Relationship between single word decoding and reading comprehension skill.

Conducted a study with 64 3rd and 5th graders from a predominantly White, working-class neighborhood. Ss classified as skilled and less skilled in reading comprehension, on the basis of their scores on the Reading Subtest of the Metropolitan Achievement Test, differed in vocalization latencies to single printed words. Overall, vocalization latencies were shorter for the skilled group than the less skilled group, and there was an interaction between word type and comprehension skill. Comprehension groups showed large vocalization latency differences for pseudowords and for low frequency English words but smaller differences for high frequency English words. Knowledge of word meanings may be a less significant factor in vocalization latency for the skilled group than for the unskilled group. It is suggested that at least some unskilled comprehenders may have failed to develop automatic decoding skills and that this failure may lead to diminished comprehension skills sharing a common processing capacity with nonautomatic decoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher accuracy in decoding nonverbal indicants of comprehension and noncomprehension in Anglo- and Mexican-American children.

Examined the degree to which Anglo- and Mexican-American 1st-grade teachers can accurately decode nonverbal indicants of comprehension and noncomprehension in young children. 16 teachers from each group viewed silent videotapes (visual cues only) of 3 groups of 1st graders—Anglo-American, proficient bilingual, and limited English-speaking Mexican-American—while the children listened to an easy or difficult lesson on animal habitats. There were 24 boys and 24 girls, and 16 Ss in each linguistic grouping. The Ss estimated the students' level of understanding on the basis of their nonverbal responses. Degree of accuracy was assessed by comparing Ss' ratings of comprehension with the children's actual posttest comprehension scores. No differences in decoding accuracy between S groups were found. Ss perceived boys as understanding more than girls, particularly in the Anglo-American and limited English-speaking groups. Training raters improved overall decoding accuracy. Slight cultural differences were found in children's nonverbal behavior, but it did not appear that the behavior was misinterpreted by either group of Ss. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete, causal, and propositional contexts.

Examined children's comprehension of certainty and uncertainty within the context of concrete and propositional reasoning tasks. 69 1st, 3rd, and 5th graders were given G. Pieraut-LeBonniec's (1980) box task and a multisufficient causality task to assess reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete contexts. Ss were also given conditional syllogisms to assess this ability in a propositional context. Half of the Ss at each grade were given contramanded syllogism task statements intended to block erroneous conversational inferences made about these conditional statements. Results indicate that there were no developmental differences in reasoning about concrete certainty, but significant improvement occurred with age in reasoning about concrete uncertainty. On syllogisms, only the 5th graders benefited from contramanding and thus demonstrated an understanding of propositional uncertainty. Correlational and error analyses showed that the discrimination between certainty and uncertainty was mastered in concrete contexts prior to the time when this discrimination occurred in propositional contexts. It is concluded that reasoning about concrete certainty and uncertainty requires a different competence than that required for reasoning about propositional certainty and uncertainty. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of information about future interaction and peer's motivation on peer reward allocations.

Most equity studies dealing with children have defined inputs solely in terms of relative task performance. Yet in naturally occurring circumstances, children are presented with information about accomplishments in a context of other equally salient information. The present study determined what information 192 1st and 3rd graders weighted most heavily when formulating allocation decision rules. Ss allocated rewards to themselves and 2 unfamiliar players following a tower-building task. One player always constructed a shorter tower than the participant and the other player. Altruistic, aggressive, or no motivation information was attributed to the short-tower player. Half of the Ss anticipated future interaction with the players. It was hypothesized that both 1st and 3rd graders would utilize information concerning a peer's motivation in allocating rewards and that the prospect of future interaction would influence the use of the motivation information. Results corroborate the 1st hypothesis and indicate that prospect of future interaction information masked the effects of a peer's motivation for 3rd graders. First graders used this information only when no motivation information was given. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of cognitive style in a cognitive task: A case favoring the impulsive approach to problem solving.

A task that favored the impulsive approach to problem solving was given to impulsive, reflective, fast/accurate, and slow/inaccurate male 3rd and 4th graders. Ss learned to choose 1 of a pair of multidimensional stimuli based upon a single cue. In 1 condition, the stimuli were composed of many dimensions; in the 2nd condition, the stimuli were composed of few dimensions. Reflective Ss solved the task with few dimensions more quickly than impulsive Ss, whereas impulsive Ss solved the task with many dimensions in fewer trials. Fast/accurate and slow/inaccurate Ss solved problems in an intermediate number of trials but also reversed positions as a function of the number of dimensions. Both speed and accuracy components of cognitive style contributed to performance in the cognitive task. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's judgments and attributions in response to the "mentally retarded" label: A developmental approach.

140 3rd graders, 188 6th graders, and 97 9th graders viewed a videotape in which a child failed a puzzle task. All of the Ss had identical information about the child's achievement scores and puzzle ability, but half were told that the child was mentally retarded. Consistent with key person perception and social cognition findings, the traitlike retarded label had little impact on younger Ss but strong effects on older Ss. Like adults in earlier research, 6th and 9th graders saw low effort as a less important cause of failure for the retarded than for the unlabeled child, and they saw less need to urge the retarded child to persist. Correlations showed no evidence of logical linkages among attributions, expectancies, and persistence-urging among 3rd graders, but strong linkages among 6th and 9th graders. Findings suggest that label effects are mediated by cognitive processes dependent on developmental level. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of task and experimenter feedback on the self-reinforcement behavior of internals and externals.

Tested 24 internal and 24 external locus of control Ss on 3 verbal recognition memory tasks. Ss administered self-reinforcement for correct responses on the 1st and 3rd tasks, which had the same difficulty level. The 2nd task was either more or less difficult than the other 2 and was accompanied by E reinforcement. All Ss thus received external evaluation that had variable relevance to their self-evaluation. There were no differences in self-reinforcement base rate (reinforcement rate on the 1st task), but there were several significant and contrasting changes on the 3rd task. Internals attended to both task differences and external evaluation. Externals responded only to evaluation, apparently not attending to task factors. Results are discussed in terms of locus of control and in terms of self-reinforcement behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rhymes and reasons: Some aspects of the child's appreciation of poetic form.

Investigated 18 1st and 3rd graders' appreciation of rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration in poetry. Several measures were used to assess each child's appreciation of the poetic devices. Even 1st graders exhibited some appreciation of rhyme and rhythm in poetry. These Ss displayed an ability to attend to these poetic devices as measured by a detection task, 2 concept learning tasks, and a production task. Moreover, they also expressed preferences for poetry samples containing these devices. However, such was not the case for alliteration. First graders experienced difficulty in attending to alliteration, and neither 1st nor 3rd graders displayed any tendency to prefer poems with alliteration. The results of a posttest questionnaire indicated that only a few children showed any understanding of how the devices function in poetry. It is concluded that although 1st graders have some rudimentary appreciation of rhyme and rhythm in poetry, the ability to understand how such devices function in poetry is a much later development. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of the interplay between automatic processes and cognitive resources in reading.

An account was tested of the development of the interplay between automatic processes and cognitive resources in reading. According to compensatory-encoding theory, with advancing skill, readers increasingly keep automatic processes from faltering and provide timely, accurate data to working memory by pausing, looking back, rereading, and compensating in other ways when automatic processes fail. Reading skill profiles (e.g., word naming, semantic access, working memory capacity) were obtained from 71 third graders, 68 fifth graders, and 72 seventh graders from a university lab school or a public school (ages 7 to 15; 146 Caucasians, 61 African Americans, 2 Native Americans, 2 Latino Americans). Children participated in an unrestricted reading task (no time or performance pressure) and were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 levels of 3 experimental manipulations of restriction on reading: time pressure or no pressure, constant reading rate or variable reading rate, read silently or read aloud. Regression analyses revealed that developmental level and restriction moderated the reading skill level-comprehension relationship, and restriction lowered comprehension when it overwhelmed skills, especially for younger readers. Verbally inefficient readers compensated most often, and older readers compensated most efficiently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of comprehension monitoring as a function of context.

Two studies with 59 Ss (preschoolers–4th graders) explored the effects of stimulus factors on children's ability to monitor comprehension of messages as listeners in a referential communication situation. Results of Exp I show that both complexity of the stimulus array and degree of message ambiguity affected performances. In line with previous findings, 4th graders but not younger Ss showed evidence of effective comprehension monitoring. Data from Exp II show that when conducive stimulus conditions were arranged, even 1st graders demonstrated considerable skill in comprehension monitoring. In addition to investigating comprehension monitoring per se, the studies also examined the role of comprehension monitoring in directing the overall comprehension process. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of explicitness, clause order, and reversibility on children's comprehension of causal relationships.

Three experiments investigated possible age- and ability-related differences in the effects of explicitness, reversibility, and clause order on children's comprehension of causal relationships. Ss were 80 3rd graders, 156 5th graders, and 156 8th graders. At each grade level, Ss of all ability levels read passages containing reversible and irreversible relationships in 1 of 4 experimental formats: explicit with normal clause order, explicit with reversed clause order, implicit with normal clause order, and implicit with reversed clause order. Each passage was followed by a set of prompted-recall questions designed to measure comprehension of the causal relationships. Significant effects for reversibility were found at all 3 grade levels. Significant efects for explicitness were found for the 5th- and 8th-grade samples only. Significant effects for clause order were found for the 3rd- and 5th-grade samples only, with comprehension scores being significantly higher for the groups reading the relationships in the reversed clause order. No significant interactions with ability were found. It is concluded that further research should examine the exact compensatory strategies used by readers when connective comprehension is difficult. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further studies of the Tower of Hanoi problem-solving performance of retarded young adults and nonretarded children.

12 retarded Ss (mean CA 20.19 yrs; mean MA 10.23 yrs) and 36 nonretarded kindergartners and 1st–4th graders were given 4–7 step Tower of Hanoi problems that differed in type of goal state. Overall performance levels of the kindergarten, 1st-grade, and retarded groups were the same, but were reliably below the performance level of 3rd and 4th graders. Performance differences were related to the minimum number of steps needed for a problem's solution and to the depth of search required for a problem's initial subgoal. The propensity of the older nonretarded Ss to search 2 moves ahead, while the members of the other groups limited themselves primarily to a 1-move search, contributed importantly to the group differences. Degree of constraint concerning which disk should be the first to be transferred to its goal peg also played a role in producing task and group differences, as did Ss' particular choice of strategies. All groups improved slightly. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's attributions for failure and success in different aspects of reading.

Investigated the attributions of 82 3rd graders and 82 6th graders for their success and failure in different reading situations with an extended set of causes (as a function of age and achievement differences). Ss were split into good and poor readers on the basis of a median split on the Reading Comprehension subtest of the California Test of Basic Skills. Ss reading achievement was then assessed in 2 reading situations (evaluation of reading performance and reading for meaning). Ss were asked to rate the degree to which each of 6 causes (ability, paying attention, studying, luck, task difficulty, and assistance from others) was responsible for their success or failure. Findings show that 6th graders' locus of control scores varied across situations, while 3rd graders' scores did not. Studying and paying attention were salient to Ss as causes. Age and achievement interacted, with low-achieving 3rd graders giving higher ratings to causes more clearly beyond their control than high-achieving 3rd graders, whereas low- and high-achieving 6th graders did not differ. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Informed Strategies for Learning: A program to improve children's reading awareness and comprehension.

Examined the role of awareness about their own cognitive skills on the learning and development of 87 3rd graders and 83 5th graders. Half of the Ss were given an experimental curriculum—informed strategies for learning (ISL)—designed to increase Ss' awareness and use of effective reading strategies. The remainder of the Ss were used as controls. Results show that Ss who participated in ISL made larger gains than did controls on cloze and error detection tasks. No differences between groups were found on 2 standardized tests of reading comprehension. Findings demonstrate that metacognition can be promoted through direct instruction in classrooms and that increased awareness can lead to better use of reading strategies. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between word difficulty and access of single-word meaning by skilled and less skilled readers.

Previous research, by R. M. Golinkoff and R. R. Rosinski (1976), used a picture-word interference task to show that skilled and less skilled comprehenders in the 3rd and 5th grades could retrieve the meaning of primer-level words equally well. With a similar task and comparable groups of children ( N = 64), the present study assessed the relationship between word difficulty and semantic access by using both the easy words and a new set of more difficult words. Retrieval of the meaning of these difficult words was least apparent for the less skilled 3rd graders, the group that had the most difficulty decoding these words. Results indicate that decoding ease and extraction of word meanings are related and also suggest that decoding ability must be considered a factor in reading comprehension. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructing macrostructure for expository text.

In Exp I, 108 (36 Ss at each level) 3rd, 5th, and 7th graders and 36 graduate students read short expository paragraphs and performed tasks that required the generation of macrostructure. Ss chose the best title, wrote a summary sentence, or wrote 1 additional sentence for each paragraph. Some paragraphs were not well structured; others contained an anomalous sentence. Results show that performance improved with age. The title task was easier than the summary task, which in turn was easier than the next-sentence task. Only adult Ss reflected the presence of anomalous information, and the effects were different on each of the 3 tasks. In Exp II, the title task with 4 response options was administered to 24 undergraduates. Results show that Ss broadened their representations to encompass the deviant sentence in both related and unrelated paragraphs. In the summary-sentence task, proficient adults—who monitored their own comprehension—responded like children. It is suggested that children need instruction variations in both task and in text, introduced gradually and systematically, in order to deal with potential sources of difficulty. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in assessing recall and recognition memory capacity.

32 1st graders, 32 5th graders, and 32 college students were asked to predict how many orally presented nouns they would later be able to (a) recall or (b) recognize. Based on a "task familiarity" argument, it was anticipated that quite different developmental patterns would be obtained on the 2 tasks. As expected, large developmental differences in prediction accuracy emerged on the recall task but not on the recognition task. Following actual task experience and feedback concerning performance, Ss at all ages made more accurate predictions about a hypothetical 2nd list even though the original developmental patterns still remained. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in children's responses to adult pressure for achievement.

Studied the achievement-oriented behaviors of 64 1st and 64 4th graders under either a neutral or an achievement-emphasis condition and with either a female or a male E. After seeing a memory task with 7 levels of difficulty, Ss selected 1 level to try. Selection of a moderately challenging task was defined as high-achievement orientation and selection of an easy or difficult task as low-achievement orientation. Fourth graders were more achievement oriented than 1st graders and were not influenced by the sex of the E; however, when the 1st graders were encouraged to achieve, boys responded positively to the male E but negatively to the female. For the girls, the pattern was reversed. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multimethod comparison of popular and unpopular children.

Differences between 101 popular and unpopular 3rd and 4th graders were assessed by teacher reports, classroom observations, the Peabody Individual Achievement Test, the Children's Depression Inventory, ratings on role-play situations, interviews that elicited information on Ss' knowledge of social skills, and responses to hypothetical situations. Unpopular Ss were perceived as being more depressed and deviant by teachers than were popular Ss. Classroom observations indicated that unpopular Ss spent significantly less time on-task than popular Ss and engaged in significantly more negative interactions. There was a trend for popular Ss to perform at a higher academic level than unpopular Ss, and the latter Ss were more depressed than Ss in the former group. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)