ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00318.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTIt has often been demonstrated that adults are more likely to remember important text elements than less important elements –“levels effect”. It is not clear whether the same effect exists in children because the evidence is inconsistent. Most of the existing studies with children can be criticised for failing to include adult subjects as well as children, thereby making it impossible to determine whether the observed differences between adults and children reflect genuine differences in processing or just the effects of strategies for coping with the specific texts selected for the children. The present study partly replicated a study that found no evidence for a levels effect in children (Baumann, 1981) with a group of adults. With one passage stronger evidence for a levels effect was found with the adults in our study than was found with children, whereas with the second passage no evidence for a levels effect was found in either study. It was argued that this finding suggested that there were differences between adults and children in the extent to which they engaged in the type of processing that resulted in levels effects, but also that texts differed in the degree to which they induced this type of processing, and that the latter factor had to be taken into account in developmental st

ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00319.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTReading involves simultaneous top‐down processing, where the reader applies prior knowledge to the text, and bottom‐up processing, where the reader derives meaning from macro‐level structures in the text. Text redundancy is central to both.This study investigated the usefulness of using grammatical cohesion to evaluate comprehension on the macro‐ or discourse‐level, as well as on the micro‐level. The Cohesion Cloze was used to determine the extent to which 65 native speakers of Hebrew made use of text redundancy or cohesion when reading an English text. According to the categorization of grammatical and lexical cohesion by Halliday and Hasan (1976), blanks were chosen to test students’ recognition of the repetition of a word or its pronoun, a synonym, superordinate, or generalization. Students were directed to fill in the blanks with wordsalreadyfound in the text. Items were analyzed in terms of discourse analysis as relations of cohesion and coherence in the text.Results indicated that there was a relation between anaphora and coherence that contributed to reading difficulty. Cohesive markers were helpful where blanks were multi‐determined and there was redundancy of coherence. Passages which focused on a single idea were found easier to fill in than passages containing ideas that were compared and contrasted. Thus shifts in argument. were found to be more difficult to comprehend than a continuous c

ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00320.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThere has been a considerable suggestion in the literature that syntactic adaptation of a text would simplify it. This empirical study determined that the complexity of the syntax does not significantly affect the level of reading comprehension. While a complete conceptual and lexical analysis may be necessary for reading comprehension, a thorough syntactic analysis is not. This should be true for both expert and novice readers in a particular professional field, herein computer science.Using American (L1 or E1, English as a native language) and Dutch (L2 or E2, English as a second, nonnative language) computer science and humanities majors reading in EST (English for Science and Technology), it was found that there were no significant differences between subgroups reading an authentic (in original, unadapted form) computer science text and those reading a syntactically adapted text either in comprehension or in time across the four groups of subjects. These results indicate that syntactic simplification of an EST text is not a real simplification. Hence, technical writers and EST teachers might give priority to other more conceptual ways of rewriting texts.

ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00321.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTSummarizing appears to be an activity well suited to sensitizing advanced foreign language readers to the inner workings of a text and weaning them away from word‐to‐word decoding. Indeed, recent research has emphasized the importance of summarizing as an aid to reading comprehension (Cohen, 1987; Bernhardt, 1986; Brown et al., 1981). We were interested in using summary writing as a tool in promoting reading comprehension and hypothesized that students who gained practice in extracting the main points of a text would become more effective readers.The main purpose of the study was to determine whether the comprehension of students who were trained to summarize improved more than that of students who responded to short‐answer questions. The researchers, who teach EFL (English as a foreign language) at Haifa University, taught 6 classes totalling 179 students. Three classes summarized 10 academic texts of general interest, while the other three classes answered short‐answer questions on the same texts.At the same time we collected information on the students’ background in order to identify possible non‐linguistic factors that may affect reading comprehension.Since the reading comprehension of all the classes improved significantly, it was not possible to say that either summarizing or the answering of questions was a major cause of this improvement. However, results suggest that writing summaries helped students read more efficiently. Results of MANOVA pointed to the conjoint effects of three factors: task (summary vs. short‐answer questions), gender (male vs. female), and native language (Hebrew vs. Arabic).Perhaps the most interesting finding is that classroom discussion in which students negotiated the scoring key of both summaries and responses to short‐answer questions (after handing in assignments) proved to be extremely valuable. This negotiation motivated students to become intensely involved with the text and more critical of thei

ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00322.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to provide information about single case experimental research methodologies and to delineate a rationale for their use in certain types of reading research. The following facets are treated: history of single subject research; individual data analysis; repeated and frequent measurement of variables; baseline measurement; internal and external validity; and designs.

ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00323.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

EISEMON, T.O. (1988)Benefitting From Basic Education, School Quality and Functional Literacy in KenyaSWEENEY, A. (1987)A Full Hearing: Orality and Literacy in the Malay WorldMEEK, M. and MILLS, C. (eds) (1988)Language and Literacy in the Primary School.TOWNSEND, JOHN ROWE (1987)Written for children(3rd Edition).RUSTIN, MARGARET&MICHAEL (1987)Narratives Of Love and LOSS: Studies in Modern Children's Fiction.NELL. VICTOR (1988)Lost in a Book: the Psychology of Reading for Pleasure.COOPER, C.R. (ed.) (1985)Research Response to Literature and the Teaching of Literature.BENTON, M., TEASEY, J., BELL, R. and HURST, K. (1988)Young Readers Responding to Poems.DIAS, P. and HAYHOE, M. (1988)Developing Response to Poetry.DOWNING, JOHN A. (ed.) (1988)Cognitive Psychology and Reading in the U.S.S.R.FEITELSON, D. (1988)Facts and Fads in Beginning Reading:A Cross‐Language Perspective.WATERLAND, L. (1988)Read With Me: An Apprenticeship Approach.Revised Second Editio

ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00324.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0141-0423    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9817.1990.tb00325.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY