Abstract
ABSTRACTChildren struggle with the resolution of pronouns during reading, but little is known about the sources of their difficulties. We conducted a longitudinal eye tracking experiment with 70 children in the final years of primary school. The children read sentences with a contextual resolution preference in which gender was either an informative resolution cue for the pronoun or not. We were interested in children’s processing of the pronoun and their resolution preferences, as well as the effects of individual differences of Grade level and reading skill. Children’s resolution ability improved with age, and good readers were more accurate than poor readers. In the eye-tracking measures, we found strong individual differences related to reading skill: Children with good reading skill took more time to read the pronoun region when pronoun gender was informative, suggesting that good readers make better use of the available information at the pronoun than poor readers.
Highlights
Children struggle with the resolution of pronouns during reading, but little is known about the sources of their difficulties
In the eye-tracking measures, we found strong individual differences related to reading skill: Children with good reading skill took more time to read the pronoun region when pronoun gender was informative, suggesting that good readers make better use of the available information at the pronoun than poor readers
One study showed that children use gender information to guide online pronoun resolution during listening from 3 years of age (Arnold, Brown-Schmidt, & Trueswell, 2007), and we can assume that most children resolve pronouns correctly during listening by the time they attend primary school
Summary
Children struggle with the resolution of pronouns during reading, but little is known about the sources of their difficulties. Comprehension skill moderates pronoun resolution in primary school students: In a cross-modal naming task with French 7- and 8-year-olds, Megherbi and Ehrlich (2005) demonstrated that poor comprehenders do not resolve pronouns systematically using gender information. Instead, they may resort to a default strategy where recency “overrides” other available cues. While good comprehenders performed better than poor comprehenders, both groups of children benefited from disambiguating gender information when answering the resolution question These studies show clearly that children struggle with the comprehension of pronouns, but they do not inform about the reading processes that are associated with resolution difficulty
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
