Individual differences in story comprehension and recall of poor readers

Abstract

This study sought to identify poor readers and characterise weaknesses in their knowledge and use of story structure in comprehension and recall. Eighty year 3 children, 20 good readers and 60 poor readers, were selected from an initial pool of children based on factor analysis of scores from three measures of reading ability. The poor readers were then divided into relatively homogeneous subgroups, using eight additional measures of language-reading comprehension, according to a numerical classification procedure. This procedure helped identify specific weaknesses in their language-reading comprehension. All children listened to three stores and retold the stories under free and probe recall conditions. Story recalls were analysed using the STein and Glenn story grammar. Comparison of recalls between the good readers and each of the subgroups of poor readers showed that poor readers in two subgroups evidenced reduced sensitivity to story structure. The children in these subgroups recalled less of the stories overall, recalled less information from story grammar categories to varying extents, and showed patterns of category recall that differed from those of normal readers. Children in one of the subgroups also displayed poor perception of causal relations across story episode boundaries. These results provide evidence of marked heterogeneity in poor readers' story comprehension and recall. Certain subgroups of poor readers may have qualitatively different problems processing stories, relative to other poor readers, which may require a more concerted approach to instruction in story structure.