Previous studies have indicated that chunking/phrasing of sentences into smaller groups of meaningfully related words enhances retention and comprehension. This investigation was designed to assess the effects of two methods of presenting chunked reading. Thirty learning disabled tenth- and eleventh-grade students were assigned to three groups. One training group received chunked passages displayed on the screen using computer assisted instruction (CAI); the other was administered chunked passages in the traditional mode. The control group used CAI with non-chunked passages. A posttest revealed that the CAI chunked group showed higher gains. However, the CAI chunked group's mean score was not significant when compared to the traditional chunked group. Both chunked groups were superior to the CAI non-chunked group. Thus, it was concluded that separation of reading material into meaningfully related words does significantly enhance reading comprehension and the method of presentation is not significant.
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Caucasian students would read fictional text passages depicting African‐American characters as carefully as they would those depicting characters of their own (Caucasian) race. Fifty‐seven 7th grade high ability and low ability readers read nine African‐American and nine Caucasian fictional passages. Following silent reading of each passage, the students responded to a 20‐item multiple‐choice test designed to measure comprehension. A 2 times 2 ANOVA was conducted on the number of test items answers correctly. Results demonstrated that all readers answered significantly more test items correctly over passages about Caucasian characters than they did over passages about African‐American characters.
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