Susanna W. Pflaum

The Effects of Peer Editing on the Writing Proficiency of Low-Achieving Tenth Grade Students.

AbstractThe investigators employed a quasi- experimental design to determine the effects of a highly- structured peer editing treatment on the essay-writing proficiency of low-achieving tenth grade students. With the effects of subject sex, pretreatment essay proficiency, and reading level controlled statistically, the peer edit group had significantly higher (p < .05) writing proficiency (as rated by trained independent judges) than did students whose essays were edited by teachers. The findings have implications, both for time spent by teachers grading essays as well as for use of peer editing as a potentially effective instructional technique in the teaching of writing proficiency.

The Effects of Instruction Using Semantic Mapping on Vocabulary and Comprehension.

Forty-four junior-high school students were randomly assigned to two vocabulary instruction treatments. One utilized context-rich three-sentence passages that were used as sources for target word definition. The other, the semantic mapping treatment, entailed learning new words by identifying the similarities and differences with related, known words. Results indicated significant main effects favoring the semantic mapping treatment on average weekly test scores, post treatment test scores, and a standardized measure of general vocabulary knowledge. These findings suggest that focus on word features in related, known words may be an effective instructional method to learning new vocabulary.

The Influence of Pupil Behaviors and Pupil Status Factors on Teacher Behaviors during Oral Reading Lessons.

AbstractThe study investigates relationships among pupil reading behaviors and teacher responses with a sample of 106 primary grade readers. With student background traits such as sex and prior reading achievement controlled, seven different reading behaviors and pupil responses accounted for significant increases in the prediction of teacher behaviors. Pupil reading behaviors had the greatest effect on teacher corrections and word pronunciations. Conversely, pupil background factors had the greatest association with the length of reading assigned and the numbers of grapho- phonemic and prereading cues teachers provided. In view of the findings, the authors suggest that future study of classroom interaction examine the notion that teacher expectations may be at least partially due to then- responses to specific aspects of pupil behavior.

Interactive Effects of Prior Reading Achievement and Training in Context on the Reading of Learning-Disabled Children.

THIS STUDY EXAMINED the effects of an instructional program designed to teach learning-disabled children to use context to determine the impact of their errors on meaning and to correct their errors to maintain meaning. Forty children, identified by their schools as learning-disabled, participated in the study and were randomly assigned to one of three experimental groups or to the control group. Scores obtained from an informal reading inventory administered before and after instruction were used, with the prior scores treated as a covariate. Although adjusted mean scores after instruction were in the predicted direction, there were no main effects. However, a significant initial level of achievement by experimental treatment interaction was found. The interaction indicated that those who received greatest benefits from the experimental treatment were those at the highest initial achievement levels: specifically, those children whose instructional level was above grade level two. Moreover, further analysis revealed that changes in reading behaviors occurred as a result of the treatment. The results indicate that training in context, approached as a strategy to apply to maintain meaning, is helpful for disabled learners who have achieved reading proficiency beyond the beginning level.

Oral Reading Behaviors in the Learning Disabled

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to find out if there were differences between the linguistic cue use of thirty-six learning disabled children and that of forty-three normal children. Participants, after proceeding through a three-step process designed to equate error rate, read orally a version of a story written at eight levels of difficulty. The learning disabled children made proportionally more errors that marred sentence meaning and they did not correct serious meaning-change errors as much as control readers. By contrast, they used phonic cues more frequently than (but proportionally equal to) the normal children. These findings suggest that some learning disabled children may benefit from help in the use of context as a word recognition strategy.

Differential Effects of Four Comprehension-Facilitating Conditions on LD and Normal Elementary-School Readers

Ninety-nine elementary-school learning disabled and normal children were assigned to one of four comprehension-facilitating conditions (word identification and meaning aids, sentence aids, purpose-setting aids, and prior-knowledge aids) to determine their effects on comprehension. Controlling for age, intelligence, prior reading achievement, and pretest comprehension levels, sentence aids were found to be significantly more effective than prior knowledge for both learning disabled and similarly achieving, but younger readers. Moreover, for the same two groups of subjects the average effect of words and sentences (micro-level aids) was significantly higher than the average effect of purpose setting and prior knowledge (macro-level aids). No significant differences were found among the four types of comprehension facilitators for normally achieving readers who were the same age as the learning disabled group.

The Predictability of Oral Reading Behaviors on Comprehension in Learning Disabled and Normal Readers

This study examined a method of studying the unique contributions to comprehension from different oral reading behaviors determined in the reading of a group of learning disabled children compared with that of a group of normal readers. Seventy-six (36 LD; 40 non-LD) elementary children participated in the task which required them to read orally a story and then retell all recalled information. Reading level was controlled, and, using a proportion of story propositions retold as the dependent variable, regression analyses were computed. With the non-LD group, no contributions to comprehension of any magnitude were due to the oral reading behaviors. With the LD group, however, two oral reading behaviors were found to provide unique contributions to the variance in comprehension. Higher rates of meaning-change errors predicted lowered comprehension, and higher rates of high phonic cue use predicted higher comprehension in the LD group. Recommendations included suggestions for further study of processing differences between disabled and normal readers.

The Influence of Black English on Diagnosis of Reading In Learning Disabled and Normal Readers

This study investigated the removal of black English dialect features from the error scores of three oral reading tests—the Gray Oral Reading Test, the Gilmore Oral Reading Test, and the Spache Diagnostic Reading Scales. The 40 children in the sample population (20 control children matched by age and sex with 20 children identified by the school as learning disabled) were given all three tests. Each test was scored first using test manual criteria and then rescored using those criteria but eliminating from the error count any dialect miscue. On all three tests, LD children scored lower than control children. Also, the effect of removing dialect miscues as errors caused an overall increase in reading scores on all three tests. On the Gray and Spache tests, but not on the Gilmore test, control children benefited more from the removal of dialect responses as errors than LD children. Additionally, the results indicated that dialect had a greater impact on the scores of the Gilmore than it did on the Gray and Spache tests.

Interaction of Internal Attribution for Effort and Teacher Response Mode in Reading Instruction: A Replication Note

Forty-seven learning disabled and low readers in 12 reading groups were assigned to reading instruction programs on context cue use differing only in extent of student control over determination of errors. Analyses conducted with individuals and reading groups as the units of analysis indicated significant interactions between pretreatment locus of attribution for effort and treatment. Both individual students and reading groups initially high in internality benefited more from an instructional condition in which they were encouraged to determine the correctness of their responses. Conversely, individuals and reading groups initially low in internality benefited more from a condition in which the teacher determined response correctness. The findings generally replicate previous aptitude by treatment interaction results with learning disabled and slowly developing readers.

Synthesizing Research in Reading.

This article covers some of the issues and procedures used in conducting meta‐analysis, a comprehensive and quantitative method for reviewing research. The paper includes a review of completed meta‐analysis in reading. It concludes with suggestions for future reading research reviews.