The Relationship of Context-Use Skills to Reading: A Case for an Alternative Experimental Logic

Singer, Martin H.; Crouse, James

doi:10.2307/1129525

Cited by 33 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…This study provides strong evidence for a causal connection between phonological Allington, R. L. (1978) awareness and reading acquisition. For example, an increasing number of multivariate studies (e.g., Singer & Crouse, 1981) will eventually begin to converge on estimates of the proportion of variance in reading ability accounted for by the processes that we already know are linked to reading skill. These processes appear to account for very little of the variance in reading skill.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Interactive-Compensatory Model of Reading

Stanovich

1984

Remedial and Special Education

131

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The interactive-compensatory model of reading was developed primarily to explain developmental and individual differences in the use of context to facilitate word recognition during reading. The work leading up to the model is summarized, and more recent empirical studies are described. One major implication derived from these studies and other recent research is that the Goodman-Smith psycholinguistic "guessing game" is an inaccurate conceptualization of individual differences in context use. When a context is adequately instantiated, less-skilled readers utilize context to facilitate word recognition just as much, if not more, than skilled readers. 11-19 (1984) 0741-9325/84/0053-0011$2.00©PRO-ED Inc. 11 going reading, and, more specifically, on how this interaction changes as reading fluency develops. During the early stages of conceptualizing this research problem, Frank Smith's (1971) book Understanding Reading was particularly influential. He imaginatively synthesized some basic research in cognitive psychology and some educational observations into one of the most important "top-down" models of the reading process. Not surprisingly, given this top-down perspective, Smith emphasized the importance of contextual redundancy at all stages of the reading process. One clear developmental prediction deriving from his work is that the performance of the more fluent reader should be more dependent on contextual information. Levels of ProcessingApproaching this topic from an information processing perspective, we wondered whether Smith's developmental hypothesis was equally tenable at all levels of processing in reading, as Smith had argued. A review of the literature at the time (the mid-1970s) increased our curiosity. There was indeed considerable evidence that skilled readers were more facile at using contextual information at the level of text-integration and comprehension. However, there was a general lack of evidence relevant to the accuracy of the prediction at the level of word recognition. Also, there was considerable looseness and confusion revolving around the use of the term "context effect." Miscitation was rampant.Our background in cognitive psychology may have helped in our reading and organization of the educational literature. One major lesson of modern cognitive psychology (cf. Lachman, Lachman, & Butterfield, 1979) is that human performance can be analyzed, predicted, and explained by specific instantiations of models deriving from the general idea that human information processing results from the exchange of information between processing subroutines that operate at different levels in a partially hierarchical system. Thus, when discussing a particular variable, it is important to distinguish the level, or levels, in the processing system that are affected by the variable.Generally, reading researchers have not been careful in specifying what level in the processing system was being tapped by the particular contextual manipulation employed in a given experiment. The point is that there can be m...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Interactive-Compensatory Model of Reading

Stanovich

1984

Remedial and Special Education

131

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“…if the skipped item is not in a learner's spoken vocabulary, an opportunity to expand vocabulary is also lost " (p. 190). Suggestive results were also found in two path analysis studies (Meschyan & Hernandez, 2002;Singer & Crouse, 1981), one regression study (McBride-Chang, Manis, Seidenberg, & Custodio, 1993), and nine correlational studies (e.g., Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2004;Wagner et al, 1997). Methodologically, Shefelbine (1990) pointed out that it is important to test the effects of word reading on vocabulary because poor word reading can confound results from written vocabulary measures.…”

Section: Paths For Which There Was Contradictory or Weak Evidencementioning

confidence: 89%

Testing and refining the direct and inferential mediation model of reading comprehension.

Cromley

Azevedo

2007

Journal of Educational Psychology

474

372

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A significant proportion of American high school students struggle with reading comprehension. Theoretical models of reading comprehension might help researchers understand these difficulties, because they can point to variables that make the largest contributions to comprehension. On the basis of an extensive review of the literature, we created a new model of reading comprehension, the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model. The model hypothesizes relationships among background knowledge, inferences, reading comprehension strategies, vocabulary, and word reading and addresses the direct and mediated effects of these 5 predictors on comprehension. The authors tested the fit of the model and 3 variations of the model to data from 175 students in 9th grade. The DIME model explained 66% of the variance in comprehension. Vocabulary and background knowledge made the largest contributions to comprehension, followed by inference, word reading, and strategies. Analyses of participants scoring below the 30th percentile on comprehension showed these students to have low scores on all of the measures. The authors suggest that vocabulary and background knowledge interventions might be the best way to begin improving the academic reading comprehension of students like those in the sample.

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“…The results were then used to construct a causal model of how working memory and word knowledge contributed to different aspects of reading (cf. Singer & Crouse, 1981).…”

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confidence: 99%