Phonemic Processes in Children's Listening and Reading Comprehension

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the role of phonemic activation in children's listening and reading comprehension. Phonemically confusing stories were presented in a listening comprehension task to kindergarten and second‐grade children and in a reading comprehension task to second‐grade children only. Rhymes induced phonemic confusion more consistently than did alliteratives in both the listening and reading tasks at both grade levels, suggesting that rhyme is inherently more confusing than alliteration, and furthermore, that phonemic information is activated in similar ways when children listen and when they read silently. Children's reading skill was also assessed to examine a possible relationship between reading skill and phonemic sensitivity, but no significant interactions between children's reading skill and their sensitivity to phonemic confusion were found in the reading task. In the listening task, all groups showed phonemic confusion in gist recall scores, but prereaders were less likely than readers to exhibit susceptibility to phonemic confusion in verbatim recall scores.

The Contribution of Graphophonological-Semantic Flexibility to Reading Comprehension in College Students: Implications for a Less Simple View of Reading

“…As skilled reading develops, Chall (1996) argued that fluency emerges when readers "unglue" from print and can thus turn attention from decoding to language comprehension processes. Although some fluency theorists argue that automaticity of decoding occurs prior to prosody and the connection to spoken language (Dowhower, 1991;Kuhn & Stahl, 2003;Stanovich, 1996), implying a sequential developmental progression in which decoding processes dominate reading behavior initially after which linguistic comprehension is the dominant process, other work shows that these processes occur concurrently during skilled reading, even when they are automatic (Crain-Thoreson, 1996;Luo et al, 1998;McCutchen & Crain-Thoreson, 1994;Van Orden, 1987). These perspectives suggest fluent reading should occur when an individual can successfully (and flexibly) coordinate the processes necessary for skilled reading, including at least phonological and semantic processes.…”

“…In support of this notion, some researchers have argued that phonological and semantic processes operate concurrently and interact in skilled readers (Adams, 1990;Nation & Snowling, 1998;Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, & Patterson, 1996). In fact, these processes interact in both children and adults, even when they occur automatically (Crain-Thoreson, 1996;Luo, Johnson, & Gallo, 1998;McCutchen & Crain-Thoreson, 1994;McCutchen, Dibble, & Blount, 1994;Van Orden, 1987). The simple view would seem to suggest that individuals with demonstrated proficiency in phonological and semantic processing would also demonstrate skilled reading comprehension.…”