Improving Reading Comprehension Strategies through Listening

Abstract

The goal of this study was to determine whether it is possible to teach children with serious decoding problems four text comprehension strategies in listening contexts. The subjects were 9-11 year old students from special schools for children with learning disabilities. All the students were very poor at decoding; half of the group were also poor listeners, whereas the other half consisted of normal listeners. The experimental children were trained in strategies of clarifying, questioning, summarising and predicting through a combination of reciprocal teaching and direct instruction. The results indicated significant programme effects on a strategic listening comprehension test. A transfer effect on general listening comprehension and general reading comprehension tests was not found. The poor listeners within the experimental group did not perform better than the normal listeners.

Listening Comprehension Assessment: Validity Studies of Two Vertically Scaled Tests for Portuguese Students [Evaluación de la Comprensión Oral: Estudios de Validez de Dos Tests con Versiones Escaladas Verticalmente para Alumnos Portugueses]

“…Additionally, according to the model of the Simple View of Reading and the research review of Aarnoutse, Brand-Gruwel and Oduber (1997), it would be expected that correlations between the TLC-n and TLC-e forms and reading comprehension assessments would be stronger. However, these expectations were not found by our results.…”

“…Difficulties with decoding or listening comprehension can lead to different types of reading problems: (1) children who have difficulties only with written language, due to decoding problems, but have no difficulties in comprehending the spoken language; (2) children who, despite good decoding performance, have problems with reading comprehension; and (3) children who simultaneously have a decoding problem and difficulties in comprehension of spoken language (Aarnoutse, Brand-Gruwel, & Oduber, 1997;Hulme & Snowling, 2011;Nation, 2005). The assessment of listening comprehension with valid measures has a major impact on a broader assessment of reading difficulties, facilitating the diagnosis of reading disabilities and the identification of different reading profiles (Cain, Oakhill, & Lemmon, 2005;Nation, 2005;Spooner, Baddeley, & Gathercole, 2004)"…”

Improving reading comprehension in reading and listening settings: The effect of two training programmes focusing on metacognition and working memory

“…Participants attended 20 sessions conducted by trained experimenters in small groups (of six participants each), while a control group attended 20 regular reading comprehension lessons, without receiving any instruction on comprehension strategies, and the sessions were carried out with the whole class. The results showed a better use of strategies by the experimental group (not by the control group) when the children heard or read a text, but this did not produce any changes in the children's performance in either listening or reading comprehension tasks (see also Aarnoutse, Brand‐Gruwel, & Oduber, ; Brand‐Gruwel, Aarnoutse, & Van Den Bos, ; van den Bos, Aarnoutse, & Brand‐Gruwel, ).…”

The Effects of Story Reading on First Grade Students’ Story Comprehension and Retelling Skills

“…Given that there have been statistically high significant correlations between reading comprehension and listening comprehension, this process makes a significant contribution to reading comprehension. Most of the researchers have argued that listening serves to successful reading comprehension and reading comprehension can be improved through listening activities (Aarnoutse et al, 1997;Aarnoutse et al, 1998;Trinkle, 2008).…”