Effects of models and demonstrations of personal narratives on the use of lexical ties by writers with mental retardation

A single subject reversal design was used to investigate the effects of two methods for teaching writing to eight adolescents with mild or moderate mental retardation during a weekly process writing workshop. During each workshop, each student wrote a personal narrative while the teacher circulated among the group and provided positive verbal feedback and spelled words on request. Students' texts were later typed with corrected spelling and punctuation and returned to them with verbal praise before the next writing workshop. During the first experimental condition, the subjects listened to an exemplar text selected by the teacher. In the second phase, the teacher read a narrative she had written as the exemplar text. During the third experimental condition, the teacher orally self-instructed herself through steps in writing a narrative. The subjects' texts were analyzed for number of words written and number and type of lexical ties used to produce cohesion between sentences in a text. The model narrative produced the best gains in the number of words written by the poorer readers, while the demonstration improved the cohesiveness of their texts. The better readers and writers wrote more cohesively during the model narrative and produced longer text during the demonstration condition.     

The interactive effect of working memory and text difficulty on metacomprehension accuracy

We investigated how working memory capacity (WMC) and text difficulty affect metacomprehension accuracy. Participants completed the operation-span test to measure WMC and ability to read expository texts. Under the easy-text condition, participants read 4 texts with increasing local cohesion, whereas under the difficult-text condition, participants read 4 original texts. Participants assigned a comprehension rating to each text and then completed a comprehension test. The results revealed a significant interactive effect of WMC and text difficulty on metacomprehension accuracy in Experiments 1 and 2. Under the easy-text condition, higher-WMC readers monitored their comprehension less accurately than did lower-WMC readers. In contrast, higher-WMC readers monitored their comprehension more accurately than did lower-WMC readers under the difficult-text condition. These results suggest that text difficulty may affect allocation of attentional resources.     

The effects of readers’ goals on inference generation and memory for texts

We investigated the effects of readers' goals on inference generation and memory for expository text. College students (N = 82) read texts for the purpose of either study or entertainment. On-line inference generation was recorded via think-aloud procedures, and off-line memory was assessed via free recall. Reading goal strongly influenced inferential activity: Readers with a study goal produced more coherence-building (i.e., backward/explanatory and forward/predictive) inferences, whereas readers with an entertainment goal produced more associations and evaluations. These differences were associated with superior memory for the texts in the study condition. The results indicate that inference generation during reading is partly strategic and is influenced systematically by reading purpose. We propose that reading goals influence readers' standards of coherence, which in turn influence the types of inferences that they draw and the final memory representations that they construct.     

记叙文阅读中时间心理表征的建构：动态观还是静态观

探讨读者在文本阅读中如何通过一系列展开事件的描述建构心理表征。实验一探讨在中间事件持续时间长／短条件下对首尾呼应句阅读时间和对探测词反应时间的影响;结果表明,读者对第一事件信息的获得受中间事件的持续时间长短的影响。实验二探讨当信息储存在长时工作记忆中时能否得出与实验一相一致的结果。结果发现,读者对第一事件信息的获得不受中间事件的持续时间长短的影响。实验三考察当用明确的时间副词来表明持续时间的长短时,连续性的事件是否还存在着时间距离效应。实验结果与实验二的相一致。整个研究结果表明,时间心理表征的建构是动态观还是静态观,主要取决于是否存在时间距离效应。     

PREG: Elements of a Model of Question Asking

PREG is a conceptual model of human question asking. The model contains a set of production rules that specify the conditions under which children and adults ask questions when they read expository texts. The essence of PREG's question-asking mechanism is the existence of discrepancies between the representation of text information and the reader's world knowledge, with a mediating role of pragmatics and metacognition. Both the explicit text and the world knowledge are represented in the form of a conceptual graph structure. Comparisons between text representations and readers' knowledge are carried out by examining the 3 components of conceptual graph structures: words, statements, and links between statements. Some of the predictions of PREG were tested on a corpus of questions generated by 8th-grade and 12th-grade students who read short scientific texts. These predictions were empirically supported when assessed on 2 criteria. First, the model was sufficient because it was able to account for nearly all of the questions produced by the students. Second, the model was discriminating; when signal detection analyses were applied to the data, PREG could identify the conditions in which particular classes of questions are or are not generated.     

STRATEGY INSTRUCTION FROM A SOCIOCOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

One of the characteristics of proficient readers and writers is their flexible use of reading and writing strategies. Students experiencing difficulties with reading and writing frequently do not use as many strategies as they read and write. Strategies are the cognitive tools that readers use as they construct meaning from text and that writers use as they produce texts. Many of the strategies that proficient readers and writers use are acquired and some are learned. Reading and writing strategies are frequently learned by purposeful instruction in meaningful social situations. This paper describes the nature of strategy use and instruction from a sociocognitive perspective, discusses the need for purposeful strategy instruction for struggling readers and writers, discusses factors that influence strategy instruction, describes current classroom practices that are congruent with sociocognitive theory, and suggests that strategy instruction should be grounded in classroom routines and situated within beliefs about teaching and learning.     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

Monitoring of comprehension: The role of text difficulty in metamemory for narrative and expository text

The effect of text difficulty on metamemory for narrative and expository text was investigated. In Experiment 1, we found an interaction between type of text and type of question (thematic or detailed). For readers of narrative texts, correlations between predicted and actual performance were highest for detailed questions, but this pattern was reversed for readers of expository texts. Next, text difficulty was explored as a possible factor affecting metamemory accuracy. In Experiments 2 and 3, metamemory accuracy was a nonmonotonic function of text difficulty. Subjects made remarkably accurate predictions of future performance (meanG > .6) for both narrative and expository texts that were of intermediate difficulty (approximately a 12th-grade reading level). We propose anoptimum effort hypothesis, predicting greatest metamemory accuracy when the texts are of intermediate difficulty.     

The interactive effects of prior knowledge and text structure on memory for cognitive psychology texts

Background: Interest in the interactive effects of prior knowledge and text structure on learning from text is increasing but experimental manipulations of knowledge and structure variables often produce findings that do not help teachers to select expository texts for students. Aims: We aimed to extend the ecological validity of previous findings by asking students with a high or low level of discipline‐relevant knowledge to read texts characteristic of those they would normally encounter. A compensation effect was hypothesized, where high prior knowledge would compensate for a lack of text structure and text structure would compensate for a lack of prior knowledge. Samples: One hundred and ninety‐five undergraduate psychology students (144 Year 1 students and 51 Year 3 students) were allocated to a high knowledge (HiPK) or low knowledge (LoPK) group on the basis of their performance on a word association test. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to one of five text structure groups (compare/contrast, sequence, classification, enumeration, generalization) and asked to study two cognitive psychology passages before recalling the main points of the text immediately afterwards and after a delay of 2 weeks. The five text structures were placed on an ‘organizational continuum’ according to the degree of structure/organization in the 10 passages. Results: A compensation effect did not emerge. Recall was high when texts were well structured and readers had prior knowledge, but recall was poor when texts were less structured, regardless of the level of prior knowledge. Conclusions: Readers benefit most from texts that challenge pre‐existing mental representations.     

Reading both high-coherence and low-coherence texts: effects of text sequence and prior knowledge.

Previous research (e.g., McNamara, Kintsch, Songer, & Kintsch, 1996) has demonstrated that high-knowledge readers learn more from low-coherence than high-coherence texts. This study further examined the assumption that this advantage is due to the use of knowledge to fill in the gaps in the text, resulting in an integration of the text with prior knowledge. Participants read either a high- or low-coherence text twice, or they read both the high- and low-coherence texts in one order or the other. Reading the low-coherence text first should force the reader to use prior knowledge to fill in the conceptual gaps. However, reading the high-coherence text first was predicted to negate the necessity of using prior knowledge to understand the low-coherence text when the latter was presented second. As predicted, high-knowledge readers benefited from the low-coherence only text when it was read first. Low-knowledge readers benefited from the high-coherence text, regardless of whether it was read first, second, or twice.     

CHILDREN S CHOICES: A COMPARISON OF BOOK PREFERENCES BETWEEN HISPANIC AND NON-HISPANIC FIRST-GRADERS

This report describes a study of book preferences among 190 first graders. Students were exposed to nine different, high-quality, picture books of various genres (including multicultural texts) and asked to select one to own. A mixed subgroup of students had the texts read to them during read aloud sessions, but the majority made selections based on surface-level text structures. Results indicate that Hispanic and non-Hispanic students were more alike than different in their preferences. An overwhelming majority selected informational, rather than narrative books. This finding counters notions that young readers prefer stories and desire books that mirror them in culturally pertinent ways.     

Examining the Effects of Skill Level and Reading Modality on Reading Comprehension

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of reading skill and reading modality (oral versus silent) on reading comprehension. A normative sample of sixth-grade students (N = 74) read texts aloud and silently and then answered questions about what they read. Skill in word reading fluency was assessed by the Test of Word Reading Efficiency, Second Edition (Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 2012), and students were identified as either normal or at-risk readers based on those scores. A 2 (reading skill) X 2 (reading modality) mixed factorial ANOVA was conducted. Results revealed that both normal and at-risk readers demonstrated better comprehension of text read orally as compared to text read silently. The middle school curriculum requires independent silent reading, yet students may enter middle school without the literacy skills they need to be successful. These findings suggest that students transitioning to middle school may benefit from additional pedagogical support in silent reading comprehension.     

Feeling the past: The absence of experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on text processing

In two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated the hypothesis that information moves backward in time to influence prior behaviors (Bem Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100:407?C425, 2011a). In two of Bem??s experiments, words were presented after target pictures in a pleasantness judgment task. In a condition in which the words were consistent with the emotional valence of the picture, reaction times to the pictures were significantly shorter , as compared with a condition in which the words were inconsistent with the emotional valence of the picture. Bem Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100:407?C425, (2011a) interpreted these results as showing a ??retroactive priming?? effect resulting from precognition. To test the precognition hypothesis, we adapted a standard repetition priming paradigm from psycholinguistics. In the experiments, participants read a set of texts. In one condition, the participants read the same text twice. In other conditions, participants read two different texts. The precognition hypothesis predicts that readers who encounter the same text twice will experience reductions in processing load during their first encounter with the text. Hence, these readers' average reading times should be shorter than those of readers who encounter the target text only once. Our results indicated that readers processed the target text faster the second time they read it. Also, their reading times decreased as their experience with the self-paced reading procedure increased. However, participants read the target text equally quickly during their initial encounter with the text, whether or not the text was subsequently repeated. Thus, the experiments demonstrated normal repetition priming and practice effects but offered no evidence for retroactive influences on text processing.     

Reading,feeling, believing: online testimonies and the making of Evangelical emotion

A personal relationship with God is central to Evangelical belief. It unfolds as believers interpret internal sensations as coming from outside—from God. How does the formulaic design of testimonies present the audience with a personal relationship with God as a pursuit that is both feasible and deeply desirable? Analyzing the discursive rules structuring the appearance of emotion in the most popular testimonies on the online platform of Christianity Today reveals that such texts expertly present a microcosm in which the experience of reading mirrors the trajectory toward belief writers describe. To read a testimony from start to finish, readers must choose to tolerate the unfamiliar: that is, feel emotions that specifically belong in an Evangelical frame. Online written testimony relies on compelling storytelling to move readers, making them practise what it feels like to hand over part of one’s own story to God.     

Is writing as difficult as it seems?

Experiment 1 assessed the time and effort allocated to writing subprocesses while generating written and verbal protocols over 10 weekly writing sessions. Within a 40-min session, planning time consumed about 45% in the first 5 min, but stabilized at near 30% thereafter. Generating text initially consumed 40% of the writers’ time, peaked at 50% midway, and then declined to its original level. The time spent revising and reviewing was negligible early in writing sessions, but increased substantially late in the sessions. The highest and lowest quality documents could be differentiated on the basis of the amount of time the writers devoted to revising and to the magnitude of their RTs in a secondary interference task. Writers showed consistent, distinctive patterns of transitional probabilities between writing subprocesses both within and across sessions, yielding quantitative representations of their writing styles. In Experiment 2, writers overestimated the amount of time they devote to revising and overestimated the amount of effort they allocate to planning and text generation. Their estimations did not improve after 10 weeks of composing. A time-and-effort-based analysis of writing is proposed to account for these data.     

Negotiating Problems of Written Argumentation

Studies from many countries report that secondary school students do not master written argumentation well enough. This article presents a case study from lower secondary school where the question of problems in written argumentation is approached from a different angle: instead of focusing on argumentative weaknesses in student texts, it concentrates on what students are capable of and struggle with when they write argumentative texts in cooperation with a scaffolding teacher. Findings from this study show that a clear text pattern communicated through teaching and teacher response helped weak as well as strong writers to improve common problems related to audience awareness and the structure of argumentative texts. In cooperation with a commenting teacher all students were also able to support a standpoint with more reasons and to strengthen their own position by refuting a counterargument, although to varying degrees. However, only a couple of revised texts suggest that students had the will, skill and insight needed to follow up teacher response that encouraged a more distanced view on heated debates, conflict negotiations, self-reflection and critical thinking.     

文本阅读理解中精加工推理及错误记忆探讨

以说明文为阅读文本,通过使用累计窗口技术、自定步调的阅读时间法和句子核证法,结合一般世界知识的激活考察了文本阅读理解中精加工推理和错误记忆现象。实验1结果表明,被试在文本阅读理解中产生了精加工推理,内涵推理成绩显著高于外延推理;与文本信息密切相关的一般世界知识容易被激活。实验2结果表明,文本阅读中存在错误记忆现象;错误记忆随着一般世界知识与原文关联程度增强而增加。结论文本阅读理解中存在精加工推理和错误记忆现象,二者均与一般世界知识的激活有关;文本阅读中的错误记忆与DRM范式（Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm）中的错误记忆一样具有顽固性。     

Evaluating the impact of feedback on elementary aged students' fluency growth in written expression: A randomized controlled trial

The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to evaluate elementary-aged students' writing fluency growth in response to (a) instructional practices, (b) sex differences, and (c) student's initial level of writing fluency. Third-grade students (n = 133) in three urban elementary schools were randomly assigned to either an individualized performance feedback condition (n = 46), a practice-only condition (i.e., weekly writing practice; n = 39), or an instructional control condition (n = 48) for 8 weeks. Findings included support for use of performance feedback as an instructional component in general education classrooms (Hedges' g = 0.66), whereas simple practice with curriculum-based measurement in written expression did not produce growth significantly greater than standard instructional practices. The hypothesis that girls write significantly more than boys was supported. However, girls and boys did not differ in their rate of growth. Finally, students' initial risk status in writing fluency did not differentially predict growth in writing fluency over the course of the study. Implications for incorporating feedback as a basic component of intervention in writing are discussed.     

时间距离对记叙文倒叙信息表征的影响

采用移动窗口技术和探测——再认范式探讨了时间距离对记叙文倒叙信息表征的影响。本研究分为两个实验：实验1考察了在近时间距离条件下读者如何表征倒叙信息,结果发现读者会根据时间顺序,把倒叙信息整合到他们的表征中去,支持时间顺序假设;实验2考察了在远时间距离条件下读者如何表征倒叙信息,结果发现读者会根据文本叙述顺序,将倒叙信息作为背景信息整合到该事件中去,支持背景假设。上述结果表明,时间距离是影响读者如何对倒叙信息进行表征的重要因素。