Word Knowledge in a Theory of Reading Comprehension

We examine comprehension skill differences in the processes of word‐to‐text integration, the connection of the meaning of a word, as it is read, to a representation of the text. We review two ‘on‐line’ integration studies using event related potentials (ERPs) to provide fine‐grain temporal data on the word‐to‐text processes of adult readers. The studies demonstrate indicators for word‐to‐text integration and show differences in these indicators as a function of adult reading comprehension skill. For skilled comprehenders, integration processes were reflected in N400 indicators when a critical word had an explicit link to a word in the prior text and by both N400 and P300 indicators when its meaning was a paraphrase of a prior word. When forward inferences were required for subsequent word‐to‐text integration, effects for skilled comprehenders were not reliable. Less skilled comprehenders showed delayed and less robust ERP effects, especially when meaning paraphrase was the basis of the integration. We discuss the significance of skill differences in integration processes with a focus on the use of context‐dependent word meaning as a possible source of these differences. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We examined the word-to-text integration processes of less skilled comprehenders using ERPs recorded during text reading. The first sentence of each text controlled the accessibility of an antecedent referent for a critical word, which was the first content word of the second sentence. In the explicit condition, the critical word had occurred in the first sentence; in the paraphrase condition, a word or phrase similar in meaning had occurred in the first sentence; in the inference condition, a referent could have been established during the first sentence only if the reader made a forward inference; a baseline condition provided no obvious antecedent for the critical word. PCA, topographic results, and mean amplitude analyses converged on a picture of integration difficulty. Integration effects emerged in the expected mid-latency ranges for the explicit and inference conditions. The pattern of effects differed from that of skilled comprehenders, who, in another study, showed earlier integration effects for explicit and paraphrase conditions, but not reliably for the inference condition. Paraphrase effects were especially weak and late occurring for less skilled comprehenders. Compared with skilled comprehenders, less skilled comprehenders show slow word-to-text integration processes.

We investigated whether the cognitive mechanism of suppression underlies differences in adult comprehension skill. Less skilled comprehenders reject less efficiently the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words (e.g., the playing card vs. garden tool meaning of spade), the incorrect forms of homophones (e.g., patients vs. patience), the highly typical but absent members of scenes (e.g., a tractor in a farm scene), and words superimposed on pictures or pictures surrounding words. However, less skilled comprehenders are not less cognizant of what is contextually appropriate; in fact, they benefit from a biasing context just as much (and perhaps more) as more skilled comprehenders do. Thus, less skilled comprehenders do not have difficulty enhancing contextually appropriate information. Instead, we suggest that less skilled comprehenders suffer from a less efficient suppression mechanism, which we conclude is an important component of general comprehension skill.

This experiment assessed the relation between children's comprehension skill and their knowledge about stories, as measured by their ability to tell stories from picture sequences or title prompts. To investigate the direction of any relation between comprehension skill and story knowledge, the performance of 7‐ to 8‐year‐old less skilled comprehenders was compared to that of two control groups: same‐age skilled comprehenders matched for reading accuracy, and younger skilled comprehenders matched for comprehension age. The main findings were that, although the groups did not differ in their use of conventional story features, such as beginnings, settings and endings, they did differ in the quality of the story structure they produced, at least in the topic prompt condition. Also, as predicted, stories elicited with picture prompts were better structured overall. In the easier, picture prompt, condition the less skilled group also performed more poorly than the skilled group, but not significantly more poorly than the comprehension‐age match group. These results demonstrate that the differences in the story knowledge, found between the same‐age skilled and less skilled comprehenders, are not simply the result of differential experience in reading comprehension. Instead, they suggest that knowledge about story structure may play a causal role in the less skilled comprehenders' comprehension difficulties. Possible sources of these differences are discussed.

ABSTRACTDifficulties suppressing previously encountered but currently irrelevant information from working memory characterize less skilled comprehenders in studies in which they are matched to skilled comprehenders on word decoding and nonverbal IQ. These “extreme” group designs are associated with several methodological issues. When sample size permits, regression approaches permit a more accurate estimation of effects. Using data for students in Grades 6 through 12 (n = 766), regression techniques assessed the significance and size of the relation of suppression to reading comprehension across the distribution of comprehension skill. After accounting for decoding efficiency and nonverbal IQ, suppression, measured by performance on a verbal proactive interference task, accounted for a small amount of significant unique variance in comprehension (less than 1%). A comparison of suppression in less skilled comprehenders matched to more skilled comprehenders (48 per group) on age, word reading efficiency, and nonverbal IQ did not show significant group differences in suppression. The implications of the findings for theories of reading comprehension and for informing comprehension assessment and intervention are discussed.

Charles A. Perfetti and Thomas HogaboamLearning Research and Development Center and Department of Psychology,University of PittsburghChildren classified as skilled and less skilled in reading comprehen-sion differed in vocalization latencies to single printed words. Over-all, vocalization latencies were shorter for the skilled group than theloss skilled group and there was an interaction between word typeand comprehension skill. The comprehension groups showed largevocalization latency differences for pseudowords and for low fre-quency English words, but smaller differences for high frequencyEnglish words. Knowledge of word meanings may be a less significantfactor in vocalization latency for the skilled group than for the un-skilled group. It is suggested that at least some unskilled compre-henders may have failed to develop automatic decoding skills andthat this failure may lead to diminished comprehension skills sharinga common processing capacity with nonautomatic decoding.The conceptualization of reading as com-posed of separable components allows morethan one view on the relationship betweenthe components. The cognitive componentsof reading can be considered as separableand independent or as separable and inter-dependent. As Guthrie (1973) has argued,the more tenable view for at least somecomponents is that they are interdependentand mutually facilitative.In the case of decoding and compre-hension, there are similar possibilities ofindependence and interdependence. For atleast some indicators of decoding, it seemsclear that decoding is not sufficient forcomprehension (Cromer, 1970; Wiener &Cromer, 1967). However, it does not followthat decoding and comprehension are in-dependent. Rather, reading comprehensiondepends on the availability of highly de-veloped skills, including the ability toconvert print into the language code.The required conceptualization of theThis research was supported by the LearningResearch and Development Center, which is sup-ported in part by funds from the National Insti-tute of Education.The assistance of Susan Goldman with variousstages of the research is acknowledged.Requests for reprints should be sent to CharlesA. Perfetti, Learning Research and DevelopmentCenter, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-vania 15260.reading process is one that takes account ofthe fact that all basic processes carried outin a integrated behavior such as readingnot only interact with each other but alsomust share a limited capacity mechanism,at least in part. A mechanism which isheavily demanded by one process essentiallybecomes less available for other processes.Thus, if a reader requires considerableprocessing capacity to decode a single word,his processing capacity is less available forhigher order integrated processes—for ex-ample, memory for the just previouslycoded word may suffer, memory for thepreceding phrase may decrease, and thesubject's ability to predict what he is yetto encounter on the printed page maydiminish.There is evidence that skilled compre-henders have basic word skills that aresuperior to those of unskilled comprehenders.For example, Katz and Wicklund (1971)found differences between good and poorcomprehenders for a word-scanning task inwhich children had to decide whether atarget string of printed words contained apreviously presented key word. Good com-prehender s were faster at thi task thanwere poor comprehenders. However, in asimilar scanning task involving letters, Katzand Wicklund (1972) found no differencebetween reader groups. Thus, at least for461

ERP indicators of L2 proficiency in word-to-text integration processes

‘We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction’ (Neurath & Cohen, 1973, p. 199). A research is by no means entirely new judged from every aspect but gradually built upon old knowledge. The following four chapters serve as a review of the important concepts of reading comprehension, validity, test method and mixed research methods in literature. This chapter mainly discusses the key theories of reading comprehension. After several influential theories and models of reading comprehension are outlined, the chapter examines the factors affecting reading comprehension process, namely, reader, text and the interaction between reader and text. The chapter ends with Khalifa and Weir’s model of reading comprehension based on which the current empirical study was carried out and the summary of this chapter.

This experiment investigated the processing of anaphoric devices in French 9‐year‐old skilled and less skilled comprehenders, matched in decoding and vocabulary skills. It was designed to study whether the differences observed between skilled and less skilled comprehenders could be attributed to a specific deficit in processing anaphors or to a more basic deficit. Children were asked to identify the antecedents of different anaphors while reading two long stories. Processing complexity was manipulated by varying three properties of anaphors: type (personal pronoun or general noun), syntactic function (subject or object) and distance in relation to antecedents (near or far). In both texts less skilled comprehenders performed less well than skilled ones. Type and syntactic function affected anaphor resolution: pronouns were more difficult to resolve than general nouns, objects more difficult than subjects. In one text far antecedents were more difficult to find than near antecedents, but the opposite effect was observed in the other text. The interactions between comprehension skill and the three manipulated factors suggest that a specific deficit in the processing of anaphors contributes to the lower performance of less skilled comprehenders, who had particular difficulties with object pronouns. The analysis of incorrect responses confirmed the weight of such specific difficulties. In conclusion, the interdependence between a specific deficit in the processing of anaphors and other deficits is discussed.

This study examines the influence of language proficiency and comprehension skill on situation‐model construction during narrative comprehension. Twelve college students who were enrolled in a third‐semester French course thought aloud during the comprehension of English and French stories. After each text, the students performed a verb‐clustering task. Scores on these two tasks indicate that the students generated more explanatory inferences in English than in French, and constructed stronger situation models in English than in French. In addition, skilled comprehenders generated more explanatory inferences and stronger situation models than less skilled comprehenders. The implications of these findings for current theories of text comprehension and individual differences are discussed.

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In the current study, 42 secondary students (10th, 11th, and 12th grade students) and 51 elementary students (4th and 5th grade students) read 400 word passages silently and aloud. During aloud reading, words correct per minute (WCPM) were recorded. After reading each passage, students answered 10 multiple-choice comprehension questions. Results showed comprehension was significantly higher when students read passages aloud, as opposed to silently. No interaction was found between comprehension and grade level (elementary versus secondary). Discussion is focused on theories of reading comprehension and applied implications for assessing comprehension following the administration of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) reading probes. Keywords: Reading comprehension, silent reading, oral reading, words correct per minute, curriculumbased measurement ********** Reading skill deficit are prevalent, common in most student refereed for special education services, and can hinder learning, skill development, and success across vocational, academic, and daily living tasks (Daly, Chafouleas, & Skinner, 2005; Lentz, 1998; National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2005; Winn, Skinner, Oliver, Hale, & Ziegler, in press). Although a variety of theories and procedures have been developed to remedy reading skill deficits, our science has not developed to the point where we can be assured that any specific intervention will remedy reading skill deficits for specific students. Thus, researchers and educators have developed various procedures and systems that allow educators to quickly assess the effects of various reading interventions on students reading skill development (i.e., progress monitoring or measuring responsiveness to intervention, see Fletcher, Coulter, Reschly, & Vaughn, 2004). Words Correct per Minute There are several common characteristics with various reading skill development progress monitoring systems. One is that they employ brief and sensitive measures that allow for frequent assessment of skill development. With respect to reading skills, one measure that is included in most systems is words read correctly per minute (WCPM). This measure which Deno and Mirkin's (1977) described in their curriculum-based measurement (CBM) system for progress and performance monitoring, is also used in the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS, Good & Kaminski, 2002) and AIMSweb (AIMSweb Progress Monitoring and Response to Intervention System, 2006) systems. To collect WCPM data, students are asked to read aloud, often for 1 minute, as the examiner scores errors. After students have finished reading aloud the examiner calculates both words correct per minute (WCPM) and errors per minute (Deno & Mirkin, 1977; Shapiro, 2004). WCPM is a measure of oral or aloud reading fluency or speed of accurate aloud reading. Many researchers have investigated the psychometric properties of WCPM and found that it is a valid (concurrent, construct, and criterion related validity), reliable, and sensitive measure of general reading skill development (Deno, Mirkin, & Chiang, 1982; Espin & Foegen, 1996; Fuchs & Deno 1991; Fuchs, Fuchs, and Maxwell, 1988; Hintze, Shapiro, Conte, & Basile, 1997). Although, WCPM has been shown to positively correlate with standardized norm-referenced measures of reading comprehension, (Deno et al., 1982; Fuchs & Deno, 1992; Fuchs et al., 1988; Marston, 1989; Shinn et al., 1992), because WCPM does not directly assess reading comprehension educators and research have expressed concerns about the face validity of the measure (Potter & Wamre, 1990; Skinner, Neddenriep, Bradley-Klug, & Ziemann, 2002). This limitation may be important as the primary function, goal, or purpose of reading is comprehension (2) (Rowell, 1976; Salasoo, 1986; Sindelar & Stoddard, 1991; Skinner, 1998). Thus, some may be concerned that WC/M will not detect comprehension deficits in students who can read aloud accurately and rapidly, but fail to comprehend what they are reading (Marston, 1989). …

The author reports the results of a study of forty-five Ph.D. history students who were asked questions about cognitive activity related to information events. Using Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss' grounded theory approach, two overall categories of cognitive activity were observed: categories about knowledge structure and categories about information process. Teun van Dijk and Walter Kintsch's "situation model" theory of reading comprehension and Leo Noordman and Wietske Vonk's research into elaborative inferencing form the theoretical framework for the study. In light of the results, three tentative conclusions are made about the characteristics of Ph.D. history students' knowledge structure and information process: (1) they become informed in a four-part information process; (2) they have a two-part knowledge structure, which allows for data storage; and (3) as a result of these two characteristics, elaborative inferencing for history Ph.D. students is hybrid, occurring both "on-line" and "off-line." The hybrid nature of their elaborative inferencing may be one of the features that distinguish the domain expert from the domain novice.

Interactive storybook reading (ISR) improves the picture labeling vocabulary of children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). Vocabulary knowledge consistently predicts the later reading achievement of children who are DHH. In this study, ISR was modified to include teaching word meanings along with the vocabulary picture label. A multiple probe across behaviors single-case experimental design was implemented to determine the effects of ISR with word meaning instruction on picture labeling and word meaning knowledge of 6 preschoolers who are DHH and use spoken English. The student and teacher participants engaged in ISR for 15-20 min a day, 4 days a week for 3 weeks. A functional relation was established between ISR and the increase in the preschoolers' word labeling and meaning knowledge. The preschoolers' word knowledge was generalized and was maintained over time. ISR may be an effective vocabulary labeling and word meaning instructional strategy for young children who are DHH and use spoken English. Teachers and related service providers who work with this population may want to implement ISR with word meaning in 1-to-1 or small groups to individualize the target vocabulary and maximize the benefit. Future researchers should replicate this to expand its generalizability to other subpopulations of children who are DHH.

BackgroundProminent theories of reading make the prediction that individual differences in children's word learning capacity determine the pace of their acquisition of reading skill. Despite the developmental nature of some of these theories, most empirical research to date has explored the relation between word learning capacity and reading at a single time point. The present study extends this research base by investigating whether earlier learning of the spelling and meaning of words is associated with later core aspects of reading: orthographic representations, word reading and reading comprehension.MethodsParticipants were 120 English‐speaking children followed longitudinally from Grade 3 to Grade 4 (i.e., from 8 to 9 years of age on average). At Grade 3, children read stories containing new words and answered questions about the spelling and meaning of these new words, evaluating orthographic and semantic learning, respectively. Children also completed outcome measures of orthographic representations (with a choice task targeting the spelling of existing words), word reading and reading comprehension (with standardised tasks) at Grades 3 and 4. We conducted regression analyses controlling for age, nonverbal reasoning, working memory, vocabulary and phonological awareness.ResultsWe found that each of orthographic and semantic learning predicted gains in orthographic representations from Grade 3 to Grade 4. Furthermore, orthographic learning at Grade 3 predicted word reading at Grade 4, while semantic learning at Grade 3 predicted reading comprehension at Grade 4.ConclusionsThese longitudinal associations between orthographic and semantic learning and core aspects of reading strengthen the evidence in support of the hypothesis that children's word learning capacity plays a key role in reading development.