Peter Freebody

Effects on Text Comprehension of Differing Proportions and Locations of Difficult Vocabulary

Two experiments assessed the effect of vocabulary difficulty on three measures of text comprehension—free recall, summary recall, and sentence recognition. In Experiment 1, the effects of differing proportions of rare-word substitutions were examined. It was found that a high rate of difficult vocabulary (one substance word in three) was required before reliable effects on comprehension were evident. In Experiment 2, difficult vocabulary was placed in important text elements in one form of the passages, and in unimportant elements in another. These forms were contrasted with easy vocabulary forms in their effects on the three comprehension measures. Only on the summary measure was there an overall effect of difficult vocabulary in important elements. The results are discussed in terms of the salience of the signaling value of unfamiliar words.

Children's First Schoolbooks: Introductions to the Culture of Literacy.

One of the functions of education is to teach societal norms to those who are being educated. Textbooks used in schools may be important agents of socialization. In this article Peter Freebody and Carolyn Baker explore ways in which beginning reading books present cultural perspectives to young children. The childrens textbooks, which are produced and selected by adults, present to children particular views of the world. The authors explore certain modes of thought, experience, and interaction prevalent in the childs preschool life in contrast to other types of experiences characteristic of the culture of formal and literate schooling.

Teachers’ Predictions of Children’s Early Reading Achievement: An Application of Social Judgment Theory:

We present and implement a framework for studying teachers’ informal expectations in the context of reading education. The framework is called Social Judgment Theory (SJT) and it entails an idiographic analysis of various aspects of cues used to form policies and make judgments. Major attention focuses on the relative importance attached to each cue and the overall relationship between the pattern used by the teacher and the pattern that actually obtains in the reading ecology. Preliminary work is described that examines the expectation policies of novice teachers when considering potential achievements in vocabulary development and reading comprehension. A multivariate application of SJT revealed that the novice teachers studied held generally accurate expectation policies with respect to the ecology, but showed large individual differences in the importance they placed on various cues. Subsequent cluster analysis of the expectation policies revealed several different types of policy weighting schemes. We draw implications of the general application of SJT for the study of informal classroom policies, and we point to the next step—the provision of policy feedback to teachers for the purposes of heightening awareness and improving policy accuracy.

Generalized multivariate lens model analysis for complex human inference tasks

Abstract A generalized multivariate lens model is presented which will permit the analysis of complex human inference tasks. Such tasks, occurring in their natural ecology, may involve judgments or decisions on multiple criteria and/ or where the influence of theoretically interesting partitions or augmentations of cue profiles needs to be systematically delineated. The generalized model incorporates the standard, hierarchical, and fully partialed lens models, the initial elaborations of which were made by N. J. Castellan (1972, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 8, 242–261) and T. R. Stewart (1976, Psychometrika, 41, 101–120). Both multivariate and univariate lens model equations are presented within a common notational system. An example which demonstrates some aspects of the generalized model is discussed in detail. Other potential applications for the model are outlined.

Serial position and rated importance in the recall of text

The relationship between a propositions serial position, its rated importance, and the probability of its appearance in free recall protocols was examined. A total of eight passages were each read and recalled by about 60 sixth‐grade students. It was found that both rated importance and position predict recall. In addition, the quadratic of serial position was a significant predictor, indicating a “recency” effect.

’Constituting the Child’ in Beginning School Reading Books

Abstract Childrens first school books are a distinctive form of adult‐produced discourse, ostensibly about children and their everyday world. An analysis of the texts of a large corpus of these books shows how particular images of the child, as character in the books and as reader of the books, are constructed. The methods include vocabulary counts, a study of membership categorisation practices in the texts and a description of the relation between narrator and characters’ voices in the texts. The age and gender category memberships of characters in the books are fundamental to the descriptions of social relationships, and to the models of language, rationality and social order, which the books convey. The texts are further viewed as implicit introductions to school‐endorsed versions of how children think, act and talk, and hence to the official culture of schooling.

The Effects of Some Known Sources of Reading Difficulty on Metacomprehension and Comprehension.

This study represents an exploration into the relationship between comprehension and metacomprehension. The effects of variables known to be sources of reading difficulty were compared on a measure of reading comprehension and one of metacomprehension. One hundred and twenty seventh grade students each read four versions of thirty-six passages which differed in level of familiarity, goodness of structure, and vocabulary difficulty. Then students either rated the comprehensibility of each passage or responded to ten comprehension probes for each of the passages. Both comprehensibility judgments and comprehension performance were positively related to topic familiarity and good story structure. Vocabulary difficulty was negatively related to performance on the comprehension measure only. Implications for research are discussed.

Cue subset contributions in the hierarchical multivariate lens model: Judgments of children's reading achievement

Abstract We investigate the hierarchical contributions of subsets of cues to the judgment of childrens early achievement in reading. Twenty student teachers judged 118 profiles of actual kindergarten children on two related ecological criteria: end-of-year achievement on measures of vocabulary development and reading comprehension. Each profile contained five cues: two cues were demographic in nature (socioeconomic status and teaching curriculum); the remaining three cues concerned various cognitive abilities of the child (knowledge of books and print conventions, knowledge of names and sounds of the alphabet letters, and oral language comprehension). Using the hierarchical multivariate lens model, the unique contribution of the cognitive cue subset over and above the demographic cue subset to achievement in the judgment task was assessed. Results showed a substantial contribution of the cognitive cue subset to multivariate judgmental achievement beyond the demographic cue subset alone. Additional diagnostic indices from the multivariate lens model analysis (i.e., various intercriterial and interjudgmental correlations) are discussed. Conclusions are drawn with respect to the overall adequacy of the multivariate judgments and to the potential impact of temporal sequencing of cue perceptions on subsequent judgmental processes.

The Effects of Various Pre-Reading Activities on Children's Literal and Inferential Comprehension.

In three half‐hour practice sessions over three days, 88 grade 5 students from a rural city in Australia were given practice in one of the following pre‐reading exercises: (1) an irrelevant task (control); (2) a pictorial introduction to the topic; (3) content‐directed questions to be answered; (4) free‐association to the passages titles. On day 4, post‐test measures were taken on literal and inferential comprehension using the practiced pre‐reading activity. In a later session, students were asked to rate the efficacy of each type of pre‐reading activity and to provide rationales for their first preferences. While the pictorial introduction group performed best overall on comprehension, it was found (i) that any topic relevant introduction significantly enhanced background‐only inferential com‐ prehension, (ii) pictorial introductions facilitated inferences requiring the linkage of disparate textual elements, and (iii) directed questioning significantly aided literal comprehension. It was also found tha...

The Ecology of Spelling: A Lens Model Analysis of Spelling Errors and Student Judgments of Spelling Difficulty.

Abstract Students who were identified by their teachers as poor spellers were asked to judge the difficulty they would have in spelling each of 100 words that were representative of the sorts of words they tended to misspell in their various subject areas (the spelling ecology). After making difficulty judgments, the students were then asked to spell each word on the list. Spelling errors were scored as either phonetic or nonphonetic. The researchers rated each of the 100 words on ten characteristics: number of letters, syllables, letters per syllable, double and silent letters; schwa, ambiguous, and unusual sounds; and two measures of familiarity to the student. This task was replicated after a four‐week period to check for spelling and judgment consistency. Spelling errors and judgments of spelling difficulty were analyzed using the double system Lens Model using the ten word characteristics as “cues” in the analysis. Results showed only moderate agreement between difficulty judgments and spelling error...