Fourth and Fifth Graders Representing the Argument Structure in Written Texts

Abstract

This study examines how children represent the global discourse structure of arguments, an important type of exposition. Adults represent a written argument according to its hierarchical global discourse structure. In contrast, previous work has shown children to focus on the sentence level of exposition and represent it as a list. Sixty-five fourth and fifth graders read and recalled 1 of 3 texts with an argument structure. Predictably, some children recalled a list of details with no global structure. However, over two thirds of the children recalled the hierarchical global discourse structure in the argument, although recall accuracy varied from a close text match to 2 types of partial matches. Both grade level and the familiarity and vividness of text content were related to children's accuracy, suggesting developmental changes as children learn to represent exposition and important text features that can affect their performance.