Timothy R. Marshall

The Development of Graphophonological-Semantic Cognitive Flexibility and Its Contribution to Reading Comprehension in Beginning Readers

Reading-specific and general color-shape cognitive flexibility were assessed in 68 first and second graders to examine: 1) the development of graphophonological-semantic cognitive flexibility (the ability to process concurrently phonological and semantic aspects of print) in comparison to color-shape cognitive flexibility, 2) the contribution of reading experience to graphophonological-semantic flexibility, and 3) the unique contribution of graphophonological-semantic flexibility to reading comprehension. Second graders scored significantly higher than first graders on both cognitive flexibility tasks; the general flexibility task was easier for all children than the graphophonological-semantic flexibility task; reading experience contributed uniquely to childrens graphophonological-semantic flexibility; and graphophonological-semantic flexibility contributed significant, unique variance to childrens reading comprehension, consistent with Cartwrights (2002) work with second- to fourth-grade students and adults (2007).

A Longitudinal Study of the Role of Reading Motivation in Primary Students' Reading Comprehension: Implications for a Less Simple View of Reading.

Although substantial research indicates motivation contributes significant variance to reading comprehension in upper elementary students, research with students in primary grades has focused, instead, on the relation of motivation to word reading. Assessment of reading motivation in 68 first and second graders indicated word and nonword reading were related to perceived competence in reading, whereas reading comprehension was significantly related to subjective value for reading. Motivation contributed significant, unique variance to reading comprehension concurrently and longitudinally (n = 31), beyond decoding ability, verbal ability, and reading-specific executive function. Findings have implications for theories of reading comprehension.

The Roles of Explanation and Feedback in False Belief Understanding: A Microgenetic Analysis.

ABSTRACT The authors examined effects of feedback and explanation on false belief performance. Thirty-three children (42–54 months; 15 girls, 18 boys) were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions: explanation, feedback, feedback researcher explains, and feedback child explains. Children completed false belief tasks during pretraining, 8 training sessions, and posttraining across 6 weeks. Language comprehension was assessed at pretraining. The authors hypothesized that children would improve most when training involved feedback and explanation. Generalized estimating equations modeling was used to analyze the data. Children who received feedback and generated explanations for characters’ false beliefs improved across training sessions more so than children in other conditions. Childrens explanations for false beliefs also were explored. Implications of the findings are discussed.