Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2010. / Directed by Michael Kane; submitted to the Dept. of Psychology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jul. 13, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-73).

The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers in grades 1-3 work with reading comprehension in the classroom. This essey will further analyze how they describe the concept poor comprehenders and how they discover if a pupil have bad reading comprehension. I have used the following questions:  How do teachers describe the concept poor comprehenders? How do the teachers work with reading comprehension in the classroom? How do the teachers describe how they find out if a pupil have bad reading comprehension?  The study is based on a qualitative method with three interviews and three observations. The theories and central concepts that I used is poor comprehenders, reading comprehension, reading comprehension strategies and pedagogical methods. The result shows that the teachers have difficulities of explaining the concept poor comprehenders When comparing which reading comprehension method they use in the teaching, the result shows that they have used similar methods but in different ways. The result also shows that all the teachers in this study believes that it´s hard to find out if a pupil have problems with reading comprehension.

AbstractExpected knowledge contributions: My study can contribute to a broader approach to reading comprehension tests and a proactive approach to reading comprehension strategies for a transition stage between year groups.Background: At the beginning of the fall semester in 2016 there was DLS reading comprehension screening of all students in year 7. This was to detect students who possibly were in need of special education. The result showed that approximately half of the students were below the normal expected level for their age, ie between stanine 1-3. This was considered remarkable since almost all the students had passed the goals for reading comprehension in the national tests conducted during the Spring Term in Grade 6. The question arose as to what this difference in reading competence was due to. In the theory, reading ability of the students should not fall dramatically during the summer holidays. It is likely that other and more demands are placed on reading ability as a student changes educational stage and meets other types of text.Purpose and Issues: The purpose of the study is to compare the subsample of the national test for grade 6, which deals with reading comprehension with the DLS test that examines students' reading comprehension in grade 7. What are the similarities and differences regarding texts´ readability, the type of question and the type of reading comprehension process required to answer the questions? Is it possible to distinguish an increased demand on reading skills, and how can we prepare our students for the reading comprehension required during a stage transition? Based on this, my research questions are:* What similarities /differences are there in the texts´ readability?* What similarities /differences are there in the kind of questions in the texts?* What kind of reading process is needed to answer the questions?Theory: The texts have been analyzed using theories of readability, question types, and reading comprehension processes. Reading comprehension is discussed in a sociocultural, cognitive and special educational perspective.Method: I have made a qualitative text analysis in which I examined the subsample of the national tests in year 6 reading comprehension and compared this with the screening of reading comprehension, DLS, which is in grade 7. I have compared the texts´ legibility calculated from lix, the type of questions and reading comprehension processes required by the reader in order to answer the questions. The text analysis is done according to Hellspong and Ledin's (1997) text analysis model where the linguistic design is analyzed.Results: The results show that there is a difference in the readability of the texts. The texts in the national exam have on average a lower degree of difficulty than the texts in DLS reading comprehension test. However, the national test consists of both narrative texts and factual texts. The narrative texts have a significantly lower lix value than the factual texts. The factual texts in the national test have a lix value equivalent to the factual texts in DLS reading comprehension test. Factual texts thus generally appear to be of a higher difficulty than narrative texts as they contain more concepts. One conclusion I can draw is that this could be a possible reason for the big difference between the results of the national test and DLS reading comprehension test. There is also a big difference in the type of questions to the texts. The majority of questions to the national exam are open-ended questions of inference. The result is the opposite of the DLS reading comprehension test, where the majority of questions are text-controlled multiple choice questions with four options. Another conclusion I can draw is that the two reading comprehension tests measure different parts of the students' reading comprehension. The DLS reading comprehension test focuses on surface reading comprehension while the national exam focuses on both superficial and deep reading comprehension. As for reading comprehension processes, there are also major differences in the test. The tests impose different demands on reading comprehension processes. I conclude that the questions for the factual texts belong to the text-based understanding of the process more than to the interpretive and evaluative process.Implications: No single reading comprehension test is in itself a reliable instrument for assessing students' reading comprehension. A combination of methods is needed in which the pedagogue gains a greater understanding of the student's thought processes and the reading strategies that the student uses. One way to prepare students for the transition from middle school to high school can be to work with factual texts and reading comprehension strategies.

The research literature is replete with relatively small scale studies investigating various theories of reading. This research is often exploratory rather than confirmatory in nature. To avoid such limitations, samples from a large data base were used to examine causal models based on the Goodman theory of reading and the concepts of process and product comprehension. Two separate causal models were created using the following variables: graphic similarity, sound similarity, acceptability with prior text, acceptability with following text, acceptability or correction, the retelling score for the text read, the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills Vocabulary and Comprehension scores, and the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) scores. The sample for one model consisted of 448 Grade Two to Grade Five students enrolled in a Chapter I program in the southwestern United States. The sample for the second model consisted of only the Grade Four and Grade Five students from the larger sample since DRP scores were not available for other students. In the hypothesized models graphic and sound similarity, and acceptability with prior and following were posited to load on a latent factor representing the unitary dimension of reading which in turn was posited to be causally related to process and product variables. Process variables included the acceptable or corrected score (RMI comprehending score) and the DRP score. Product variables included the CTBS scores and the retelling score. Product variables were posited to be dependent upon process variables. Analysis was conducted using the LISREL program. For both models causal pathways were dropped between process and product comprehension variables but were retained between the latent variables of reading and process and product comprehension. In addition, the DRP score loaded on product comprehension more than on process comprehension while retelling loaded more on process comprehension than product comprehension. Variables relating to the Goodman theory appeared to be more interrelated than those external to the theory. Implications for the uses of causal modeling and the constructs of process and product comprehension are discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the oral reading miscues and reading comprehension in two groups of young adult Spanish-English bilinguals. Based on current language use, we characterized participants as either “active bilinguals” (using Spanish at least 20% of the time) or “inactive bilinguals (using Spanish less than 20% of the time). Information gained in the present study demonstrated that English-dominant young adult bilinguals produced more oral reading miscues in Spanish than in English, regardless of current language use. Results also demonstrated that increased rate of miscues in Spanish did not negatively affect reading comprehension. / text

The purpose of the study was to examine the use of a prediction technique during the reading of short stories with surprise endings. Investigated were the effects of instructional setting and content familiarity upon interest, overall reading comprehension, literal comprehension, and inferential comprehension. Verbal predictions and supportive evidence generated at the midpoint and prior the story climax was also examined. The subjects, 54 Chapter I remedial readers in a metropolitan school district in Tucson, Arizona, were randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. The study spanned three days. During this time, the students in the individualized treatment read three stories--one of familiar content, one of neutral content, and one of unfamiliar content. Each subject in this treatment generated hypotheses and support for predictions at both the story midpoint and climax. After each story, individual students completed an interest questionnaire and a comprehension assessment. Those in the group treatment followed the same procedure, with predictions and supportive evidence shared in a small group setting of three. Those in the control group read without predicting. The data analysis yielded these findings: (1) Overall comprehension and literal comprehension were not affected by the prediction treatment or story familiarity. (2) The control group surpassed the interest group on the number of inferential questions answered correctly; both the control group and the group prediction treatment subjects performed better than the individualized prediction treatment subjects on the inferential comprehension items. (3) Both the familiar and the neutral selection were more interesting to the students than the unfamiliar selection. (4) Interest scores for the control, familiar group were substantially higher than those for the group familiar treatment, the group, unfamiliar treatment, and the control, unfamiliar treatment. (5) A relationship did not exist between the interest scores and the total comprehension scores of the three stories. (6) Most predictions at the midpoint and prior to the story climax were inaccurate. (7) Predictions, though diverse, could be categorized into approximately 14 groups at the midpoint and 14 groups at the climax. (8) Most predictions were supported either with textual information or scriptal evidence; seldom were script and text ideas combined.

Ley's Partial Model of Compliance suggests that patients who understand information given to them are more likely to remember the information and are more likely to be satisfied with the information. The model then suggests that these components will lead to greater patient compliance with medication regimens. To test the model, Patient Package Inserts (PPIs) describing thiazide diuretics from the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Medical Association, the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Association of Retail Druggists, the United States Pharmacopoeial Convention and a Test PPI written by the Principal Investigator were used. The SMOG Readability Formula was used to determine the grade levels at which PPIs were written. One hundred thirty-six adults enrolled in GED classes in Tucson and other communities and 107 adults enrolled in remedial reading classes at Tucson's Pima Community College were administered the Zip Scale reading placement test and blocked by their reading abilities. Within each of the three blocks, subjects randomly received one of the seven information sheets or no sheet. Subjects took a multiple-choice test based upon information common to all of the PPIs, a cloze comprehension test based upon the PPI which they read, and completed a satisfaction survey which asked subjects to rate the PPI which they read. Subjects also read five vignettes describing fictitious patients taking thiazides who were confronted with different barriers to compliance. Subjects indicated how likely the fictitious patients were to overcome the barriers to compliance. Among this sample of remedial-reading adults, the Test PPI emerged as clearly superior to the others for any of the variables measured. This result would behoove providers of PPIs to rewrite PPIs, reducing the difficulty of these documents as much as possible. Ley's Partial Model of Compliance did not accurately describe the associations between Understanding, Memory, Satisfaction and Compliance for this sample. A New Model emerged describing different associations between these components and between subject reading ability and PPI readability.

The aging of the learning disabled population has necessitated the development of instructional methods designed to meet the unique requirements of the secondary setting. Learning strategies have been proposed as viable alternatives to the tutorial and basic skills approaches. This study investigated the effects of a vocabulary learning strategy, SOS, on science concepts. Six mainstreamed learning disabled adolescents who attended a high school resource room one period per day took part in this five month study. The design was a multiple baseline across two sets of three subjects. A continuous baseline was maintained for each subject, followed by staggered application of the independent variable. The independent variable was a vocabulary learning strategy called SOS, an acronym for Search, Operate and Study. The dependent variables were tests of science vocabulary definitions and meanings at instructional and grade level. The experimental phases included (a) baseline, (b) intervention which included training in instructional level materials and generalization to grade level materials, (c) maintenance of the strategy over time and (d) retraining if the strategy was not maintained. Criterion measures of strategy training in instructional level materials and strategy generalization to grade level materials were recorded during the intervention phase of the study. A pre and post measure of student attitude toward science was administered prior to and at the end of the study. Visual analysis of the data indicated that this vocabulary learning strategy positively affected performance on grade level and instructional level science vocabulary tests for all subjects. Five of the six subjects were able to apply the total strategy to instructional level materials and generalize it to grade level materials. All subjects maintained at least part of the strategy. Strategy training positively affected attitudes toward studying science and science vocabulary. Overall findings were discussed in the context of learner characteristics and strategy efficacy.

The schema activating instructional strategy of Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA) has been demonstrated as an effective way of teaching vocabulary and comprehension. This study compared the SFA to three other strategies of Direct Instruction (DI), Vocabulary Look Up (VLU), and Read Only (RO) for their effectiveness to help students clarify prior misconceptions. Student responses on multiple choice pre and post tests and their written recalls were the dependent variables in this study. Subjects were four classes of 127 normal seventh and eighth grade students. The classes were randomly assigned intact to the four instructional strategies: SFA, DI, VLU, and RO. Students were pretested and then instructed using a passage on the Fourth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution according to their assigned strategies. They then took the posttest and wrote recalls. Students misconceptions in the pretest were tabulated and compared to those in the posttest to determine which of the four strategies was most effective in helping students clarify their prior misconceptions about the Fourth Amendment. Then students' written recalls were analyzed according to various conceptual categories to learn which strategy helped the students to recall the reading passage. The structure of the students' writing was also examined to find out which of the four strategies helped the students the most in integrating the new information and writing most coherently. The SFA group clarified and corrected significantly more items on the multiple choice test than any of the other groups. This finding suggests that an interactive strategy such as SFA facilitates student memory and learning of content area material. The results also demonstrated that students taught through the strategy of semantic feature analysis recalled more conceptual units than the other groups. They also wrote more cohesively with clearer structure than the others.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of using Arabic (L1) as a language of questions and answers in testing reading comprehension in English (L2), and to explore student and teacher opinions about this. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed. To collect the quantitative data, one hundred and forty-four students were given a reading comprehension test. Both multiple-choice and short-answer questions were used. The subjects were second-year English department undergraduate Saudi students and final-year secondary school Saudi students. Other factors including gender and five reading sub-skills were considered. Twelve students and four English-language teachers participated in semi-structured interviews, the source of the qualitative data. The findings of this study indicate that, for the population, test types and test levels investigated, there is no clear case for having reading comprehension questions and answers in L1. The use of Arabic in the English reading comprehension tests did not improve the performance of students. Interview responses were mixed, but with no consensus in favour of Arabic. Limitations of this study are discussed, and recommendations for further research in testing reading comprehension in English as a foreign language are presented.