Effects of oral reading rate and inflection on intraverbal responding

Abstract

Reading comprehension may be defined as a type of intraverbal responding. Only a few studies have reported the effects of the rate and inflection of oral reading performances on this class of intraverbals. In the present study the effects of four conditions; low reading rates (40 to 60 words per minute), with and without inflection, and high reading rates (150 to 200 words per minute), with and without inflection, were studied using six subjects. Two of the subjects were of high school age, reading below grade level, and four were typical third grade students, reading on grade level. The results indicated that the combination of high oral reading rate with inflection, a condition approximating conversational speech, increased both the accuracy and speed of intraverbal responding (comprehension), more than any other combination of variables. A second experiment was conducted which systematically replicated the findings across reading levels, reading passage content, settings, and subjects.

Reading Fluency Assessment and Instruction: What, Why, and How?

“…There is strong correlational evidence that increased reading rate is related to higher levels of comprehension in average and poor readers (Breznitz, 1987;Deno, Marston, Shinn, & Tindal, 1983;Dowhower, 1987;Perfetti & Hogaboam, 1975;Rasinski, 1989Rasinski, , 1990Tenenbaum & Wolking, 1989), as well as in students with reading disabilities (Breznitz, 1991;Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002;Fuchs, Fuchs, & Maxwell, 1988). Fuchs et al (2001) proposed that "oral reading fluency [i.e., rate and accuracy] represents a complicated, multifaceted performance" (p. 239) that captures a variety of processes related to reading: using sound-symbol relationships to translate text to sound, accessing word meanings, making connections between words and sentences, relating textual meaning to prior knowledge, and making inferences.…”

Empirical Applications of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior with Humans

“…Fourteen studies of intraverbal behavior exist with nine of these studies pub-lished between 1989 and 2004. One study focused solely on intraverbals in the form of reading comprehension (Tenenbaum & Wolking, 1989) while many others provided empirical support for Skinner's notion of functional independence and the utility of transfer of stimulus control procedures (Partington & Bailey, 1993;Partington et al, 1994;Sundberg et al, 1990;Sundberg et al, 2000;Watkins et al, 1989). This operant includes perhaps the most diverse group of responding and accounts for reading comprehension, conversation and question answering, and events that are traditionally conceptualized as thought or memory (i.e., covert mediating responses).…”

Constructing informal diagnostic reading assessment instruments for lower-level Chinese as second language readers

“…Oral reading fluency (ORF), conceptualized as the combination of the three instrument measures, significantly influenced reading comprehension, explaining 59.20% of the variance. This result converged with those of a vast number of studies conducted on alphabetic languages (Breznitz, 1987;Daane et al, 2005;Deno, 1985;Deno & Marsten, 2006;Deno et al, 1983;Deno et al, 1980;Dowhower, 1987;Fuchs et al, 1982;Fuchs et al, 1988;Fuchs et al, 2001;Geva et al, 1997;Hosp & Fuchs, 2005;Jenkins et al, 2003;Kuhn & Stahl, 2003;Rasinski, 1990;Rasinski et al, 2005;Roehrig et al, 2008;Schilling et al, 2007;Schwanenflugel et al, 2004;Spear-Swerling, 2006;Stage & Jacobsen, 2001;Tenenbaum & Wolking, 1989;Wanzek et al, 2010;Wayman et al, 2007;Wise et al, 2010). The close connection between ORF and comprehension found among readers of a logographic L2 in this study suggested that the critical contribution of ORF to comprehension is largely language universal.…”

“…Numerous studies on young L1 readers have reported a strong correlation between ORF and reading comprehension (Breznitz, 1987;Daane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, & Oranje, 2005;Deno, 1985;Deno, Marston, Shinn, & Tindal, 1983;Deno, Mirkin, Chiang, & Lowry, 1980;Fuchs, Fuchs, & Deno, 1982;Fuchs, Fuchs, & Maxwell, 1988;Hosp & Fuchs, 2005;Klauda & Guthrie, 2008;Kuhn & Stahl, 2003;Marston, 1989;Rasinski et al, 2005;Riedel, 2007;Roehrig et al, 2008;Shinn, Knutson, Good, Tilly, & Collins, 1992;Stage & Jacobsen, 2001;Tenenbaum & Wolking, 1989;Wanzek, Roberts, Linan-Thompson, Vaughn, & Murray, 2010;.…”