Differences in text processing by low- and high-comprehending beginning readers of expository and narrative texts: Evidence from eye movements

Abstract

The present study investigated on-line text processing of second-grade low-and high-comprehending readers by recording their eye movements as they read expository and narrative texts. For narrative texts, the reading patterns of low-and high-comprehending readers revealed robust differences consistent with prior findings for good versus struggling readers (e.g., longer firstand second-pass reading times for low-comprehending readers). For expository texts, however, the differences in the reading patterns of low-and high-comprehending readers were attenuated. These results suggest that low-comprehending readers adopt a suboptimal processing approach for expository texts: relative to their processing approach for narrative texts, they either do not adjust their reading strategy or they adjust towards a more cursory strategy. Both processing approaches are suboptimal because expository texts tend to demand more, rather than less, cognitive effort of the reader than narrative texts. We discuss implications for (reading) education. 1.1. Individual differences in reading and eye movements It generally is presumed that readers employ strategies to facilitate comprehension, either consciously or unconsciously (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). Sources of individual differences in reading comprehension include general cognitive factors (e.g., background

Eye Movements of Deaf Students in Expository Versus Narrative Texts

“…We highlight this last non-significant result of Kraal et al (2019) because, as we will see later, one of the results of the present study is consistent with this tendency.…”

“…In the particular case of students who are DHH, the literature has documented weaknesses in several domains related to literacy and reading proficiency in terms of discourse skills (Kyle & Cain, 2015;Marschark & Wauters, 2008;Strassman, 1992; see for a review Sullivan et al, 2020), prior knowledge (Convertino et al, 2014), vocabulary (Harris et al, 2017;Herman et al, 2019;Moreno-Pérez et al, 2015), and syntactic skills (Barajas et al, 2016;. All of these findings suggest that the online reading pattern of DHH readers might differ from that of TH readers as a function of their reading proficiency and the type of text they are reading in a similar way that poor and good comprehenders with TH differ (Kraal et al, 2019). In fact, the results of Banner and Wang (2011) mentioned above showed that DHH participants reported using fewer reading strategies in expository than in narrative texts which coincides with the pattern of less efficient or flexible processing strategy by poor readers when facing texts of higher difficulty showed by Kraal et al (2019).…”

“…For instance, as Duke (2000) signalled a mean of only 3.6 minutes per day was spent with informational/expository texts during classroom written language activities in first grade (even less time in low socioeconomic stratum classrooms). However, in later grades expository texts become the main source of academic knowledge (Kraal, et al, 2019).…”

“…When text difficulty increases, readers need to invest more resources in terms of prior knowledge, vocabulary, inferencing abilities or metacognitive skills (that help the reader to detect, regulate and restore comprehension breaks). Indeed, in TH readers, Kraal et al (2019) showed that reading proficiency influences the processing of texts of different genres.…”

Reproduction Rather than Comprehension? Analysis of Gains in Students’ Science Text Comprehension

“…This process results in a so-called situation model of the text (Kintsch, 1992;Schnotz, 2014), which consists of both inferences made from the text as well as information from the reader's knowledge base. In this context, the generation of inferences establishes connections between the currently read text and the previously read text or the background knowledge of the reader (Kraal et al, 2019).…”