Improving aural comprehension in white and in black children pictures versus print

A total of 128 fourth-grade children verified assertions about three prose passages they had heard. Half of the children were white, from high-status families, and half were black, from low-status families. Within each sample, an independent-groups design was used to appraise the effect of two presentation conditions under each of two conditions of testing. Oral renditions of each passage were accompanied by either pictorial illustrations of text information or printed versions of the text. Previous research on paired-associate learning suggested the hypothesis that pictorial augmentation would be more effective than print. The results confirmed this hypothesis across both populations and both conditions of testing, regardless of the type of assertion verified.