INCREASING REMEDIAL STUDENTS' ABILITY TO DERIVE WORD MEANING FROM CONTEXT

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which the process of deriving word meaning from context could be enhanced through an instructional intervention that modeled a process of word-meaning acquisition and guided students through that process. Five less-skilled readers in grades five and six were engaged in a one-on-one instructional intervention. The effectiveness of students' process of deriving word meaning from context was assessed using a word-meaning acquisition task, given before and after instructional intervention, that approximated decision points in the process, and through transcripts of instructional sessions. The word-meaning acquisition task presented a pseudoword in a context followed by choices for the meaning of the word. Students were asked to select possible meanings, provide a rationale for their choices, and use additional context to narrow the possible meaning choices for the pseudoword. All five students improved on every component of the task. Before the intervention students were shown to exhibit three characteristic problems in their use of context. Data from instructional sessions demonstrated that students were able to overcome these problems to a great extent.