Paula J. Schwanenflugel

Differential Context Effects in the Comprehension of Abstract and Concrete Verbal Materials.

Three experiments were performed to test contrasting predictions of a dual-representation theory and a context availability model of concreteness effects in verbal processing. In one experiment, abstract and concrete sentences were presented with and without a paragraph context. Without context, subjects took longer to read abstract sentences than concrete sentences. With context, the reading times did not differ. A similar result was observed in a second experiment in which lexical decision times were measured for abstract and concrete words. In the absence of context, lexical decision times for abstract words were longer than for concrete words. With a sentence context, however, the lexical decision times for these two word types were equivalent. A subsequent rating experiment indicated that rated context availability was a good predictor of reaction time in both experiments. The results were discussed as providing support for the context availability model.

Context availability and lexical decisions for abstract and concrete words

Abstract Three experiments were performed to examine contrsting predictions of a dualrepresentation and context availability hypothesis for concreteness effects in lexical decision. In Experiment 1, equivalent lexical decision times were obtained for concrete and abstract words controlled for rated context availability, whereas longer lexical decision times were obtained for abstract words than for concrete words when the abstract words were rated lower in context availability. In a second lexical decision experiment using 365 words, rated context availability was a better predictor of lexical decision time than imagery and concreteness, familiarity, or age-of-acquisition ratings. The third experiment was a sentence context-lexical decision study in which benefits of context were examined for abstract and concrete words controlled on rated context availability and for abstract and concrete words where the abstract words were rated lower in context availability. Larger benefits of context were obtained for abstract words than for concrete words only when the abstract words were also rated low in context availability. These results are discussed as providing support for the context availability hypothesis of concreteness effects during lexical decision.

Becoming a Fluent Reader: Reading Skill and Prosodic Features in the Oral Reading of Young Readers.

Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is considered one of the hallmarks of fluent reading. The major purpose of the study was to learn how reading prosody is related to decoding and reading comprehension skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured in 2nd- and 3rd-grade children (N = 123) and 24 adults. Reading comprehension and word decoding skills were assessed. Children with faster decoding speed made shorter and less variable intersentential pauses, shorter intrasentential pauses, larger sentence-final fundamental frequency (F(0)) declinations, and better matched the adult prosodic F(0) profile. Two structural equation models found evidence of a relationship between decoding speed and reading prosody as well as decoding speed and comprehension. There was only minimal evidence that prosodic reading was an important mediator of reading comprehension skill.

A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Reading Prosody as a Dimension of Oral Reading Fluency in Early Elementary School Children

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 pausal intrusions between the first and second grades and early acquisition of an adult-like intonation contour predicted better comprehension later. Thus, prosodic oral reading might signal that children have achieved fluency and are more capable of understanding what they read. Results of this study support the inclusion of prosody in formal definitions of oral reading fluency.

Becoming a fluent and automatic reader in the early elementary school years.

The goals of this study were to (a) develop an empirically based model regarding the development of fluent and automatic reading in the early elementary school years and (b) determine whether fluent text-reading skills provided benefits for reading comprehension beyond those accounted for by fluent word decoding. First-, second-, and third-grade children completed a series of reading tasks targeting word and nonword processing, text reading, spelling knowledge, autonomous reading, and reading comprehension. Structural equation modeling was carried out to evaluate how these skills operated together to produce fluent text reading and good comprehension. Evidence supported a simple reading fluency model for the early elementary school years suggesting that fluent word and text reading operate together with autonomous reading to produce good comprehension.

Interlingual semantic facilitation: evidence for a common representational system in the bilingual lexicon

Abstract Two experiments were performed to examine the representation of semantic information in the bilingual lexicon. The influence of cross-language priming on lexical decisions in Spanish-English bilinguals was tested at a 300-ms (Experiment 1) and 100-ms (Experiment 2) stimulus onset asyncrony. Experiment 1 showed that the benefit derived from a same language prime was not greater than that derived from a cross-language prime. The recognition of words following the other language primes was not slowed in comparison to that following the same language primes. This was true regardless of the semantic distance from the prime. Experiment 2 found similar results. These results are consistent with the view that the bilingual lexicon is connected via a language-independent representational system.

Teaching Children to Become Fluent and Automatic Readers.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of two instructional approaches designed to improve the reading fluency of 2nd-grade children. The first approach was based on Stahl and Heubachs (2005) fluency-oriented reading instruction (FORI) and involved the scaffolded, repeated reading of grade-level texts over the course of each week. The second was a wide-reading approach that also involved scaffolded instruction, but that incorporated the reading of 3 different grade-level texts each week and provided significantly less opportunity for repetition. By the end of the school year, FORI and wide-reading approaches showed similar benefits for standardized measures of word reading efficiency and reading comprehension skills compared to control approaches, although the benefits of the wide-reading approach emerged earlier and included oral text reading fluency skill. Thus, we conclude that fluency instruction that emphasizes extensive oral reading of grade-level text using scaffolded approaches is effective for promoting reading development in young learners.

Context availability and the recall of abstract and concrete words

Predictions of an automatic-imagery, strategic-imagery, and context-availability hypothesis of concreteness effects in free recall were examined. In each experiment, recall of abstract and concrete words controlled for rated context availability was compared with the typical situation in which context availability is confounded with imageability. In Experiment 1, a directed intentional-recall task produced concreteness effects in recall. Experiment 2 compared concreteness effects in recall following three orienting tasks: imagery rating, context-availability rating, and a directed intentional-memory task. Concreteness effects in the context-availability-controlled condition were found following the imagery-rating and the directed intentional-memory tasks, but not after the context-availability-rating task. In Experiment 3, subjects reported the strategies that they used to encode the list. Subjects reporting an imagery strategy showed concreteness effects for words controlled for rated context availability, but those not reporting it did not. These results support a strategic-imagery view of concreteness effects in free recall.

Partial Word Knowledge and Vocabulary Growth during Reading Comprehension

The experiment investigated the development of vocabulary knowledge in elementary school children as a function of story reading for partially known and unknown words. Fourth graders participated in a vocabulary checklist in which they provided definitions or sentences for words they knew (known words) and checked off words they did not know the meaning of but were familiar with (partially known words). Children then read stories containing some of these words. The remaining words served as a control. Vocabulary growth was small but even for both partially known and unknown words. However, the characteristics of the words being learned themselves (particularly, part of speech and concreteness) were more important in determining this growth than aspects of the texts.

Developing Organization of Mental Verbs: Evidence for the Development of a Constructivist Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood

Abstract Two experiments examined the development of a theory of mind in middle childhood by examining changes in the organization of mental verbs of knowing. In both experiments, children and adults rated the similarity of pairs of mental verbs in terms of the way they felt they used their mind in each one. Experiment 1 used thirty-six 8- and thirty-four 10-year-olds, and 27 adults. In Experiment 2, 9- and 11-year-old children were classified according to their cognitive monitoring ability (Markman, 1981). Fifteen cognitive monitoring and 15 nonmonitoring children were used, and 33 adults also participated. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) analyses of each groups ratings indicated that participants distinguished mental verbs according to the certainty aspects and information processing aspects of mental activity. Older children and comprehension monitors placed greater emphasis on the certainty aspects of mental activity than younger children and comprehension nonmonitors. It is concluded that important aspects of a constructivist theory of mind develop during middle childhood.