This case study explored how ten English as a First
Language (Li) and ten English as a Second Language (L2)
average Grade Three readers used Prior Knowledge and Non
Prior Knowledge strategies to understand two Science texts
and to answer three types of questions on the texts.
The questions were classified according to the
Pearson and Johnson taxonomy (1978). Answers to Textually
Explicit questions could be found in the text; answers to
Textually Implicit questions invited inferences from the
text and answers to Scriptally Implicit questions required
readers to use their own resources.
Readers thought out loud or verbalized their thoughts
after reading each sentence of the text, rated reading
strategy statements, orally answered the three types of
questions and then rated question-answering strategy
statements.
Patterns of strategies emerged from the Text and
Questions protocols. Frequency counts of strategies were
tallied and percentages were calculated. Analyses of the bar
graphs showed that there were apparent differences between
Li and L2 students in their use of Prior Knowledge and Non
Prior Knowledge strategies when they read texts and answered
questions on texts. It was felt that these differences indicated that Li readers seemed to be less “text-bound” or
focussed on the text than L2 readers were.
There were also apparent differences between the
three types of questions and Li and L2 readers’ use of Prior
Knowledge and Non Prior Knowledge strategies, providing
evidence that the three types of questions elicited use of
different types of strategies, and lending support to
Wixson’s comment (1983) that the types of questions asked
influenced the kinds of strategies used.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/7055 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Faria-Neves, Marina de |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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