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1. Families and Reading 2. Emergent Literacy 3. Learning to Read Words 4. Skilled Word Reading 5. Reading Fluency 6. Vocabulary 7. Theoretical Models of Reading Comprehension 8. Components of Reading Comprehension 9. Motivation to Read... more
1. Families and Reading 2. Emergent Literacy 3. Learning to Read Words 4. Skilled Word Reading 5. Reading Fluency 6. Vocabulary 7. Theoretical Models of Reading Comprehension 8. Components of Reading Comprehension 9. Motivation to Read 10. Linguistic Variation and Reading 11. Why Reading?: The Psychosocial Benefits of Reading
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Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the varied literatures describing influences from word-level constraint and sentence constraint. The chapter focuses on the research describing on-line processing of words, rather than memory for... more
Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the varied literatures describing influences from word-level constraint and sentence constraint. The chapter focuses on the research describing on-line processing of words, rather than memory for or explicit decisions about those words. The chapter also discusses how various theories of lexical processing might (or not) account for these influences. Studies of contextual constraint have the potential to lend information relevant for determining the locus and manner in which context influences the processing of words. As a result, such studies assist in deciding among alternative theories of lexical processing. The view of lexical processing that is eventually decided upon, contextual constraint emerged as an important factor in the processing of words and needs to be included in any theory of lexical processing.
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ABSTRACT
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Children from low-socioeconomic status families often perform poorly on standardized vocabulary assessments. The primary purpose of the study was to determine whether lexical diversity as measured by D (Malvern, Richards, Chipere,... more
Children from low-socioeconomic status families often perform poorly on standardized vocabulary assessments. The primary purpose of the study was to determine whether lexical diversity as measured by D (Malvern, Richards, Chipere, & Durán, 2004) serves as a valid measure of vocabulary in at-risk, low-income, predominantly African American kindergartners. Kane's (1992) argument-based approach was used to validate D. Six assumptions were examined. Kindergartners (N = 210) from a high-poverty, low-achievement region of the United States were recorded narrating a wordless picture book and assessed using the Expressive Vocabulary Test, Second Edition (Williams, 2007), and the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Second Edition-Listening Comprehension subtest (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2004). D was distributed normally and did not vary as a function of language sample length or child ethnicity. D was significantly but weakly related to the Expressive Vocabulary Test, Second Edition, indicating some distinction between D and the Expressive Vocabulary Test, Second Edition, scores. Further, D was only marginally related to the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Second Edition-Listening Comprehension subtest. Although evidence was somewhat mixed, the study supported the view that D is a potentially valid measure of lexical diversity among low-income, predominantly African American kindergartners and could be a useful supplement to standardized vocabulary measures.
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This study aimed to develop and validate a measure of emergent reading motivation designed for prekindergarten children, called the Emergent Reading Motivation Scale (ERMS). The development of the ERMS was to overcome the limitation that... more
This study aimed to develop and validate a measure of emergent reading motivation designed for prekindergarten children, called the Emergent Reading Motivation Scale (ERMS). The development of the ERMS was to overcome the limitation that current existing reading motivation measures are not developmentally appropriate for young children. Fifty-six native-English speaking children who were enrolled in a prekindergarten program participated in the study. The ERMS had 17 items that were drawn from reading self-concept, reading performance goal, and reading learning goal. The scale was administered through two sock puppets. For each item, the puppets represented contrasting behaviors regarding reading motivation. The children were asked to choose the puppet that was most like themselves. Results suggested that the ERMS is an age-appropriate reading motivation measure for prekindergarten children and has a three-factor structure as assumed even though its internal consistency is moderate and is of limited predictive power of emergent literacy skills.
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One of the most noticeable transformations in children’s oral reading that occurs as they become skilled readers is the development of good reading prosody. We discuss research carried out in our laboratories that describes the nature of... more
One of the most noticeable transformations in children’s oral reading that occurs as they become skilled readers is the development of good reading prosody. We discuss research carried out in our laboratories that describes the nature of these changes in reading prosody. We describe the consistent patterns observed across studies in spectrographically measured prosody features. We discuss where reading prosody fits theoretically in the general development of reading skills. We discuss how researchers have translated their understanding of reading prosody into the development of reading fluency rating scales, and evaluate the validity of the scales. Finally, we discuss open questions in our understanding of reading prosody, particularly with regard to the place of prosody in classroom assessment of reading skill.
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Prior to 2000, the role of fluency was poorly understood in deaf and hard-of-hearing learners beyond the examination of the use of repeated readings as an intervention technique. In 2000, the National Reading Panel identified factors... more
Prior to 2000, the role of fluency was poorly understood in deaf and hard-of-hearing learners beyond the examination of the use of repeated readings as an intervention technique. In 2000, the National Reading Panel identified factors critical to the development of literacy: phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, vocabulary, reading comprehension, motivation, and fluency. Since that time, much has been written on all these topics, except motivation and fluency. This chapter examines the various points of view necessary to understand the complexities of fluency, including but not limited to speed of word reading, vocabulary, prosody, and supralexical unitization. Further, it examines how these components differ based on an individual child’s first language. A concluding section explores successful interventions and lays out a research agenda that will allow the field to move forward.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the development of reading prosody and its impact on later reading skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured for 92 children at the end of grades 1 and 2 and oral reading... more
The purpose of this study was to examine the development of reading prosody and its impact on later reading skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured for 92 children at the end of grades 1 and 2 and oral reading fluency and reading comprehension assessments at the end of the third-grade school year. Tests were carried out to determine (a) the manner in which the key features of oral reading prosody unfold with development and (b) the extent to which the development of reading prosody is predictive of later oral reading fluency and comprehension outcomes beyond word reading skills alone. Path model tests found a relationship between the presence of fewer pausal intrusions during oral reading in first grade and subsequent development of an adult-like intonation contour in second grade. Outcome model tests indicated that the intonation contour was a significant predictor of later fluency once word reading skills were taken into account. Decreases in the number of pa...
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The purpose of this study was to determine the psychometric characteristics of a phonological awareness assessment for prekindergarten children using Messick's (1989) framework for unitary construct validity. Upon entry into... more
The purpose of this study was to determine the psychometric characteristics of a phonological awareness assessment for prekindergarten children using Messick's (1989) framework for unitary construct validity. Upon entry into prekindergarten, children were given rhyme discrimination, syllable segmentation, initial phoneme isolation, and phoneme blending assessments drawn from The Phonological Awareness Test (Robertson & Salter, 1997). Item analyses indicated high internal consistencies, but some tasks were fairly difficult for the age group. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the four phonological awareness tasks have two correlated factors that underlie the measurement (large unit and small unit tasks). Multiple regression analysis showed that all four tasks had significant predictive validity for alphabetic knowledge. Given the paucity of standardized phonological awareness tests for children under 5 and the increased attention to preliteracy assessment, this off-level ...
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This short-term longitudinal study investigated the relationships between students' reading self-concept, goals for reading, and reading fluency skill over the course of the second grade year. Second-grade children (N = 185) were... more
This short-term longitudinal study investigated the relationships between students' reading self-concept, goals for reading, and reading fluency skill over the course of the second grade year. Second-grade children (N = 185) were administered the Test of Word Reading Efficiency, the second-grade Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, and an adapted version of Motivation to Read Profile at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Results showed that students' goals for reading were related to reading self-concept, but unrelated to reading fluency. In addition, reading self-concept was significantly related to reading fluency at each time point. Latent-variable path analysis was used to test four potential relationships between students' reading self-concept and reading fluency skill: (a) an independence model, (b) a skill development model, (c) a self-enhancement model, and (d) a reciprocal effects model. Support for a reciprocal model was found betw...
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Two experiments examined predictions of the relational-distinctive processing view to account for the influence of sentence constraints on memory of target words. In Experiment 1, congruous expected words were recalled better than... more
Two experiments examined predictions of the relational-distinctive processing view to account for the influence of sentence constraints on memory of target words. In Experiment 1, congruous expected words were recalled better than incongruous words. Words appearing in high-constraint sentences were recalled better than words appearing in low-constraint sentences. In Experiment 2, word expectancy and sentence constraint interacted so that unexpected congruous words appearing in high-constraint sentences were recalled better than their expected counterparts, but this difference was not present for low-constraint sentences. A hybrid model including aspects of the featural restriction model of sentence constraint and the relational-distinctive processing view is proposed.
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This study investigated the use of latent class analysis for the detection of differences in item functioning on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition (PPVT-III). A two-class solution for a latent class model appeared to be... more
This study investigated the use of latent class analysis for the detection of differences in item functioning on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition (PPVT-III). A two-class solution for a latent class model appeared to be defined in part by ability because Class 1 was lower in ability than Class 2 on both the PPVT-III and the Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT). This difference was much larger on the PPVT-III for the low-ability class. No difference was found for the high-ability latent class, suggesting that ...
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Two studies examined the development of constructivist theory of mind (ToM) during late childhood and early adolescence. In Study 1, a new measure was developed to assess participants' understanding of the interpretive and... more
Two studies examined the development of constructivist theory of mind (ToM) during late childhood and early adolescence. In Study 1, a new measure was developed to assess participants' understanding of the interpretive and constructive processes embedded in memory, comprehension, attention, comparison, planning, and inference. Using this measure, Study 2 tested a mediational model in which prosocial reasoning about conflict mediated the relation between constructivist ToM and behavior problems in high school. Results showed that the onset of constructivist ToM occurs between late childhood and early adolescence and that adolescents who have more advanced constructivist ToM have more prosocial reasoning about conflict, which in turn mediated the relation with fewer serious behavior problems in high school, after controlling for academic performance and sex. In both studies, girls showed more advanced constructivist ToM than boys in high school.
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... We thank J. Boardman, L. Caldwell, L. Escoffery, and M. Willenborg for their assistance in testing subjects for these experiments. ... Requests for reprints should be sent to Paula J. Schwanenflugel, Department of Educational... more
... We thank J. Boardman, L. Caldwell, L. Escoffery, and M. Willenborg for their assistance in testing subjects for these experiments. ... Requests for reprints should be sent to Paula J. Schwanenflugel, Department of Educational Psychology, 325 Aderhold Hall, University of Georgia ...
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... On the other hand, if readers do not need to access sensory information for comprehension ... benefits from a supportive sentence context for abstract words than for con-crete words. ... contrasts were conducted in order to examine... more
... On the other hand, if readers do not need to access sensory information for comprehension ... benefits from a supportive sentence context for abstract words than for con-crete words. ... contrasts were conducted in order to examine concreteness effects both in meaning-ful and in ...
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... On the other hand, if readers do not need to access sensory information for comprehension ... benefits from a supportive sentence context for abstract words than for con-crete words. ... contrasts were conducted in order to examine... more
... On the other hand, if readers do not need to access sensory information for comprehension ... benefits from a supportive sentence context for abstract words than for con-crete words. ... contrasts were conducted in order to examine concreteness effects both in meaning-ful and in ...