Effect of Story Context on Children's Ongoing Word Recognition

Abstract

In this study, the reading time of specific target words embedded within an extended and meaningful story context was measured. The target words were either congruous or incongruous with the story context. Results indicated that the mean difference between these target word types did not significantly vary between third and sixth grade children when these words were presented in isolation. However, this mean reading time difference between target types was found to be greater for the younger as compared to the older readers when these words were embedded within the story context. These findings extend prior work in this area and indicate that developmental differences in context effects during ongoing word recognition are present under conditions which require the comprehension and memory of extended and specific story material. The results are discussed in terms of an interactive-compensatory model of reading.