading wars and recommend an agenda for instruction and research in reading acquisition that is balanced, developmentally informed, and based on a deep understanding of how language and writing systems work. Author abstract
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Interpreting a sentence can be characterized as a rational process in which comprehenders integrate linguistic input with top-down knowledge (e.g., plausibility). One type of evidence for this is ...that comprehenders sometimes reinterpret sentences to arrive at interpretations that conflict with the original language input. Does this reflect a reinterpretation of only the message, or also of earlier stages of linguistic representation such as the syntactic parse? The present study relies both on comprehension questions as a measure of the eventual interpretation (as in past work) and on syntactic priming as an implicit measure of the eventual parse of a sentence. Plausible dative sentences yielded a classic syntactic priming effect. Implausible dative sentences, for which a plausible alternative version corresponded to the alternate dative structure, not only tended to be interpreted as the plausible alternative, but also showed no priming effect from the perceived syntactic structure. These results suggest that the plausibility of a message can not only impact the interpretation of a perceived sentence, but also its underlying syntactic representation.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
This article discusses language comprehension and developing skills with emergent readers, in particular verbal reasoning and language structures, that are necessary for later reading comprehension.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This article sets out to examine the role of symbolic and sensorimotor representations in discourse comprehension. It starts out with a review of the literature on situation models, showing how ...mental representations are constrained by linguistic and situational factors. These ideas are then extended to more explicitly include sensorimotor representations. Following Zwaan and Madden (
2005
), the author argues that sensorimotor and symbolic representations mutually constrain each other in discourse comprehension. These ideas are then developed further to propose two roles for abstract concepts in discourse comprehension. It is argued that they serve as pointers in memory, used (1)
cataphorically
to integrate upcoming information into a sensorimotor simulation, or (2)
anaphorically
integrate previously presented information into a sensorimotor simulation. In either case, the sensorimotor representation is a specific instantiation of the abstract concept.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Children with specific reading-comprehension difficulties can read accurately, but they have poor comprehension. In a randomized controlled trial, we examined the efficacy of three interventions ...designed to improve such children's reading comprehension: text-comprehension (TC) training, oral-language (OL) training, and TC and OL training combined (COM). Children were assessed preintervention, midintervention, postintervention, and at an 11-month follow-up. All intervention groups made significant improvements in reading comprehension relative to an untreated control group. Although these gains were maintained at follow-up in the TC and COM groups, the OL group made greater gains than the other groups did between the end of the intervention and follow-up. The OL and COM groups also demonstrated significant improvements in expressive vocabulary compared with the control group, and this was a mediator of the improved reading comprehension of the OL and COM groups. We conclude that specific reading-comprehension difficulties reflect (at least partly) underlying oral-language weaknesses that can be effectively ameliorated by suitable teaching.
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While it is hypothesized that providing instruction based on individuals' preferred learning styles improves learning (i.e., reading for visual learners and listening for auditory learners, also ...referred to as the meshing hypothesis), after a critical review of the literature Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, and Bjork (2008) concluded that this hypothesis lacks empirical evidence and subsequently described the experimental design needed to evaluate the meshing hypothesis. Following the design of Pashler et al., we empirically investigated the effect of learning style preference with college-educated adults, specifically as applied to (a) verbal comprehension aptitude (listening or reading) and (b) learning based on mode of instruction (digital audiobook or e-text). First, participants' auditory and visual learning style preferences were established based on a standardized adult learning style inventory. Participants were then given a verbal comprehension aptitude test in both oral and written forms. Results failed to show a statistically significant relationship between learning style preference (auditory, visual word) and learning aptitude (listening comprehension, reading comprehension). Second, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups that received the same instructional material from a nonfiction book, but each in a different instructional mode (digital audiobook, e-text), and then completed a written comprehension test immediately and after 2 weeks. Results demonstrated no statistically significant relationship between learning style preference (auditory, visual word) and instructional method (audiobook, e-text) for either immediate or delayed comprehension tests. Taken together, the results of our investigation failed to statistically support the meshing hypothesis either for verbal comprehension aptitude or learning based on mode of instruction (digital audiobook, e-text).
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Recent Web apps have spurred excitement around the prospect of achieving speed reading by eliminating eye movements (i.e., with rapid serial visual presentation, or RSVP, in which words are presented ...briefly one at a time and sequentially). Our experiment using a novel trailing-mask paradigm contradicts these claims. Subjects read normally or while the display of text was manipulated such that each word was masked once the reader's eyes moved past it. This manipulation created a scenario similar to RSVP: The reader could read each word only once; regressions (i.e., rereadings of words), which are a natural part of the reading process, were functionally eliminated. Crucially, the inability to regress affected comprehension negatively. Furthermore, this effect was not confined to ambiguous sentences. These data suggest that regressions contribute to the ability to understand what one has read and call into question the viability of speed-reading apps that eliminate eye movements (e.g., those that use RSVP).
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In an effort to understand cognitive foundations of oral language comprehension (i.e., listening comprehension), we examined how inhibitory control, theory of mind, and comprehension monitoring are ...uniquely related to listening comprehension over and above vocabulary and age. A total of 156 children in kindergarten and first grade from high-poverty schools participated in the study. Using structural equation modeling, results showed that all three cognitive skills (inhibitory control, theory of mind, and comprehension monitoring) were positively related to listening comprehension after accounting for vocabulary and age. In addition, inhibitory control had a direct relation to listening comprehension, not indirectly via theory of mind. Results are discussed in light of cognitive component skills for listening comprehension.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The main purpose of this study was to test the effects of word-problem (WP) intervention, with versus without embedded language comprehension (LC) instruction, on at-risk 1st graders' WP performance. ...We also isolated the need for a structured approach to WP intervention and tested the efficacy of schema-based instruction at 1st grade. Children (n = 391; Msubscript age = 6.53, SD = 0.32) were randomly assigned to 4 conditions: schema-based WP intervention with embedded language instruction, the same WP intervention but without LC instruction, structured number knowledge (NK) intervention without a structured WP component, and a control group. Each intervention included 45 sessions, each 30 min long. Multilevel models, accounting for classroom and school effects, revealed the efficacy of schema-based WP intervention at 1st grade, with both WP conditions outperforming the NK condition and the control group. Yet, WP performance was significantly stronger for the schema-based condition with embedded LC instruction compared to the schema-based condition without LC instruction. NK intervention conveyed no WP advantage over the control group, even though all 3 intervention conditions outperformed the control group on arithmetic. Results demonstrate the importance of a structured approach to WP intervention, the efficacy of schema-based instruction at 1st grade, and the added value of LC instruction within WP intervention. Results also provide causal evidence on the role of LC in WP solving.
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This article provides an organizational review of content literacy instructional strategies to forward a claim that some strategies work better for surface learning, whereas others are more effective ...for deep learning and still others for transfer learning. The authors argue that the failure to adopt content literacy strategies by disciplinary teachers may be due, in part, to the mismatch between the approach and the level of learning expected.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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