Browsing by Subject "Comprehension"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    The affordances of multimodal texts and their impact on the reading process.
    (2011-11) Voss, Scott M.
    This mixed methodology study examines how students interact (and transact) with texts across modalities as evidenced by comprehension performance. In addition, it examines their perceptions of the texts and reading processes across each modality. The first phase of this study included a controlled experiment of 90 high school students. Using a passage from their Earth Science textbook, students were asked to read the text off the screen, use the assigned affordance (print only, print and audio, or print and video), and complete both comprehension and self-efficacy items. Analysis of this data showed that there were no statistically significant differences across the three treatments for either the comprehension or self-efficacy measures. The second phase of the study included a guided interview with 27 students. Employing the interpretive analysis of Grounded Theory, these interviews showed that students who successfully navigated these modalities were able to both perceive the affordances and strategically utilize them. This study holds implications for the notion of what an affordance is, how teachers use online digital textbooks, and how publishing companies design and format digital versions of their texts.
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    The brain is for action: embodiment, causality, and conceptual learning with video games to improve reading comprehension and scientific problem solving.
    (2012-11) Dubbels, Brock Randall
    This experiment compares children's comprehension and problem solving with the same information presented in three different media formats: an embodied video game, a first-person video, and a print narrative. The embodied video game emphasizes interaction and causation, where the player moves the narrative forward by causing change through interaction. According to embodiment theorists, the ability to create knowledge is predicated upon the ability to identify and connect changes, and what causes change in events. Comprehension is measured in this study with the Event-Indexing Model, (EIM). Research on the EIM indicates that identification of causation is often highly correlated to identification of other elements of comprehension, including memory of time, space, objects, and intentions across events. This experiment examines whether media format, which emphasizes embodied interaction and identification of causation, improves comprehension and problem solving. In question 1, this experiment examines whether the embodied video game will lead to superior comprehension and problem solving outcomes compared to the same information presented in a video or a printed text. Question 2 compares comprehension and problem solving when the reading text condition follows playing the game and watching the video. The third question examines the role of causation, which is the ability to identify actions that create changes between narrative events in a text. This dissertation analyzes comprehension and problem outcomes across media: as an embodied video game, a video, or a printed text. Additionally, it examines reading performance across presentation order, and the importance of identification in situation model construction.
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    A Design-Based Research Intervention On Motivating Teachers To Feel Capable Of Designing And Implementing Effective Disciplinary Literacy Instruction
    (2018-05) McDonald Van Deventer, Megan
    Recently, educational reading research transitioned from studying general comprehension in secondary school settings to studying disciplinary literacy, foregrounding the reading, writing, speaking, thinking, and other discursive practices unique to each academic discipline (Moje, 2008; 2015; Moje et al., 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; 2012). During this transition, academic mantras like “reading like a historian” or “reading like a scientist” were coined to communicate that classroom literacy experiences should emulate the practices of disciplinary experts working in the field (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; 2012). However, to be able to read like disciplinary experts effectively students must employ literacy strategies coupled with disciplinary thinking processes (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008, 2012), which is often at odds with how students read outside of academic settings (Alvermann, 2001; Hyland, 2012; Moje, 2006; 2015; Moje et al., 2008). Therefore, adolescent readers may struggle to comprehend academic texts without disciplinary literacy instruction that modifies and scaffolds expert disciplinary literacy practices so they are accessible to novice students as they develop literacy abilities and dispositions that emulate expert practices. Even though secondary teachers often assign reading to “cover” content (Alvermann & Moore, 1991; Calder, 2006), they do not explicitly teach comprehension or disciplinary reading strategies, instead prioritizing content (Greenleaf & Valencia, 2017; Lester, 2000; O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje, 1995, Yore, 1991). In this study, I designed an intervention to motivate three history teachers to feel capable of designing and implementing effective disciplinary literacy instruction. Prior to the intervention, I collected verbal protocol data from three Frederick Douglass teachers and 20 students in which they thought out loud while reading a primary source document. During the design-based research (DBR) intervention (Barab & Squire, 2004; McKenney & Reeves, 2012), the three teachers and I collaboratively analyzed the teachers and students’ verbal protocol transcripts to identify literacy abilities and dispositions. Together, we designed disciplinary literacy instruction for the primary source document, and one teacher participant, Jane, taught the text in class two weeks later. I observed Jane’s disciplinary literacy instruction when she taught the primary source document to evaluate the success of the intervention. Findings from this study demonstrated that the DBR intervention motivated the three teachers to design effective disciplinary literacy instruction that met their students’ literacy needs, and the teachers felt capable to implement effective disciplinary literacy instruction by witnessing their own more expert literacy abilities and dispositions. The larger implications of this study show the importance of positioning teachers as disciplinary experts who are ideal mentors to scaffold disciplinary reading for their students.
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    Emergent Multilinguals and Making Inferences in Elementary Guided Reading Groups
    (2017-07) Carey, Leah
    This study explores the topic of inference making with young emergent multilinguals. Literature demonstrates that inference making is essential for reading comprehension (Oakhill & Cain, 2007) and that the skill of inference develops before learning how to read. Inference skills may transfer as a child learns how to read (Kendeou, Bohn-Gettler, White & van den Brock, 2008). However, there are very few studies regarding inference skill with young emergent multilinguals, that specifically account for the factors of multilingualism and from descriptive and qualitative approaches. This action-research study in a second-grade classroom with English learners focused on the following research questions: 1. How can I scaffold instruction to support inference-making during guided reading in my classroom? And, 2. What student actions and dialogues take place when my students attempt to make inferences from text and images? After thematic coding and analysis of transcriptions, journals and artifacts, findings showed that differences in prior knowledge, using visuals and explicit questioning were important considerations for supporting the learners. Learners also demonstrated a variety of modes and strategies (i.e. peer interaction, facial expressions, gestures, pointing) to explain their thinking and occasionally demonstrated their developing metacognition. The transcripts and field notes also demonstrated inconsistencies in students’ abilities to infer within texts, implying the contextual basis of making inferences and individual differences in interactions with texts (e.g., dispositions, experiences, skills). Other implications of this study include using pictures to practice comprehension skills, as the study demonstrated more discussion and ease with regards to making inferences, as decoding text was not an element of that activity. Results of this study point to the need for further study on reading comprehension with multilinguals, specifically from a framework that takes into account the experiences, culture and background of students. Additionally, a focus on the process of inference through classroom-based research, could lead to findings more relevant for practitioners and that support student learning. Further research could benefit from utilizing sociocultural and discourse frameworks to inquire about multilinguals’ multitude of developing skills and abilities.
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    Repeated Reading with and without Vocabulary Instruction: Outcomes for English Language Learners
    (2015-05) Brandes, Dana
    This study compares a repeated reading intervention with and without vocabulary instruction on the reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary knowledge of English Language Learners (ELLs). Third-grade ELLs (N=31) who were performing below grade level in reading completed one session of repeated reading (RR) and one session of repeated reading with vocabulary instruction (RRV). Using a within-subjects design, condition and passage order were counterbalanced across participants. Dependent measures included Curriculum-based Measures of Oral Reading (CBM-R), researcher-developed literal and inferential comprehension questions, and the Two-Questions Vocabulary Measure (TQVM; Kearns & Biemiller, 2011). Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed statistically significant main effects of instruction for RRV with large effect sizes for comprehension (p < .001, g = .73) and vocabulary knowledge (p < .001, g = .98) but no statistically-significant differences for reading fluency or vocabulary word-reading accuracy. Results suggest RRV may be an effective intervention worth examining for longer durations and with larger samples of ELLs.