Peter R. Denner

A developmental comparison of the effects of provided and generated questions on text recall

This study examined the effects of “providing” as compared to “generating” questions while reading on the recall of concepts and facts from a descriptive passage for students at three grade levels: 5th, 8th, and 11th. Being provided conceptual postquestions significantly increased recall of both main ideas and factual details when compared to a reading-only condition. In addition, being provided questions produced more efficient recall of main ideas per unit of time spent studying than either generated questions or simple reading of the passage. Student-generated questions significantly increased the recall of factual details only and did not enhance recall efficiency when compared to a reading-only control group. The results, however, suggest that the greater metacognitive awareness of the 11th graders enabled them to ask more idea-oriented questions and contributed to a shift in their focus during encoding from “selecting” information to “organizing” facts in relation to ideas.

Effects of Story Impressions as a Prereading/Writing Activity on Story Comprehension.

AbstractIn this investigation we examined the usefulness of story impressions as a new prereading/writing activity for improving story comprehension. Story impressions are story fragments that enable students to compose an anticipatory model of a yet-to-be-read passage, by giving them clues concerning how characters and events interact within the story. After reading the set of clues, we asked Grade 2 students to compose a story of their own (called a story guess) before reading the author’s actual tale. The results indicated that students in the story impressions group, whether above-or below-average readers, answered more of the postreading test questions correctly than did students who read only the story. In addition, the story impressions preview had an equal effect on both impressions-related and impressions-unrelated test items. The beneficial effects of the story impressions, therefore, were not limited to increased recall of clue-related information. Examination of the “match” (several measures) ...

The Effect of Story Impressions Preview on Learning From Narrative Text

Abstract The authors assessed the extent to which a generative prereading activity known as Story Impressions (SI), or composing a guess from clues, influences passage recall relative to a more passive prereading activity of reading a Content Preview (CP). The results from 74 eighth-grade students indicated the CP groups equaled the reading-only control groups in recall of the major phrases of the narrative as well as other passage information. As expected, the SI groups significantly exceeded the CP groups and the control groups on both aspects of passage recall. The authors argued that the SI method could be effective because it induced the three fundamental processes that constitute reading comprehension (M. A. Gernsbacher, 1990) and the concomitant generative learning effect (M. C. Wittrock, 1989).

Effects of Prereading Activities on Junior High Students' Recall.

Abstract This study examined the use of story impressions as a prereading writing activity for seventh and eighth-grade students. Subjects in the experimental group were given a set of story impressions (clue words and telegraphic phrases extracted from the authors story) before reading a story, and they were asked to write a story of their own (called a story guess) based on the provided set of clues. Students in a second treatment condition were given the same set of story impressions and asked to list their predictions about the story without composing a story of their own. A third group (the control group) read the story without any preview activity. The story impressions, when paired with composing a story guess, produced the highest level of story recall for both above and below-average readers. The pattern of results supported the composing aspect of the story impressions technique as important to its overall effectiveness.

THE OPIN PROCEDURE: A PERFORMANCE‐BASED ASSESSMENT OF READER‐AUTHOR PROXIMITY

We present an alternative performance‐based assessment of reading comprehension and readability called the Opin procedure. The Opin procedure is a macroclosure procedure in which sentence endings instead of single words are deleted from a passage. Because of the open nature of the sentences, readers must develop their own opinions about the messages intended by the writers. Readers’ responses to the deletions are rated on a continuum from low to high proximity with the authors intentions. Ratings can be tallied to obtain a total reader‐author proximity score, or the readers responses can be categorized according to the dominant pattern or comprehension strategy (fragmented, pro‐jective, or interactive) he or she used. Successful reading comprehension is defined in terms of a model‐based, communication view of the reading process.