Connectives and layout as processing signals: How textual features affect students’ processing and text representation.

Silfhout, G. van; Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline; Mak, Willem M.; Sanders, Ted

doi:10.1037/a0036293

Cited by 43 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…With respect to strategy instruction, the intervention focused on five strategies that were shown to be related to reading comprehension in previous research (Dole, Duffy, Roehler, & Pearson, ; Palincsar & Brown, ; Pressley & Afflerbach, ; Van Silfhout, Evers‐Vermeul, Mak & Sanders, ): Predicting. On the basis of text features such as title, subheadings and pictures, students are instructed to make predictions about text content before reading and to check their predictions while reading. Summarising.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of reciprocal teaching on reading comprehension of low‐achieving adolescents. The importance of specific teacher skills

Okkinga

Steensel

Gelderen

et al. 2016

Journal Research in Reading

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Low‐achieving adolescents are known to have difficulties with reading comprehension. This article discusses how reciprocal teaching can improve low‐achieving adolescents' reading comprehension in whole‐classroom settings (as opposed to small‐group settings) and to what extent intervention effects are dependent on teacher behaviour. Over the course of 1 year, experimental teachers (n = 10) were given extensive training and coaching aimed at using principles of reciprocal teaching, while control teachers (n = 10) used their regular teaching method. Observations of teacher behaviour were focused on instruction of reading strategies, modelling and support of group work and were performed in both experimental and control classes, comprising a total of 369 students (mean age = 13.01). Our study shows that reciprocal teaching contributed to adolescent low achievers' reading comprehension only when experimental teachers provided high‐quality strategy instruction. In addition, results suggest that the quality of implementation of reciprocal teaching in whole‐classroom settings should receive more research attention. Highlights What is already known about this topic Reciprocal teaching is a method of instructing and guiding learners in reading comprehension. It consists of a set of three related instructional principles: (a) teaching comprehension‐fostering reading strategies; (b) expert modelling, scaffolding and fading; and (c) students practising and discussing reading strategies with other students, guided and coached by the teacher. High quality of implementation of reciprocal teaching by teachers in classrooms is difficult. What this paper adds After 1 year of implementing reciprocal teaching, no main effects of the treatment were established. Intervention effects were moderated by quality of instruction: strategy instruction led to higher scores on reading comprehension in the treatment condition but not in the control condition. Implementation of the instructional principles was by no means optimal: teachers were unable to provide detailed guidance to students working in small groups and modelling of strategies requires more experience and theoretical insight in the use and nature of reading strategies. Implications for practice and/or policy Extensive training and coaching are needed for teachers to become experts in reciprocal teaching. Teachers need hands‐on tools to be able to guide students in their collaborative group work and to fade the teachers' role in order to allow more individual self‐regulation by students in their use of strategies. Implementation quality has to be taken into account when doing effectiveness research and when adopting new, theory‐based didactic approaches.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of reciprocal teaching on reading comprehension of low‐achieving adolescents. The importance of specific teacher skills

Okkinga

Steensel

Gelderen

et al. 2016

Journal Research in Reading

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show abstract

“…Knowledge of connectives is expected to be particularly helpful for expository text comprehension. Given that expository texts often describe relationships between text ideas that are (yet) unknown to students, they often need to be informed about the way ideas are related in order to create a coherent representation of these ideas (cf., Degand, Lefèvre, & Bestgen, 1999;Degand & Sanders, 2002;Singer & O'Connell, 2003;Van Silfhout, Evers-Vermeul, Mak, & Sanders, 2014). Connectives provide this information.…”

Section: Connectives As Guiding Devices In Text Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expository text comprehension in secondary school: for which readers does knowledge of connectives contribute the most?

Welie

Schoonen

Kuiken

et al. 2016

Journal Research in Reading

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The present study examined whether knowledge of connectives contributes uniquely to expository text comprehension above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge. Furthermore, it was examined whether this contribution differs for readers with different language backgrounds or readers who vary in reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge or metacognitive knowledge levels. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that knowledge of connectives explained individual differences in eighth graders' text comprehension (n = 171) on top of the variance accounted for by the control variables. Moreover, the contribution of knowledge of connectives to text comprehension depended on a reader's level of metacognitive knowledge: more metacognitive knowledge resulted in a larger association between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension. Reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge and language background did not interact with knowledge of connectives. Findings are interpreted in the context of the strategic use of connectives during expository text reading. What is already known about this topic? Connectives (words such as moreover, because and although) help the reader in establishing coherence between text parts. In primary school, for fifth graders, knowledge of connectives has been shown to be uniquely related to English text comprehension controlling for reading fluency and general vocabulary knowledge. For fifth graders, the relationship between knowledge of connectives and English text comprehension was higher for English‐only students than for their peers who learned English as a second language. What this paper adds: The present study found that knowledge of connectives also has a unique relation with Dutch expository text comprehension for eighth graders above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge (about text structure and reading and writing strategies). The relationship between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension was not moderated by reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and language background (monolingual versus bilingual Dutch). Metacognitive knowledge did impact the relationship between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension: the higher the metacognitive knowledge, the higher the association between knowledge of connectives and text comprehension. Implications for theory, policy or practice Secondary school readers are assumed to benefit from knowing connectives because these words are frequent in expository texts and signal relationships that students may often not infer without the help of these devices (i.e., with the use of background knowledge). This seems to apply in particular for expository texts that are intended to convey new information and relationships to students (see also Singer & O'Connell, ). We found a significant interaction between knowledge of connectives and metacognitive knowledge, which seems to indicate that knowing more connectives does not help much in improvi...

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“…This test battery is described in detail in a previous study (Kim & Lombardino, 2015). On the basis of F-tests with α at 0.05, the two groups did not differ on the mean age, Woodcock-Johnson III Test of cognitive abilities verbal ability and concept formation or graph familiarity score; however, the students with DR had significantly lower word reading scores as measured using the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (Torgesen et al, 1999).…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Total gaze durations on the two specific areas ( x ‐axis and legend) for the DR and TR groups were presented in Figure . We analysed the total gaze durations using mixed 2 (subject type: DR, TR) × 2 (information format: word graphs, icon graphs) × 2 (information complexity: single, double) × 2 (question complexity: point‐locating, comparison) anova s. The distribution of the processing data is commonly incompatible with a normal distribution (Yan & Tourangeau, ); thus, we converted the eye data to a normal distribution (−1.0 < skewness < 1.0), using a logarithmic transformation (van Silfhout, Evers‐Vermeul, Mak, & Sanders, ). Two assumptions for anova s were checked.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All potential participants were individually assessed to ensure that they met the inclusion criteria for this study (Table 1). Inclusion criteria for students with DR included a reported history of reading difficulties beginning in childhood and scoring at or below 1 SD of the mean on word reading from the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1999). We operationally defined low achievement in reading as 1 SD below the mean.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Exploring Text and Icon Graph Interpretation in Students with Dyslexia: An Eye‐tracking Study

Kim

Wiseheart

2017

Dyslexia

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A growing body of research suggests that individuals with dyslexia struggle to use graphs efficiently. Given the persistence of orthographic processing deficits in dyslexia, this study tested whether graph interpretation deficits in dyslexia are directly related to difficulties processing the orthographic components of graphs (i.e. axes and legend labels). Participants were 80 college students with and without dyslexia. Response times and eye movements were recorded as students answered comprehension questions about simple data displayed in bar graphs. Axes and legends were labelled either with words (mixed-modality graphs) or icons (orthography-free graphs). Students also answered informationally equivalent questions presented in sentences (orthography-only condition). Response times were slower in the dyslexic group only for processing sentences. However, eye tracking data revealed group differences for processing mixed-modality graphs, whereas no group differences were found for the orthography-free graphs. When processing bar graphs, students with dyslexia differ from their able reading peers only when graphs contain orthographic features. Implications for processing informational text are discussed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Connectives and layout as processing signals: How textual features affect students’ processing and text representation.

Cited by 43 publications

References 55 publications

Effects of reciprocal teaching on reading comprehension of low‐achieving adolescents. The importance of specific teacher skills

Effects of reciprocal teaching on reading comprehension of low‐achieving adolescents. The importance of specific teacher skills

Expository text comprehension in secondary school: for which readers does knowledge of connectives contribute the most?

Exploring Text and Icon Graph Interpretation in Students with Dyslexia: An Eye‐tracking Study

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