Influence of contextual organizing material on children's listening comprehension.

Investigated the effects of verbal and pictorial organizing material on comprehension of paragraphs. 16 2nd and 16 5th graders were given organizing pictures or verbal statements before listening to paragraphs. In the organizers the relationships among the elements in the paragraphs were either presented or absent. Organizers presenting relationships strongly influenced the production of correct inferences and recall responses. Results suggest that knowledge of the interrelationships among elements is important, if not essential, for the comprehension of prose material. Fifth graders made more correct inferences with pictorial organizers than verbal organizers, showed more correct recall than 2nd graders, but made more incorrect inferences given verbal organizers. These results suggest that 5th graders generated alternative inferences concerning the meaning of prose material, sometimes leading to conclusions other than those intended. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)