How do general knowledge and reading strategies ability relate to reading comprehension of high school students at different educational levels?

Abstract

The study examines the relationship between general knowledge, skills in applying reading strategies, and reading comprehension for ninth-grade students at varying educational levels: academic, semi-academic, vocational and learning disabilities. Two hundred and five students received a battery of tests evaluating their general knowledge, skills in applying four reading strategies (summary, self-questioning, clarification and prediction), and two reading comprehension tests. The findings revealed differential contributions of general knowledge and strategy application to reading comprehension. Compared with the academic students, semi-academics have deficient strategic skills. Vocational students, in addition to deficient strategic skills, have poor general knowledge, which further impedes their reading comprehension. The deficiency of students with learning disabilities goes beyond these two components. These results led us to recommend different foci of comprehension intervention for each group.

Developmental Relations Between Reading Comprehension and Reading Strategies

“…Such a measure does not give information about the actual use of reading strategies during text comprehension. In some studies the use of reading strategies was measured with questionnaires on which students had to report how often they used specific strategies or with measures on which students were required to apply specific reading strategies (e.g., Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 2001;Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002). The use of reading strategies seems to be more directly related to reading comprehension than the knowledge of reading strategies, although the validity of the measures to assess it can be questioned (e.g., Cromley & Azevedo, 2006;Veenman et al, 2006).…”

Impact of Asking Support Questions on Grades 4 and 7 Students Reading Comprehension

“…In this case, the reader could be able to answer factual questions, but he or she is not capable to make inferences. Or, expressed in another way, students have a good understanding of textual material, when they have successfully integrated information from the text with their prior knowledge, and thus are able to learn the new material (Kozminsky & Kozminsky, 2001). Paris, Cross and Lipson (1984) showed that some students in elementary education seemed to have difficulty in understanding the relationship between evidences and conclusions and this may make it difficult to see how words can provide clues to meaning within text.…”

L’autorégulation de l’apprentissage par la lecture d’adolescents en milieu défavorisé

“…Il est alors question du cycle de l'autorégulation de l'APL. Quelques recherches sur l'APL, menées auprès des élèves à risque en milieu défavorisé, montrent que ceux-ci sont en général peu efficaces pour activer et utiliser leurs stratégies d'autorégulation (Kozminsky et Kozminsky, 2001), et que leur portrait stratégique est limité (cartier, 2003 ; chan, 1994). Au Québec, des recherches exploratoires sur l'apprentissage par la lecture, menées auprès d'un petit nombre d'élèves de milieux défavorisés, ont montré qu'ils disent utiliser un nombre restreint de stratégies d'autorégulation, mais que celles-ci ne sont pas suffisantes pour apprendre de façon efficace cartier et Théorêt, 2001).…”