THE INTERFERENCE OF SOME ANAPHORIC EXPRESSIONS ON READING COMPREHENSION

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interference of certain anaphoric expressions (pronouns) on eighth grade students’ reading comprehension. The subjects (n=103) were administered cloze .tests of anaphoric comprehension in which either 0%, 33%, 66% or 100% of the pronouns were replaced by appropriate referents. Analysis of covariance was utilized to analyze the resulting data, using passage form as the independent variable, and SRA reading achievement scores as the covariate. The null hypothesis was rejected, which stated there would not be significant differences among subjects’ cloze scores on reading the four different forms of the passages. The results suggest that use of anaphoric expressions in some instances will interfere with the reading comprehension of eighth graders. Practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed