Impact of Asking Support Questions on Grades 4 and 7 Students Reading Comprehension
Author(s)
Pilve Kangsepp
ABSTRACT
This study investigated the effect of support questions and their timing on Grades 4 and 7 students’ reading comprehension. The support questions were posed either during or after reading texts. A comparative analysis of students’ scores in answering of control questions presented at the end of the reading assignment revealed that asking inferential support question has positive effect on the text comprehension only in certain conditions. The effect of inferential support questions is rather negative if the text to be read is difficult and support questions are posed after reading the text sections.
This study investigated the effect of support questions and their timing on Grades 4 and 7 students’ reading comprehension. The support questions were posed either during or after reading texts. A comparative analysis of students’ scores in answering of control questions presented at the end of the reading assignment revealed that asking inferential support question has positive effect on the text comprehension only in certain conditions. The effect of inferential support questions is rather negative if the text to be read is difficult and support questions are posed after reading the text sections.
Cite this paper
nullKangsepp, P. (2011). Impact of Asking Support Questions on Grades 4 and 7 Students Reading Comprehension. Creative Education, 2, 381-387. doi: 10.4236/ce.2011.24054.
nullKangsepp, P. (2011). Impact of Asking Support Questions on Grades 4 and 7 Students Reading Comprehension. Creative Education, 2, 381-387. doi: 10.4236/ce.2011.24054.
References
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Snowling and C. Hulme (Eds.), The Science of Reading: A Handbook (pp. 227-253). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470757642.ch13 [22] Pressley, M., Johnson, C. J., Symons, S., McGoldrick, J. A., & Kurita, J. A. (1989). Strategies that improve children’s memory and comprehension of text. The Elementary School Journal, 90, 3-32. doi:10.1086/461599 [23] Seretny, M. L., & Dean, R. S. (1986). Interspersed post passage question and reading comprehension achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78, 228-229. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.78.3.228 [24] Spooner, A. L. R., Gathercole, S. E., & Baddeley, A. D. (2006). Does weak reading comprehension reflect an integration deficit? Journal of Research in Reading, 29, 173-193. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2006.00284.x [25] Sundbye, N. (1987). Text explicitness and inferential questioning: Effect of story understanding and recall. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 82-98. doi:10.2307/747722 [26] Tal, N. F., Siegel, L. S., & Maraun, M. (1994). 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[1] Anderson, R., & Biddle, W. (1975). On asking people questions about what they are reading. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, (pp. 90-132). New York: Academic Press. doi:10.1016/S0079-7421(08)60269-8 [2] Ausubel, D. (1968). Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. [3] Cain, K., & Oakhill, J. V. (1999). Inference making ability and its relation to comprehension failure in young children. Reading & Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 489-503. [4] Cerdan, R., Vidal-Abarca, E., Martinez, T., Gilabert, R., & Gil, L. (2009). Impact of question-answering task on search processes and reading comprehension. Learning and Instruction, 19, 13-27. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2007.12.003 [5] Davoudi, M. (2005). Inference generation skill and text comprehension. The Reading Matrix, 5, 106-126. [6] Johnsen, E. B. (1993). Textbooks in the kaleidoscope. A critical survey of literature and research on educational texts (pp. 165-166). Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. [7] Kintsch, W. (1994). Comprehension, memory and learning. American Psychologist, 4, 294-303. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.49.4.294 [8] Kintsch, W., & Van Dijk, T. A. (1978). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 294-323. [9] Kirschner, P. A. (2002). Cognitive load theory: Implications of cognitive load theory on the design of learning. Learning and Instruction, 12, 1-10. doi:10.1016/S0959-4752(01)00014-7 [10] Kozminsky, E., & Kozminsky, L. (2001). How do general knowledge and reading strategies ability relate to reading comprehension of high school students at different educational levels. Journal of Research in Reading, 24, 187-204. doi:10.1111/1467-9817.00141 [11] Long, D. L., Oppy, B. J., & Seely, M. R. (1994). Individual differences in the time course of inferential processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 20, 1456-1470. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.20.6.1456 [12] Mannes, S., & Kintsch, W. (1987). Knowledge organisation and text organisation. Cognition and Instruction, 4, 91-115. doi:10.1207/s1532690xci0402_2 [13] Megherbi, H., Seigneuric, A., & Ehrlich, M. F. (2006). Reading comprehension in French 1st and 2nd grade children: Contribution of decoding and language comprehension. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 21, 135-147. doi:10.1007/BF03173573 [14] Mikk, J. (2000). Textbook: Research and writing. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. [15] Nation, K., & Angell, P. (2006). Learning to read and learning to comprehend. London Review of Education, 4, 77-87. doi:10.1080/13603110600574538 [16] Oakhill, J., & Yuill, N. (1996). Higher order factors in comprehension disability: Processes and remediation. In J. C. Cornoldi and J. Oakhill (Eds.), Reading Comprehension Difficulties. Processes and Intervention (pp. 69-92). Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum. [17] Oakhill, J. V., & Cain, K. (2003). The development of comprehension skills. In P. Bryant (Ed.), Handbook of Children’S Literacy (pp. 155- 180). The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publisher. [18] Olson, G. M., Duffy, S. A., & Mack, R. L. (1985). Questions-asking as a component of text comprehension. In A. C. Graesser and J. B. Black (Eds.), The Psychology of Questions (pp. 219-226). Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum. [19] Paris, S. G., Cross, D. R., & Lipson, M. Y. (1984). Informed strategies for learning: A program to improve children’s awareness and comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 1239-1252. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.76.6.1239 [20] Pearson, P. D. (2009). The roots of reading comprehension instruction. In S. E. Israel and G. G. Duffy (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Reading Comprehension (pp. 3-31). New York: Routledge. [21] Perfetty, C. A., Landi, N., & Oakhill, J. (2005). The acquisition of read- ing comprehension skill. In M. J. Snowling and C. Hulme (Eds.), The Science of Reading: A Handbook (pp. 227-253). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470757642.ch13 [22] Pressley, M., Johnson, C. J., Symons, S., McGoldrick, J. A., & Kurita, J. A. (1989). Strategies that improve children’s memory and comprehension of text. The Elementary School Journal, 90, 3-32. doi:10.1086/461599 [23] Seretny, M. L., & Dean, R. S. (1986). Interspersed post passage question and reading comprehension achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78, 228-229. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.78.3.228 [24] Spooner, A. L. R., Gathercole, S. E., & Baddeley, A. D. (2006). Does weak reading comprehension reflect an integration deficit? Journal of Research in Reading, 29, 173-193. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2006.00284.x [25] Sundbye, N. (1987). Text explicitness and inferential questioning: Effect of story understanding and recall. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 82-98. doi:10.2307/747722 [26] Tal, N. F., Siegel, L. S., & Maraun, M. (1994). Reading comprehension: The role of question type and reading ability. Reading and Writing, 6, 387-402. doi:10.1007/BF01028850 [27] Van den Broek, P., Rohleder, L., & Narvaez, D. (1994). Cognitive processes in the comprehension of literary texts. In H. van Oostendorp and R. Zwaan (Eds.), Naturalistic Text Comprehension (pp. 229- 246). Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corp. [28] Van den Broek, P., Tzeng, Y., Risden, K., & Trabasso, T. (2001). Inferential questioning: Effect on comprehension of narrative text as a function of grade and timing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 9, 521-529. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.93.3.521 [29] Van Dijk, T. A., & Kintsch, W. (1983). Strategies of discourse comprehension. New York: Academic Press.