- UD… · · 2015-09-16numbers in attendance register to constitute group A and group B. On ......

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��!�� !�� !�� !��

��

��

��

��"�#��"�#��"�#��"�#��

�

2

APPROVAL PAGE

This thesis has been approved for the award of Ph.D degree for the Department

of English and Literary Studies in the Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria,

Nsukka

BY

………………………….. Prof. Emeka J Otagburuagu Date

(Supervisor)

…………………………….. Prof. Sam Onuigbo Date

(HOD)

……………………………... Prof. D. U. Opata Date

(Dean, Faculty of Arts)

…………………………... Prof. A.N. Akwanya Date

(Dean, School of Post

Graduate Studies)

………………………..…

3

Prof. C. Emeka Onukaogu Date

(External Examiner)

CERTIFICATION

This is to certify that I am responsible for this research work, that the

original work is mine except as specified in the acknowledgements

and references, and that neither the thesis nor the original work

contained therein has been submitted to this university or any other

institution for the award of any degree.

…………………………

………………………

Udensi, Ukamaka Julie Date

4

DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to Sacred Heart of Jesus, the fountain of

life and the source of wisdom and knowledge.

5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to many people. The first to thank and adore is God

Almighty for providing the inspiration and wisdom and for sustaining

me throughout trying periods. To Him be all the glory. I thank in a

special way my supervisor, Prof. Emeka Otagburuagu for his fatherly

and Christian concern and consideration and for his scholarly

contributions, invaluable suggestions, corrections and help. I thank

Prof. Sam Onuigbo for his concern and genuine advice and

directions. I thank all God fearing academics and my friends who

directly or indirectly contributed to the successful completion of this

research work. I am equally indebted to my dear husband, Sir

Udensi, Augustine and my children for their inexhaustible

understanding and tolerance when it appeared I had failed in my duty

as a mother because of this research work.

6

Abstract

Text processing is one of the most important skills that is a prerequisite for both individual and societal progress and development. For this reason, an individual with an inadequate text processing skills will gain nothing in today’s world of knowledge explosion. However, despite the gains of text processing and the high premium that has been placed on it in recent years, it has been observed that many primary school pupils and even those in secondary and tertiary institutions are performing below expectation as far as text processing is concerned. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the study sample was able to use their knowledge of two important text factors: syntactic features and cohesive ties in processing texts. Opinions are as diverse as there are individuals and reading specialists on text factors that are responsible for learners’ poor achievement in processing texts. Instead of being tossed about by the wave of some uninvestigated observations and opinions, the researcher decided to single out two important text factors and investigate the extent the study sample could effectively utilize them in processing texts. Since syntax and cohesion are significant factors in text processing, the researcher had to make them the main focus of the investigation. The problem of the study is, therefore, to ascertain the extent primary six pupils can utilize their knowledge of syntactic features and cohesive ties in processing texts. It also seek to ascertain the aspects of syntactic features and cohesive ties they find difficult and how the two factors interact with learner variables like gender, socio-economic status of the readers’ parents and the location of the readers’ school, to determine the extent the primary six pupils can positively or

7

negatively process texts with comprehension. The study is descriptive and aimed at describing empirically the extent to which primary six pupils were able to utilize their knowledge of syntax and cohesion in text processing and comprehension. All the primary six pupils in one hundred and sixty-one public schools in Aguta Education Zone in Anambra State constituted the population. While stratified sampling technique was used to stratify the schools in the three local government areas into semi-urban and rural schools, cluster-sampling technique was used to sample the required number of schools from each stratum. Thereafter, simple random sampling technique was used to split each stratum into two using even and odd numbers in attendance register to constitute group A and group B. On the whole, one thousand pupils from thirty-six randomly selected schools served as the sample of the study. Three categories of instruments were used. Every pupil in the study sample irrespective of their gender, school location and their socio-economic status answered questions on cohesion and questions on either syntax 2A or syntax 2B. After validating the instruments, a pilot study was carried out using primary six pupils who had similar characteristics with the actual subjects of the study. After this, the reliability of the instruments was established using test- retest technique. The following research questions guided the study: (i) To what extent can primary school pupils utilize their knowledge of certain syntactic features and cohesive tie as text factors in text processing and comprehension, using the expected criterion test of fifty percent as the standard? (ii)To what extent can primary school pupils utilize their knowledge of certain syntactic features as text factors in text processing and comprehension? (iii) What aspects of cohesion and syntactic features can they positively or negatively utilize in text processing and comprehension? (iv) To what extent do the mean scores of boys and girls in text processing differ? (v) To what extent do the mean scores of the pupils from semi-urban schools and rural schools in text processing differ? (vi) To what extent do the mean scores of the pupils from the different socio- economic status differ in the three instruments as text factors in text processing and comprehension? Mean, standard deviation, percentage, ANOVA and Bonferroni were used to analyse the data. The findings showed that: with the use of expected criterion test of fifty percent, the respondents’ average score was between 50% and 55% in the three instruments. Comparing their performance in the three instruments, it

8

was discovered that they excelled in cohesion followed by syntax 2B version. The study revealed, in order of difficulty, the aspects of cohesive ties and syntactic features that posed problem to the respondents as: contrastive marker, homophora, coordinator, and place relater; nominalization, concealed idiomatic negative, the use of neither- nor and the use of none. Again, the gender, the school location and the socio-economic status of the parents are important leaner factors in text processing as the study revealed that the girls, the respondents from semi-urban schools and the respondents of educated and business parents did well in the three instruments. The results have a good number of practical implications and one of them is that for the effective learning of second language and even mother tongue, there is an urgent need to bridge the gap between the speech and the graphic representations by starting early to equip the child with those aspects of syntax and cohesion that appear in written language.

9

CONTENTS

Title Page-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----i

Approval Page------------------------------------------------------------------------

------ii

Certification----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------iii

Dedication------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----IV

Acknowledgements------------------------------------------------------------------

------v

Table of Contents--------------------------------------------------------------------

----vi

Abstract---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----vii

CHAPTER ONE----------------------------------------------------------------------

----1

Introduction----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----1

10

Historical and Theoretical Framework---------------------------

--------------------1

The Perceptual Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension--------

--- 10

Cognitive Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension ---------------

---11

Linguistic Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension----------------

---15

Psycholinguistic Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension-------

----18

Schema Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension -----------------

----28

The Goal of Primary Education---------------------------------------------------

----38

Syntax and Cohesion in Primary School Syllabus --------------------------

----41

Research Problems------------------------------------------------------------------

----44

Purpose of the Study----------------------------------------------------------------

----53

11

Significance of the Study-----------------------------------------------------------

----55

Delimitation of the Study------------------------------------------------------------

----58

Research Questions-----------------------------------------------------------------

----58

Hypotheses ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----59

CHAPTER TWO----------------------------------------------------------

----------------61

Literature Review--------------------------------------------------------------------

---61

Taxonomy of Text Processing and Comprehension-------------------------

---62

An Overview of Text Processing and Comprehension----------------------

---76

Empirical Studies under Learner Factors--------------------------------------

---77

12

Self Concept---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---77

Cultural Background-----------------------------------------------------------------

----79

Gender----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----84

Conceptual Issues under Learner Factors-------------------------------------

----88

Prior Knowledge---------------------------------------------------------------------

-----88

Motivation------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----98

Interest----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---103

Summary of Learner Factors------------------------------------------------------

---105

13

Empirical Studies under Text Factors ---------------------------

------------------106

Text Genre-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

---107

Syntax and Text Processing-------------------------------------------------------

--108

Conceptual Issues under Text Factors--------------------------

-----------------119

Advance Organizer------------------------------------------------------------------

---119

Cohesion and Text Processing---------------------------------------------------

--123

Vocabulary-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-129

Ambiguity and Vagueness---------------------------------------------------------

--131

Organization --------------------------------------------------------------------------

---137

14

Syntactic Rules-----------------------------------------------------------------------

--138

Questions and Summaries---------------------------------------------------------

--139

Subheadings --------------------------------------------------------------------------

--140

Signaling Devices--------------------------------------------------------------------

--142

Content----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

142

Density----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--143

Text Structure-------------------------------------------------------------------------

---143

Story Schema/Story Grammar----------------------------------------------------

--144

Story Frames--------------------------------------------------------------------------

--148

The Basic Story Frame-------------------------------------------------------------

--148

15

Story Frames with Key Sequence Words--------------------------------------

-149

Story Maps ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-149

Outlining and Networking-----------------------------------------------------------

-152

Recall Method-------------------------------------------------------------------------

--154

Readability-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--154

Summary of the Empirical and Conceptual Text Factors------------------

--156

��

Semantic Mapping-------------------------------------------------------------------

158

Concept of Definition Instruction-------------------------------------------------

162

Webbing--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

165

16

Teacher Directed Instruction------------------------------------------------------

169

Semantic Features Analysis-------------------------------------------------------

171

Summary of Teacher Style Factors----------------------------------------------

172

General Summary of the Literature Review-----------------------------------

-174

CHAPTER THREE------------------------------------------------------------------

183

Textual Description and Research Methodology-----------------------------

183

Description of the First Instrument-----------------------------------------------

183

The Sampled Instrument 1---------------------------------------------------------

184

17

The Sampled Instrument 2---------------------------------------------------------

--185

Description of the Second Instrument----------------------------------------

186

Presenting the Scenario------------------------------------------------------------

---188

Research Design --------------------------------------------------------------------

---190

The Area of the Study---------------------------------------------------------------

---191

The Population of the Study-------------------------------------------------------

---193

Sample and Sampling Techniques----------------------------------------------

---194

Procedure for Administering the Instrument ----------------------------------

---197

Pilot Study------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--200

Results of the Pilot Study-----------------------------------------------------------

--202

18

Establishment of the Reliability of the Instruments--------------------------

---209

Cohesion Reliability------------------------------------------------------------------

--210

Version A Reliability-----------------------------------------------------------------

--210

Version B Reliability-----------------------------------------------------------------

---210

CHAPTER FOUR-----------------------------------------------------------------------211 The Results of the Data Analysed-----------------------------------------------

---211

Tables of Research Questions----------------------------------------------------

-211

Tables of Hypotheses---------------------------------------------------------------

---221

Summary of the Major Findings--------------------------------------------------

---231

19

CHAPTER FIVE-------------------------------------------------------------------------234 Discussion------------------------------------------------------------------------------

234

Implications of the Study-----------------------------------------------------------

-245

Recommendations-------------------------------------------------------------------

--247

Limitations of the Study-------------------------------------------------------------

--248

Conclusion-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-249

Works Cited----------------------------------------------------------------------------

253

Appendices and List of Tables -------------------------------------------------

---253

20

Appendix1: Reliability Analysis Scale (Alpha) --------------------------------

-268

Appendix 2:Cohesion Instrument-------------------------------------------------

-271

Appendix 3:Version 2B Instrument ----------------------------------------------

-281

Appendix 4:Version 2A Instrument-----------------------------------------------

-276

Table 1:An Analysis of the Story ‘The Strange Story’-----------------------

--147

Table 2:Scenario Table-------------------------------------------------------------

---188

��

�!��

Table 4: The Mean Scores of the Respondents in the Three

Instruments in the Pilot Study-----------------------------------------------------

-----------------------202

Table 5: ANOVA Test on the Mean Scores of the Respondents in the

Pilot Study -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------203

21

Table 6:The Mean Scores of the Boys and Girls in Instrument 1-

Cohesion in the Pilot Study--------------------------------------------------------

----------------203

Table 7: The Mean Scores of the Boys and Girls in Syntax2B in the

Pilot Study------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------202

Table 8: The Mean Scores of the Boys and Girls in Syntax2A in the

Pilot Study------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------204

Table 9:ANOVA Test on the Mean Scores of Boys and Girls in

Instrument 1-Cohesion in the Pilot Study --------------------------------------

----------------205

Table10: ANOVA Test on the Mean Scores of Boys and Girls in

Instrument------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------206

Table 11: ANOVA Test on the Mean Scores of Boys and Girls in

Instrument Syntax2A Version in the Pilot Study --- -------------------------

-----------------206

Table 12: Descriptive Statistics of the Three Instruments------------------

--211

22

Table 13:Descriptive Statistics of the Mean Scores of the

Respondents in Version 2B and Version 2A Instruments------------------

------------------------212

Table 14: Descriptive Statistics of the Mean Scores of the

Respondents in Different Aspects of Syntactic Features and

Cohesive Ties-----------------214

Table 15: Descriptive Statistics of the Three Instruments by Gender--

---215

Table 16: Descriptive Statistics of the Three Instruments by Location-

-216

Table 17a: Descriptive Statistics of the Respondents in Instrument 1-

Cohesion by Socio-economic Status--------------------------------------------

---217

Table 17b: Descriptive Statistics of the Respondents in Instrument

Syntax 2B Version by Socio-economic Status--------------------------------

-------------218

Table 17c: Descriptive Statistics of the Respondents in Instrument

Syntax 2A Version by Socio-economic Status--------------------------------

-------------219

23

Table 18a:Bonferooni Multiple Comparison Test on Difference of

Mean Scores of the Respondents in the Three Instruments--------------

-----------220

Table 18b: ANOVA Test on the Mean Difference of the Three

Instruments----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------221

Table19a: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Gender in Instrument 1-

Cohesion-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------222

Table19b: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Gender in Instrument 2B

Version----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------223

Table19c: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Gender in Instrument 2B

Version----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------224

Table 20a: ANOVA Test on the Effect of School Location in the

Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument 1-Cohesion---------------------

---225

24

Table20b: ANOVA Test on the Effect of School Location in the

Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument 2B Version----------------------

---226

Table 20c: ANOVA Test on the Effect of School Location in the

Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument 2A Version----------------------

---227

Table 21a: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Socio-economic Status in

the Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument 1-Cohesion----------------

-------228

Table 21b: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Socio-economic Status in the

Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument Syntax 2B Version--------------229

Table 21c: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Socio-economic Status in the

Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument Syntax 2A Version------------

--230

Table 22: Public Primary Schools in Orumba North L. G.

A. ---------------286

Table 23: Public Primary Schools in Orumba South L. G. A. -------------

--289

25

Table 24: Schools in Aguata L. G. A. -------------------------------------------

--291

Table 25: Private Schools in Aguata L. G. A. --------------------------------

-295

Fig. 1:A Partial Semantic Network for Chair-----------------------------------

---94

Fig. 2:A Partial Semantic Network for Buy-------------------------------------

---95

Fig. 3: Anaphora----------------------------------------------------------------------

--125

Fig. 4: Spring with Shades of Meanings----------------------------------------

--132

Fig. 5:Board with shades of Meanings------------------------------------------

--133

Fig.6: Story Structure----------------------------------------------------------------

--150

Fig. 7: Story Structure using Maps----------------------------------------------

---151

26

Fig. 8 Story Structure of Cause –Effect Chain--------------------------------

---153

Fig. 9: Network of Facts about Shark before Instruction-------------------

---153

Fig. 10:Semantic Mapping---------------------------------------------------------

---160

Fig. 11:Semantic Mapping for Animals-----------------------------------------

---162

Fig. 12:Concept of Definition Map------------------------------------------------

-165

Fig. 13:Directed Lesson Using Webbing---------------------------------------

---168

Fig. 14: Web of Word – Association---------------------------------------------

--169

Fig 15:Semantic Features Analysis----------------------------------------------

--172

Fig. 18: Percentage Achievement in Cohesion-------------------------------

--207

Fig.19: Percentage Achievement in Syntax 2B Version--------------------

---207

27

Fig.20: Percentage Achievement in Syntax 2A Version--------------------

--208

��"#��$�� %�� &��

#'!�

28

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Historical and Theoretical Framework

Text processing is one of the most important skills bestowed on

humanity by civilization for individual and societal progress and

development. Historically, the understanding of the importance of text

processing as a royal road to knowledge and development and the

placement of high premium on the acquisition of its skills first started

in the United States of America. The government was forced to place

high premium on the acquisition of text processing skills when it

discovered that a good number of its youths were underachieving due

to lack of text processing skills. Because of this, the Institute, National

Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council (NACHHD)

was mandated to carry out a research on how to attack the problems

associated with the text processing and the best way to acquire the

desired skills. Eventually, in February 1968, the Growth and

Development Branch of the Institute under the co-chairmanship of

Eleanor J. Gibson and Harry Levin held a research conference on

29

‘Text Processing Process’ where a lot of issues concerning text

processing were discussed.

Since then, the Institute and other agencies worldwide have

continued to search for effective ways to further basic research efforts

in human communicative processes such as reading. Gray as cited in

Strange (67) is of the opinion that interest in text processing has

never been so keen or so worldwide in scope as it is at the present

time. The study of text processing has, therefore, undergone

tremendous development that gave rise to a lot of theories, models

and processes within the century.

Conceptually, text processing is the term that denotes cognitive

activities involved in understanding, retaining and remembering a

text. It is not a unilateral process of recording textual content, but

rather an active constructive activity that is directed by (a) the text

(text directed or ascending processing, (b) the reader’s back ground

knowledge that is stored in schemata (schemata directed or

descending processing, and(c) by the intention and interest of the

reader as well as his/her assumptions about the writer and the

situation (Trauth and Kazzazi 452). Text processing activities are

30

carried out with great ease and in a completely subconscious

manner. The reader’s schema is important as it shows the nature of

ideas he brings to the processing of a text.

Otagburuagu (132-140) sees text processing as a complex language

activity, which involves cognitive operations and psychomotor

activities. It is perceived as a process of one committing oneself to

total thinking or reasoning on the subject or topic that is expressed

and presented before one in the process of written language. It needs

the activation, focusing, maintaining and refining of ideas towards

developing interpretations that are plausible, interconnected and

complete. In the model of Kintsch and Van Dijk as cited in Trauth and

Kazzazi(453), the construction of the text takes place in cyclical

processing of phrases on several levels beginning with the

construction of propositions on the basis of sentences beyond

logically cohesive , coherent sequences of different hierarchical steps

,to semantic macro structure where the text material is on the one

hand reduced and abbreviated on every level ( for example, through

generalization) and on the other hand, expanded by inferences.

Finally, she utilizes the information as it suits her purpose. Perhaps,

31

the utilization of the information is the only way we can infer that

comprehension has taken place

It is not an overstatement then to say that text processing is one of

the most important skills that is a prerequisite for both individual and

societal progress and development. Text processing is a vehicle of

information (TAVI) and a linguistic organization (TALO) Johns and

Davis in Otagburuagu (138). Its proficiency is the royal road to

knowledge; it is essential to success in all academic subjects. In all

nations, awareness has been developed on the importance of

worldwide literacy as a means of promoting individual welfare, social

progress, and international understanding. It is equally important in

personal, social and economic progress of an individual. In modern

life, learning depends largely upon ones ability to interpret the printed

page accurately and fully. Text processing is the key to personal

enjoyment and learning. Keppel (8) notes the value of text processing

more broadly: Every examination of the problems of our schools, of

poverty; every question raised by troubled parents about our schools,

every learning disorder seems to show some association with reading

difficulty. Strange (67) is of the view that text processing is the most

32

important subject to be learnt by a child; a child will learn little else in

today’s world if he does not first learn to read properly. It is good to

describe text processing as the life wire of any nation. It makes

attainment of self-knowledge possible. In recent years, the teaching

of text processing has gained the attention of researchers and

educators for obvious reasons. Every child needs to become fully

competent in text processing in order to succeed in school and to

discharge responsibilities as a citizen of a democratic society. A

citizen who reads has the capacity to actively participate in the

continuity of learning (Okebukola 1).

Text processing is the foundation of much of the enjoyment the

individual gets out of life and is closely related to vocational

efficiency. It is intimately related to the success of the democratic way

of life because citizens need to understand the meaning of

democracy and to keep well informed to act wisely on its behalf. They

need the abilities to detect pernicious propaganda, to weigh the

opinions of others, to talk intelligently and to work effectively with

others. The crucial role of text processing is to educate people, to

shape their thinking about crucial issues and to increase their

awareness. Text processing is a resource. It has value and it lets

33

people do things that they could not do otherwise. Emetaran cited in

(Okebukola 9) is of the view that text processing provides a back up

information, which reduces ignorance, thus empowering and

promoting literacy and communication. It is indispensable and central

to efficient functioning of an individual. A great percentage of

information learners and individuals require is through reading, and

an individual is almost completely handicapped without adequate

attainment level of literacy.

There is a saying that knowledge is power, and this simply means

that knowledge gives people the capacity to do things and to take

advantage of opportunities. One wonders what use the world would

have made of the industrial revolution and the age of the engineers

and scientists if the discoveries of the time died unrecorded with their

inventors. The aim of recording them was for different generations to

read and benefit from them. Various cultures in Nigeria, scientific,

technological discoveries and all government policies are all

documented for future use by generations yet unborn. In fact, to say

that a person who cannot read will learn little in today’s world is not

an overstatement. Text processing among individuals especially

among youths can help to remove all forms of selfishness, egocentric

34

behaviour and stereotyping of other youths. Obanya as cited in

Odumuh has this to say about the importance of text processing:

Text processing is essentially like thinking. Therefore

developing somebody’s reading skills is comparable to

developing that person’s intellectual power. At the level of

the wider society, it is well known that the more evolved

languages are those with standardized orthographies,

those with an abundance of reading materials for school

instruction, general reading and inter and intra

generational transmission of knowledge, information and

culture through documented history and literature.

Therefore every effort made to create an enabling

environment for the development of text processing is

also a contribution to the growth of a society’s civilization

(132).

It is true that many youths have no opportunity to travel or visit

places, but reading provides a good alternative for them to reach

others through sufficient information gathering that are available in

various forms. The use of Information Communication Technology

has made it possible for the modern man to see more information in a

35

day than people a hundred years ago used to see in a whole year.

But the modern man can only gain from the wealth of the written

information if he has the ability and the skills to interpret the available

material in order to get the desired and intended meanings. Text

processing, therefore, helps to reduce the world of one to a global

village, opens ones mind to welcome ideas and go beyond today into

the future. There is a wealth of written material, which enables us to

discover lessons learnt by others, to explore new ideas in order to

further our own professional development. Text processing opens for

us a collection of knowledge and skills, which we can copy, modify or

adopt in order to conquer and shape our environment the way it will

suit us.

Through text processing, young people can find and identify the

dedicated leaders of the past and their vision for Nigeria, and the

ideals that they represent. Such information obtained through text

processing will give way to optimism and motivation to build “a strong,

virile and egalitarian society.” Finally, text processing can sensitize

and enlighten the minds of individuals especially our youths on issues

that affect the society so that they can critically think, rather than

36

daydream, plan actions, rather than remain passive and accept

change rather than ignore change (Odumuh 133).

Having seen that text processing is a sine quanon for an effective and

functional life of an individual in her society, it is pertinent to devote

the remaining part of this chapter to the examination and discussion

of the theoretical framework to the study. In doing this, the study

aligns with Huey as cited in Singer and Ruddel thus:

And so to completely analyze what we do when we read

would almost be the acme of a psychologist’s

achievement, for it would be to describe very many of the

most intricate workings of the human mind, as well as to

unravel the tangled story of the most remarkable specific

performance that civilization has learnt in all its history

(xi).

Using Huey’s excellent view of what text processing entails, the

researcher opts to examine at this point and as part of the theoretical

framework for the study: Text Processing Among Primary Six Pupils

in Anambra State, some theories, models and issues that underline

text processing and comprehension activities. The theories and

models are discussed in this regard.

37

The Perceptual Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension

Perceptual theory of text processing and comprehension is word

centered. The theorists see text processing and comprehension as

the reader’s ability to recognize words and phrases in sequence by

their general shape. They believe in a reader having a wide span of

recognition that makes it possible for him to recognize and take in

several words per fixation. The eye moves in saccadic movement

(Jerk) and about 100 milliseconds are spent at each fixation.

In the field of language study, theories and models of perception

contributed a lot to knowledge about reading, reading speed and

knowledge about how comprehension operates. One good thing

about this theory is that during reading, a good number of words are

picked at a fixation and processed simultaneously. In other words, the

theory encourages high-speed reading. The span becomes wide and

larger with training and practice because the reader learns to take in

process progressively larger elements. With this, it is possible to

perceive a page at a glance (Geyer 53). The theory is relevant to the

38

present study, as the subjects need high speed in processing

whatever material they come in contact with.

However, the theory just like any other theory has its flaws. A reader

wastes a lot of time and energy unnecessarily in trying to process lots

of unrelated words and nonsense trigrams and quingrams Pearson

and Camperell (345-347). It is this singular flaw among others that

made the experts and researchers to come up with the next theory.

Cognitive Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension

The scholars under this school of thought believe that text processing

is an intellectual process akin to thinking. Much speculation has been

done about the concepts and cognitive skills used in this process.

Huey (45) is of the view that reading that is done for the attainment of

the reader’s purposes is an excellent practice in the higher thought

processes. According to him, the feeling for values and the choosing

of the relevant information requires mental discipline.Reading

comprehension requires the reader following actively and

sympathetically the ins and outs of an author’s intentions, her fidelity

to truth, her accuracy and method. Huey believes that such an activity

39

acquaints one with the more effective ways of thinking and develops

them in the reader.

An internal aspect of attention has been identified as being crucial to

text processing and comprehension. Samuel as cited in Kitao (73)

defines three characteristics of internal attention. The first, alertness,

is the reader’s active attempt to access relevant schemata involving

letter-sound relationships, syntactic knowledge and word meanings.

Selectivity, the second, refers to the reader’s ability to attend

selectively to only that information requiring processing. The third

characteristic, limited capacity refers to the fact that our human

brain has a limited amount of cognitive energy available for use in

processing information. In other words, if a reader’s cognitive energy

is focused on decoding and attention cannot be directed at

interpreting, relating and combining the meanings of the words

decoded, then comprehension will suffer. Automatically, information

processing, then, simply means that information is processed with

little attention (Samuel) from the same source.

Comprehension difficulties occur when the reader cannot rapidly and

automatically access the concepts and knowledge stored in the

40

schemata. One other example of a cognitive- based model theory of

comprehension is Rumelhart’s Interactive Model as cited in Kitao

(73). According to this theory, information from several knowledge

sources (Schemata for letter-sound relationships, word meaning,

syntactic relationships, event sequences and so on) is considered

simultaneously. The implication is that when information from one

source, such as word recognition is deficient, the reader will rely on

information from another source, for example, contextual clues or

previous experience.

Stanovich as cited in Dehelin (2006) terms the later kind of

processing interactive-compensatory because the reader (any

reader) compensates for deficiencies in one or more of the

knowledge sources. Those sources that are more concerned with

concepts and semantic relationship are termed higher stimuli;

sources dealing with the print itself, which is phonics, sight words and

other word-attack skills are termed lower level stimuli.

Interactive-compensatory model implies that the reader will rely on

higher-level processes when lower-level processes are inadequate,

and vice versa. Stanovich extensively reviews research

demonstrating such compensation in both good and poor readers.

41

There is need to emphasize that the study of the development of

cognitive processes has revealed a lot about children’s learning in

general and has many implications for their learning of the reading

process and their growth towards real maturity in reading. The study

and the use of the theory played significant role in discouraging the

teaching practices and strategies that produce non-thinking parrots

and word callers. The theory therefore encourages efficient reading

and the use of higher mental processes in the readers. The theory is

very relevant to the present study as the subjects’ ability to access

relevant schemata, their ability to attend selectively to only that

information requiring processing are crucial to text processing.

However, there is dissatisfaction with the cognitive view of reading

instruction. There is a divergence between the product, which is

expected, and the process by which it might be reached. Unrealistic

demand is made from a child. She is expected to apply in reading

cognitive learning, which she has acquired in other situations, without

proper guidance in cognitive functioning as an essential ingredient of

her reading instruction (Kress 14).

Characteristically, according to Kress, the learner has been asked to

master a series of skills and abilities, understanding and attitudes and

42

apply them appropriately in order to deal thoughtfully with printed

material. Such an expectation, according to him, seems unrealistic.

The problem appears to be that the cognitive functioning, which is

necessary for the mastery of the skills and abilities had neither been

taught nor considered. This takes us to the next theory.

Linguistic Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension

According to the linguistic theorists, text processing is a precise

process. It involves exact, detailed, sequential perception and

identification of letters, words, spellings, patterns and large units.

They see reading as the simplest activity, which involves the

decoding of letters and phonemes.

In phonic centered approach to text processing, the preoccupation is

with precise letter identification. In word-centered approach, the focus

is on word identification, known words and sight words, precisely

named in any setting.

Spache (12) as a member of this school of thought presents a word

version of this common sense view: “Thus, in its simplest form,

reading may be considered as a series of word perception”. The

teacher’s manual of the Lippincott Basic Reading as in Goodman

(259) incorporates a letter by letter variant in the justification of its

43

reading approach: “In short, following this program, the child learns

from the beginning to see words exactly as the most skillful readers

see them… as whole images of complete words with all their letters”.

Still some members of this school see reading as the study of

grammar. In order words, the grammatical relationship, the correct

form of the words and expressions should be maintained by the

readers. Zintz as cited in Nduka (8) defines reading as a

physiological process, which requires the reader to be able to focus

on a line of print and move along the line. She should be able to

make return sweeps, note likeness and differences. The reader

needs skills in auditory discrimination, verbal expression, syntactic

maturity, eye, head co-ordination and motor skills to execute all the

mechanical skills associated with reading.

In summary, all the different definitions of text processing by linguistic

theorists point at one thing – reading involves precise perception and

identification of all elements. They have all emphasized the process,

which utilizes the perceptual views like size, shape, combination of

letter and sound, relationship of part to a whole, sequence and

ordering.

44

It is not an overstatement to state that the linguistic theorists offered a

lot in the field of reading. For example, they provided a partial list of

other kinds of knowledge used to produce and understand

contextually appropriate utterances. This is given by Lyons (573-584):

1. Knowledge of roles and statues (such as doctor-patient,

teacher student, priest-congregation and so on)

2. Knowledge of spatio-temporal references (such as here,

now, this, good morning)

3. Knowledge of degree of formality (as evident in an

individual’s code repertoire and code-switching).

4. Knowledge of medium appropriate to situations (spoken and

written)

However, the theory is not without flaws. The theorists have

emphasized the importance of understanding sentence and language

to comprehension. But the ability of the reader to understand

individual sentences (possibly in isolation) does not connote

meaningful understanding of the passage. Sentences bear only units

of meanings. These units of meanings have to be organized into

larger units and whole-idea units by the reader if he is to lay some

claims to understanding what the author has said. Likewise,

45

understanding the language is not all that vital to comprehension as

the words of the language may not be a full indicator of the writer’s

exact meaning. Therefore, mere understanding of sentences and

language could represent but a narrow scope of comprehension. This

is because such understanding ignores the part or contribution, which

the reader has to make to arrive at the meaning being expressed by

the author. She is, under such a condition, a passive assimilator of

the ideas of other people - someone incapable of making his own

contribution to the views being expressed. These authors have, in

fact, perceived comprehension from the literal level, which is the

lowest level and could not be said to imply full comprehension. The

search for better way of explaining reading comprehension by

researchers gave rise to the next theory.

Psycholinguistic Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension

Not satisfied with the definition and explanations of text processing

and comprehension so far, the psycholinguists came up with a more

constructive view of reading - one that stresses the reader’s

contribution to the text in arriving at the meaning. For this reason, we

begin to give the psycholinguists view of text processing and

comprehension by quoting Goodman thus:

46

As scientific understanding develops in field of study,

preexisting, naïve, common sense notions must give way.

Such outmoded beliefs clutter the literature dealing with

the process of reading. They interfere with the application

of modern scientific concepts of language and thought to

research in reading. They confuse the attempts at

application of such concepts to solution of problems

involved in the teaching and learning of reading. The

very fact that such naïve beliefs are based on common

sense explains their persistent and recurrent nature. To

the casual and unsophisticated observer they appear to

explain, even predict a set of phenomena in reading. This

paper will deal with one such key misconception and offer

a more viable scientific alternative (259).

Goodman, therefore, strongly refutes the common sense notion by

the linguistic theorists that reading is a precise process that involves

exact, detailed, sequential perception and identification of letters,

words, spellings, patterns and language units. He offers this definition

in place of the above definitions:

47

Text processing is a selective process. It involves partial

use of available minimal language cues selected from

perceptual input on the basis of the reader’s expectation.

As this partial information is processed, tentative

decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected, or confined

as reading process progresses.

Goodman simply means that text processing is a psycholinguistic

game. It involves an interaction between thought and language.

Efficient reading does not result from precise perception and

identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest,

most productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right

the first time. The ability to anticipate, that which has not been seen,

of course, is vital in reading, just as the ability to anticipate what has

not yet been heard is vital in listening. The psycholinguists subscribe

to the process theoretical school of thought.

All psycholinguists have common notion or view that texts are

constructed by authors to be comprehended by readers. The

meaning is in the author and the reader. The text has a potential to

evoke meaning but has no meaning in itself; meaning is not a

characteristic of texts. This does not mean the characteristics of the

48

texts are unimportant or that either writer or reader is independent of

them. How the writer constructs the text and how the reader

constructs the meaning will influence comprehension. But meaning

does not pass between the writer and the reader. It is represented by

a writer in a text and constructed from a text by a reader.

Characteristics of the writer, the text and the reader will all influence

the resultant meaning.

The reader has a highly active role. It is the individual’s transactions

between a reader and the text characteristics that result in meaning.

These characteristics include physical characteristics such as

orthography – the alphabetic system, spelling, punctuation, format,

characteristics such as paragraphing, lists, schedules, bibliographies,

macro structures or text grammar such as that found in telephone,

books, recipe books, newspapers and letters, and wording of texts

such as the differences found in narrative and expository text.

Many psycholinguists have one definition or the other in support of

Goodman’s view of text processing. For example, Strang as cited in

Nduka (8) has the view that text processing is more than seeing

words clearly, more than pronouncing printed words correctly, more

than recognizing the meaning of isolated words. Text processing

49

requires you to think, feel and imagine. This definition recognizes the

physical and mental activities that go on during the reading process,

but unlike the linguists, it de-emphasizes the physical aspect.

Robinson (65) in the same source is more concerned with the mental

process involved in reading and therefore defined it as a complex

reaction to the printed page involving cerebral processes. De Harren

from the same source still added an aspect that is vital to the

definition of reading. This aspect is the reader’s participation in

arriving at the meaning. He said:

Text processing involved a process of deriving meaning

from symbols …There is no meaning in print itself; printed

symbols merely represent the sounds of language. To

derive meaning from print, a reader must translate the

written symbols into the sound symbols of language and

utilize his or her knowledge of language to reconstruct the

writer’s message.

De Harren has rightly emphasized the importance of language in text

processing. The author and the reader have to share the same

language code if meaningful text processing should take place. But

the language factor should not be over-stressed to the neglect of

50

shared experience. Korzybski from the same source had observed

similarly when he submitted:

While reading, a person reconstructs the fact that lies

behind the symbols. The fact implies that symbols reflect

experience, and reading is an active process for

ascertaining the experiences encoded in the print.

Gagne (65) emphasizes text processing as a process that calls into

use all the higher mental processes, which could be developed

through some skills. He notes:

Text processing is not a simple mechanical skill, nor is it a

narrow scholastic tool properly cultivated. It is essentially

a thought - getting process. However, to say that text

processing is a thought-getting process is to give it too

restricted a description. It should be developed as a

complex organization of patterns of higher mental

processes. It can and should embrace all types of

thinking, evaluating, judging, imagining, reasoning and

problem solving.

While the two opinions on what reading implies seem to persist, Unoh

gave some clarification when he said:

51

For the beginner, text processing is concerned for the

most part with learning to recognize the printed symbols

that represent speech, and to respond emotionally or

otherwise to the sound and meaning of words. For the

experienced reader, reading becomes less a problem of

recognizing words and more a matter of reasoning,

involving meaningful interpretation of verbal symbols such

as words, phrases and sentences, and requiring… all

types of thinking, evaluating, judging, imagining, and

problem solving (51).

The above definition makes a distinction between ‘learning to read’

and reading. This, probably, has been the area of difference between

the two views on the definition of reading. A child in the first year of

the primary school is battling with the problem of recognizing the

different letters of the alphabet and attaching sounds to them. He is

not concerned with meaning as there is no meaning in the letter itself.

On the other hand, a reader who has learnt to attach sounds to letters

and meanings to sounds of language should be concerned with

getting full meaning from the language. This is because meanings

are expressed in language, or in symbols representing language.

52

Therefore, getting meaning, interpreting meaning and evaluating

meaning require mental processes. Unoh possibly agrees with this

view when he sees reading at college and university level as

essentially a cognitive or learning activity. This activity, he says,

appears to consist of perceiving, processing, interpreting,

comprehending and synthesizing information that is conveyed by

written or printed language

From the various views expressed above, it could be concluded that

reading (as distinct from learning to read) is an active mental process

through which the reader gets into the author’s mind and

comprehends her views – expressed and unexpressed on a subject

which is presented before her in the form of printed language. In

other words, she is involved in both mental and emotional interaction

with the author’s ideas. She processes these ideas in the light of her

total experiences – past and present. To do this, she has to make

some speculations; she has to think over, interpret, judge and

evaluate all that the author has said. This process might be what

Epstein as cited in Unoh (40) has in mind when he refers to reading

as a two-way channel of communication, conversation or even an

argument with the author. In the process of this argument or

53

exchange of ideas, the reader comes up with her own ideas, which

might reject, modify, confirm or even extend the author’s views on the

subject. Finally, she utilizes the resulting knowledge to suit her

purpose. This utilization is probably what Goodman (21) had in mind

when he said that though reading and the application of the true

reading are separable, it must always be remembered that reading is

never pursued for its own sake, even in literature.

It is not an overstatement, therefore, to state that psycholinguists

contribute a lot in the field of reading. They made conscious effort to

formulate performance models that aim at stimulating the language

behaviour of language users. It was based on Miller’s suggestion

(169) that Goodman developed the model of psycholinguistic game

called reading English. Below are the steps and the model.

1. The reader scans along a line of print from left to right and

down the page, line by line.

2. He fixes at a point to permit eye focus. Some print will be

central and in focus, some will be peripheral; perhaps his

perceptual field is a flattened circle.

3. He begins the selection process. He picks up graphic cues,

guided by constraints set up through prior choices, his

54

language knowledge, his cognitive styles, and strategies he has

learned.

4. He forms a perceptual image using these cues and his

anticipated cues. This image then is partly what he expects to

see.

5. Now he searches his memory for related syntactic, semantic

and phonological cues. This may lead to selection of more

graphic cues and to reforming the perceptual image.

6. At this point, he makes a guess or tentative choice consistent

with graphic cues. Semantic analysis leads to partial decoding

as far as possible. This meaning is stored in short-term

memory as he proceeds.

7. If no guess is possible, he checks the recalled perceptual input

and tries again. If a guess is still not possible, he takes another

look at the text to gather more graphic cues.

8. If he can make a decodable choice, he tests it for semantic and

graphic acceptability in the context developed by prior choices

and decoding.

9. If the tentative choice is not acceptable semantically or

syntactically, then he regresses, scanning from right to left

55

along the line and up the page to locate a point of semantic or

syntactic inconsistency. When such a point is found, he starts

over at that point. If no inconsistency can be identified, he

reads on seeking some cue, which will make it possible to

reconcile the anomalous situation.

10. If the choice is acceptable, decoding is extended, meaning is

assimilated with prior knowledge, and prior meaning is

accommodated, if necessary. Expectations are formed about

input and meaning that lies ahead.

Then the cycle continues.

I would argue here that in as much as all the text processing theories

discussed so far in this study still exist and are still used in many

teaching and reading contexts, it is important that researchers,

teachers and authors keep their eye on the reader and her

experiences when designing and implementing instructional

materials. This appeal leads us to the last reading theory.

Schema Theory of Text Processing and Comprehension

Piaget and Ausubel are the fathers of Schema Theory. From time

immemorial, the linguists, the cognitive psychologists and the

psycholinguists have the concept of Schema (plural: schemata) to

56

explain the interaction of key factors affecting the reading and

comprehension process. Much of the literature on reading

comprehension is predicted on schema theory. Schema theory uses

a hypothetical abstract metaphor to describe human information

processing. Schemata are the building blocks of cognition. They are

mental representations of objects, ideas, and phenomena –

organizational structures or slot in which the learner stores personal

representations of meaning. These schemata provide the interpretive

framework for assigning meaning to words and ideas. They are

dependent upon the learner’s background experience, the situational

context, and cues provided by the text. Simply put, schema theory

states that all knowledge is organized into units. Within these units of

knowledge or schemata is stored information. A Schema, then, is a

generalized description or a conceptual system for understanding

knowledge – how knowledge is represented and how it is used.

Information that does not fit into these schemata may not be

comprehended correctly. This is the reason why readers have a

difficult time comprehending a text on a subject they are not familiar

with even if the person comprehended the meaning of the individual

words in the passage. If the waiter in a restaurant, for example,

57

asked you if you would prefer to sing, you may have a difficult time

interpreting what he was asking and why, since singing is not

something that patrons in a restaurant normally do. However, if you

had been to the restaurant in the past and knew that opera students

who liked to entertain the spectators frequented it, you would have

incorporated that information into your schema and not be confused

when the waiter asked if you’d prefer to sing.

The learner in schema theory actively builds schema and revises

them in light of new information. Each individual’s schema is unique

and depended on that individual’s experiences and cognitive

processes. Ausubel postulated a hierarchical organization of

knowledge where the learner more or less attached new knowledge

to the existing hierarchy. In this representation, memory is driven by

structure as well as meaning. Knowledge in Schema Theory,

however, is not necessarily stored hierarchically. In fact, it is

meaning-driven and probably represented propositionally, and the

learner actively constructs these networks of prepositions. For

example, when we are asked to recall a story that we were told, we

are able to reconstruct the meaning of the story, but usually not the

exact sentences – or even often the exact order – that we are told.

58

We have remembered the story by actively constructing a meaningful

representation of the story in our memory.

Schemata are important not just in interpreting information, but also in

decoding how that information is presented. Schemata can be

reflected in text structures. For example, according to Driscoll (81)

and Halliday and Hassan(97) readers use their schematic

representation of text (narrative, compare/contrast, cause/effect, etc)

to help them interpret the information in the text. Schema reflecting

how information is presented can also be culturally determined.

Kaplan (16-20) stated that the structure of formal argumentative

essays is culturally determined and that therefore second language

writers and readers must be aware not only in having sufficient

command of their second language but also of the textual structures

in their second language.

The way that learners acquire knowledge under schema theory is

quite similar to Piaget’s model of the process of development. In

essence, there are three different reactions that a learner can have to

new information: accretation, tuning and restructuring. In accretation,

learners take the new input and assimilate it into their existing

schema without making any changes to the overall schema. Tuning

59

is when learners realize that their existing schema is inadequate for

the new knowledge and modify their existing schema accordingly.

Restructuring is the process of creating a new schema addressing

the inconsistencies between the old schema and the newly acquired

information.

In addition to schema, learners are also thought to have mental

models, which are dynamic models for problem solving based on a

learner’s existing schema and perceptions of task demand and task

performance. What this means according to Driscoll (80) is that

people should bring to tasks imprecise, partial, and idiosyncratic

understandings that evolve with experience.

One major implication of schema theory is the role of prior knowledge

in text processing. For the learners to be able to effectively process

information, their existing schemata related to the new content need

to be activated. Another important implication of schema theory is the

recognition of the role that culture and experience play in creating an

individual’s knowledge. Educators must pay attention to the cultural

references in the material they present to the students and avoid

potential cultural-biases. For example, students who have not grown

up in American culture may be at a disadvantage when asked to read

60

and answer questions about George Washington on a standard

assessment test because, unlike American students, they have no

preexisting George Washington schema that they can activate that

will help them process the information they are reading more

effectively.

Schema Theory also has implications for textbook design, and by

extension for the design of other instructional materials. In order to

facilitate student learning, materials should be organized according to

conventional structures that students may already be familiar with. In

addition, designers should employ strategies to facilitate students’

recall of related material such as using analogies to draw connections

between related content.

Current research, such as the study of students’ problem solving in

familiar and unfamiliar context by Price and Driscoll (472) and the

study of the relative effects of familiarity with the topic and use of

maps on students’ recall by Schewartz & Ellosworth (69) suggest that

Schema Theory is a valid metaphor for explaining students’

knowledge structures and ability to recall information. Price and

Driscoll found that at the beginning of their 1997 study, 10.5% of

subjects could solve a particular type of problem (a selection

61

problem) in an unfamiliar context. However, 57.3% of those involved

in the study could solve a very similar problem in a familiar context.

The researchers then conducted three different treatments (prior

exposure to the problem in a familiar scenario, repeated opportunities

to solve similar problems in different context, and detailed process-

oriented feedback) designed to help learners construct a function

“problem solving” schema for solving selection problems regardless

of context. The effect of these treatments was not significant, leading

the authors to conclude: “schemata exist and that they powerfully

influence problem solving. However, there is no evidence that our

subjects spontaneously abstracted a useful schema while trying to

solve selection problems nor did the feedback conditions appear to

promote such abstraction (Price and Driscroll 83).

Schwartz et al (68) studied map-passage retention to determine

which theory, dual coding or schema could better account for the

higher level of retention demonstrated by learners who look at a map

prior to listening to a passage. They concluded that the maps helped

learners connect what they already know about an area to what they

need to remember from the passage. However, they also found that

prior knowledge of geography is activated by the geographic

62

propositions contained in a passage, with or without a map. Thus

they were able to conclude that the improved recall manifested in

learners using map of familiar geographic area is due primarily to the

effects of schema theory.

From the above small sample of schema theory research, it does

seem that schema is a valid explanation for how learners process

and interpret information. Unlike some other learning theories such

as behaviourism or cognitive dissonance, schema theory does not

seek to explain the acquisition of only certain types of knowledge

such as behaviours or attitudes. Rather, instructional strategies

based on it can be applied to any learning situation. The ability of the

theory to explain how numerous different types of knowledge is

learned and to suggest appropriate instructional strategies regardless

of the type of knowledge also makes Schema Theory an effective

theory for educators and instructional designers.

So far, the work has been able to look at text processing from

different perspectives. Definitions of text processing seem to vary

with many applied linguists that have discussed it. Despite the

widespread divergence in the perception of what text processing truly

is, no one is in doubt that it is the process of decoding information

63

from written or printed texts. The plethora of views on the meaning of

text processing has led to the emergence of two theoretical definition

thrusts, which emphasize either the processes involved in text

processing or the product. Those who argue that text processing is a

psycho-linguistic guessing game do so to subscribe to the process

theoretical school. The product school places premium on information

retrieval – the result of the reading activity. The process – product

debate has dominated the literature on text processing since the turn

of this century (Otagburuagu 133). None of these views could be

dismissed as irrelevant. In a general sense, it has to be understood

that they are debating on decoding versus meaning. But it is obvious

that both are necessary for effective comprehension, for according to

Putnam as cited in Nduka (16), decoding without comprehension is

useless; comprehension without decoding is impossible.

In as much as the arguments and views discussed all along would be

taken as well placed, for each has made some meaningful

contributions to the definition of reading comprehension and the

present study, it could be argued that none has brought out all the

complex processes involved in text processing and comprehension.

Be this as it may, the researcher’s view is that too much emphasis

64

should not be given to it. What is more important is that efforts should

be made towards improving the teaching and learning of text

processing at various levels of education in Nigeria.

However, it has to be viewed from the point of view of this work that

text processing and comprehension goes beyond the level of mere

extraction of meaning from the printed page. Otagburuaga (132-140)

is of the opinion that text processing is a complex language activity,

which involves cognitive operations and psychomotor activities. It is

perceived as a process of one committing oneself to total thinking or

reasoning on the subject or topic that is expressed and presented

before him in the form of written language. Through the possession

of extensive vocabulary he reads and decodes the symbols using his

knowledge and experience of the workings of the language, which the

symbols represent. As she recalls his prior knowledge and

experiences on the ideas being expressed through the symbols, she

understands, interprets and critically analyses the thoughts of the

author as presented and implied in the printed page, that is, she

mentally sifts the information or message contained, internalizing the

aspects considered useful and rejecting those found to be

incompatible with her own beliefs, aspirations and values on the topic

65

or subject. In the process, she comes up with new ideas and thereby

extends the meanings contained in the message represented by

printed symbols. She does these by predicting the outcomes or

knowing the implications or taking or not taking certain lines of action

contained in the passage. In short, she extends the knowledge

gained to other situations. Finally, she utilizes the information as it

suits her purpose. Perhaps, the utilization is the only way we can

infer that comprehension has taken place.

The Goal of Primary Education

Primary level of education in any country is the most important

stratum of the educational system. The obvious reason is that being

the foundation on which the rest of the structure is built, its

administration should be thorough, well planned and secured. This is

because subsequent administration and acquisition of higher levels of

education would either be coherent, spontaneous or disjointed

depending on the nature and quality of the primary education.

On the global level, Imosemi (13) pointed out that priority has been

made to ensure that the child receives the necessary care and

education required. Since primary education is seen as the cutting

edge and the foundation stone for continued individual learning,

66

growth and development, such homogeneity of purpose ought to be

entrenched from the primary level for it to be effective and far

reaching.

In pursuance of this potential, government has set up mechanism

aimed at the achievement of universal functional literacy. This

explains why the organization and the content of the National English

Studies Curriculum for primary classes (primary 1-6) are arranged

around four basic language skills. The skills, which form the unifying

strands across the entire curriculum, are introduced to pupils early in

order to ensure proficiency in the use of the English language. The

four basic unifying skills are:

Structure

Speaking

Reading

Writing

The skills are arranged under four themes viz:

Theme 1: Listening and speaking

Theme 2: Reading and writing

Theme 3: Grammatical accuracy/structure

Theme 4: Literature.

67

In the present study, the researcher is concerned with the second

and the third themes – reading and grammatical structure. The two

themes are inseparable in text processing and comprehension.

Reading as we know is the most important subject to be learned by a

child. A child will learn little else in today’s world if he does not first

learnt to read properly. This explains why the curriculum planners

came up with the present arrangement of the language skills. The

aim is to avoid low literacy achievement. Lag in text processing skills

is exacerbated at the secondary and higher education levels when it

is critical for students to understand and manipulate large volumes of

written text to learn a subject matter. In order to successfully

negotiate textual meaning, the reader must bring at least the following

to the act of text processing: cognitive capabilities, for example,

attention and memory; motivation, for example, purpose, interest and

linguistic knowledge and experiences. The worse thing is that many

educators do not understand these factors sufficiently, especially in

the case of second language readers.

In the present study, the researcher wants to look at or describe the

extent primary school pupils have been able to make use of the two

68

text variables – syntactic features and cohesive ties in text

processing. In other words, the study aims at describing and

interpreting facts and events, as they are: the pupils’ ability to

manipulate syntactic features and cohesive ties in text processing

and comprehension. The focus of the study is on text processing and

comprehension. Since syntax and cohesion are significant

components in text processing and at the same time domains of

language that reading researchers are only beginning to investigate,

the researcher makes them the main focus of the present study.

Syntax and Cohesion in Primary School Syllabus

To ensure content validity, the measures of syntactic features and

cohesive ties are chosen based on the scheme of work for primary

school pupils, especially as they concern primary four, five and six

pupils. Thus the following areas of syntactic features are used:

1) Coordination with ‘and’

2) Relative clauses that contain who, which, that etc

3) Adverbial clauses

4) Noun clauses

5) Sentences in the active and passive voices

6) Placement of qualifiers

69

7) The use of double negatives

8) The use of idiomatic negatives

9) The use of model auxiliaries

10) The use of nominalization and active verbs

11) The use of neither – nor etc.

For the measures of cohesive ties, the following areas are concerned:

1. The use of coordinators like and, as well as, but etc.

2. The use of anophora, for example, they, them and it.

3. The use of cataphora, for example, his, this, it and it’s.

4. The use of deixis like this, that, those, and these.

5. The use of enumerative like such as, including, consists of etc.

6. The use of expectation deniers like however, but, on the other

hand etc.

7. The use of sequencers like first, second, third, next etc.

8. The use of result injectors like hence, thus, with the result that etc.

9. The use of homophora like the.

10. The use of condition indicators like in this case, in as much as,

provided.

11. The use of causal markers like so, consequently, for this reason.

12. The use of compromisers like very nearly, generally, sort of.

70

13. The use of diminishers like slightly, little, very seldom etc.

14. The use of maximisers like greatly, great, completely etc.

15. The use of emphasizers like obviously, clearly, in fact etc.

16. The use of examplifiers like for example, such as, namely etc.

17. The use of illustrative indicators, for example, fig. 2

18. The use of reformators like that is, I mean to say, in other

words.

19. The use of time relaters like then, when , at least etc.

20. The use of place relaters like when, here etc.

21. The use of contrastive markers like however, but, on the

other hand etc.

22. The use of comparatives like also, similarly, like etc.

23. The use of adversative markers like anyway, otherwise else

etc.

24. The use of analogy like likewise, the same as etc.

Both those aspects of syntactic features and cohesive ties are clearly

treated in various topics especially reading passages in the scheme

of work for primary schools. The sentences used under syntax and

cohesion are carefully selected from children’s English grammar

71

books, reading books and storybooks. The hypothesis on which the

present study is based is that certain syntactic features and cohesive

ties of the language in reading books and textbooks for children can

make comprehension difficult. Some authors make use of

grammatical and stylistic features which do not occur at all, or occur

relatively rarely in speech and which many children have not learnt to

interpret. This is what informed the researcher to single out these two

variables to see the extent primary six pupils could make use of them

in text processing and comprehension.

Research Problem

It has been established that text processing is a resource that

provides individuals with a window through which to view the entire

world. It is also a fact that an individual with an inadequate text

processing skills will gain nothing in today’s world of knowledge

explosion. It is based on this that The NERDC Guideline on

Curriculum (47) provides certain reading skills that primary school

pupils should acquire in order to meet up with the inevitable

numerous pressing challenges in and outside Nigeria. By implication,

the curriculum planners expect the teachers to teach the pupils those

reading skills that would enable them:

72

(A) To understand written instructions that are connected with:

1. Subject textbook, other subjects and examinations

2. Goods in packets, labels, and jars

3. Employment situations (shop, office, the police station etc)

4. Forms (income tax, insurance, application)

5. Health notices and other public exhortations

(B) To understand public information and debate such as

1. Language of newspapers including the abbreviated

language of headlines

2. Public posters

(C) To understand the casual and informal styles of letter writing

and the abbreviated language of telegrams

(D) To understand the formal register of textbook exposition

including the language of science

(E) To understand such discontinuous texts as commentaries

under pictures, labels in a diagram and the abbreviated

language of charts and tables

(F) To understand the narrative and descriptive language of

simplified readers including an elementary awareness of moral

issues in a story

73

(G) To understand how to use reference materials including such

devices as table of contents, index, glossary and the

alphabetical entries of dictionaries etc

(H) To approach a written text equipped with the ability to:

1. Read for the plain sense or surface meaning of the text

2. Read for the implied but unstated meaning

3. Understand the relationship of thought between sentences

and the development of an idea in several paragraphs

4. Read for specifically required information

5. Read for the gist of a passage etc.

However, despite the gains of text processing and the premium that

has been placed on it in recent years by different agencies and

reading specialists both in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world to

encourage positive reading culture among Nigerians, the review of

the related literature shows that many primary school bilinguals and

even those in secondary and tertiary institutions are performing below

expectation as far as text processing is concerned. Many of them

complain openly of their inability to read with comprehension all that

is required even after long hours of dogged and painstaking efforts.

Okafor (65) in her study found out that many pupils and students

74

avoid comprehension passages in both public and internal

examinations. Otagburuagu (136) reveals that many learners show

resentment to take home reading tasks and assignments that involve

extensive reading. He maintains that while they feel excited to receive

grammar lessons, they are bored with exercises on the reading skill.

Odumah has this to say:

The problems of Nigerian learners in many of the

institutions begin with inadequate reading. Many of them

lack the basic reading skills necessary to satisfy their

intellectual curiosity, to understand current events, to gain

information needed by a good citizen and to satisfy

spiritual and emotional needs (133).

His view is in line with teachers’, lecturers’ parents’ and public

members’ view that many learners who have gone even to higher

institutions are incapable of processing texts with comprehension. It

has been established that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the

performance of Nigerian pupils and students in literacy (Faloyojo,

Mokoju, Okebukola, Onusha & Olubodum, 18). In 2000, for example,

the SSEC chief examiner on English Language and Literature in

English has this to report:

75

There is a healthy balance between knowing the plots,

the characters and interpreting the text. However, most

unfortunately, the performance of the candidates is far

below that of the previous years. This is both in terms of

the knowledge of the text and command of the English

language. The dismal standing of English language is

alarming. It is evident that the candidates did not

understand the text. Hence, they could not respond to

them, mainly, because they lack the medium, English

Language.

In 2002 and 2003, he reported that many candidates in the attempt to

answer comprehension questions copy out chunks from the

passages, in the hope that the correct answer will be found in them.

On literature he reported that many candidates did not read and

understand the prescribed texts. The same old reasons that

accounted for poor performance of candidates in the past still persist

- the poor knowledge of the texts.

The chief examiner’s reports on both the English Language and

Literature in English centers on one thing - students’ inability to

76

process and understand the prescribed materials, in this case,

comprehension passages and the textbooks.

Many studies in Nigeria on learners’ reading interests and habit

reveal that many secondary school students and pupils rarely read

any thing outside their course books. Ntseane and Commeyrans in

(Ikonta 105) reported that many students and pupils are reluctant

readers while some avoid reading whenever it possible. Unoh in

Ikonta (104) has repeatedly cautioned on, and highlighted the

prevalence of reluctant reading and learning syndrome and alliteracy

syndrome in Nigeria, a situation where people who can read don’t

love to read while many educated Nigerians do not read for pleasure.

According to him, learners limit their reading and learning to

prescribed texts for specific examinations but hardly indulge in

recreational reading which research has shown to be necessary for

expanding intellectual horizons, sharing experiences, improving

writing performance and developing more nature personalities.

Chijioke in the same Ikonta while emphasizing the increasingly

important role of text processing presents the following estimate of

the amount of learning through reading for different educational

levels:

77

a) Nursery 20%

b) Primary 50%

c) Secondary 75%

d) University 90%

The data above shows that for even primary pupils to succeed

academically, they have to develop positive attitude towards text

processing.

The incompetence in text processing has implications for other

subjects. For example, if pupils are deficient in reading and

comprehension, they will find it difficult to read and understand their

course of study. Again, education in modern times requires both the

pupils and the students to read a lot of material in their subject areas

as well as for day to-day survival. Insufficient reading brings

frustration to the learners. To cope with academic work in school,

they resort to all sorts of short cuts. One of the factors responsible for

dropout syndrome among students and pupils relate to poor reading

habits. Many learners who cannot cope with their academic work see

reading as a burden. This is because they lack the necessary

foundation. Such learners find satisfaction instead in violating the

country’s law, threatening human security through armed robbery and

78

engaging in other unacceptable vices such as cultism, jumping fence

and bullying other youth rather than using their leisure time to explore

the world of books.

The relation of text processing inability to premature school leaving

has been established. Many learners drop out of school because of

text processing inability. In general, text-processing inability severely

restricts individual’s development. Krugman as cited in Strange (69)

is of the view that mental hygiene and text processing underlie all

teaching in schools and have the most pervasive influence on the

student’s success in school and adjustment in living. Inability to

process text has the same profound influence on educational growth

as a severe emotional involvement. Both limit successful functioning,

cause frustration, bring about disturbed relationships, influence

outlook on life, and result in a variety of undesirable behaviuor

manifestations. Repeated academic failures caused by reading

inability can give rise to feeling of inferiority and frustration. Failure in

reading may also cause emotional disturbance. Children who learn to

read early show self-confidence; those who don’t make satisfactory

progress feel anxious and insecure. Reading retardation often

produces a chain of consequences: inability to do the assignments

79

and take part in the class discussion leads to feeling of inferiority,

hopelessness or hostility, which in turn bring about truancy,

association with experienced delinquents, and delinquent acts. In

each step of this sequence the child’s image of himself deteriorates.

Therefore, learners who lack text-processing skills are already

academically, socially, economically, and psychologically on the

danger list.

Opinions are as diverse as there are individuals and reading

specialists on textual variables that are responsible for learners’ poor

achievement in text processing. The researcher believes that there is

a problem as far as text processing and comprehension is concerned,

for there can be no smoke without fire. However, instead of being

tossed about by the wave of some uninvestigated observations, the

researcher decides to single out two variables and investigate the

extent the pupils can effectively utilize them in text processing and

comprehension. Since syntax and cohesion are significant factors in

text processing, the researcher has to make them the main focus of

the investigation. The researcher also wants to ascertain the extent

these factors can interact with learner factors like the gender, the

80

socio-economic status of the readers’ parents and the location of the

school.

The problem of the study is, therefore, to ascertain the extent primary

six pupils can utilize their knowledge of syntactic features and

cohesive ties in text processing, the aspects of syntactic features and

cohesive ties they find difficult and how the two factors interact with

other variables like gender, the socio-economic status of the readers’

parents and the location of the readers’ school to determine the

extent the pupils can process text with comprehension. It is these

problems and other issues raised in this part of the study that the

researcher is trying to investigate. The outcome of the investigation is

crucial in the present study, as it will make it possible for the

researcher to proffer solutions at the end.

Purpose of the Study

It has been observed that many learners are academically on the

danger list due to their general apathy towards reading, their poor

reading culture and their inability to read with comprehension. The

researcher, therefore, wants to ascertain empirically the primary six

pupils’ text processing ability, the extent they can utilize cohesive ties

and syntactic features as text factors in text processing, the extent

81

the two variables interact with other variables like sex, socio-

economic status of the parents and school location to affect pupils’

text processing and comprehension ability. Specifically, the study

aims at:

i. Ascertaining the extent pupils can apply their knowledge of

cohesive ties in text processing and comprehension,

ii. Ascertaining the extent the pupils can apply their knowledge of

syntactic features in text processing and comprehension,

iii. Comparing and ascertaining the degree of difference of the

extent the pupils can apply their knowledge of cohesive ties and

syntactic features in text processing and comprehension,

iv. Ascertaining the aspects of cohesive ties and syntactic features

that affect pupils’ processing and comprehension ability

positively or negatively,

v. Ascertaining the extent the two variables interact with gender to

determine the extent pupils can process text with

comprehension

vi. Ascertaining the extent the two variables interact with location

of the school to determine the extent pupils can process text

with comprehension

82

vii. Ascertaining the extent the two variables interact with the socio-

economic status of the readers’ parents to determine the extent

pupils can process text with comprehension

Significance of the Study

Having reviewed the related literature, it was observed that certain

areas are left uncovered. One of such observed areas is that in this

part of the world, primary school level of education has been

neglected in the areas of research. Most researchers tend to use

secondary and higher institution students as their subjects. Again, it

was discovered that cohesion as a significant factor in text processing

among primary school bilinguals has not been carried out in this part

of the world and elsewhere in the world. The literature review also

shows that studies have been carried out on the effect of syntax on

text processing and comprehension, but no study has been carried

out to compare and to describe empirically the extent primary school

pupils can utilize their knowledge of syntactic features and cohesive

ties in text processing and comprehension. It is, therefore, these

missing links (uncovered areas) that the present study sets out to

cover.

83

The findings will avail us with reliable data and accurate information

on the extent primary school pupils can utilize the two important text

factors in text processing. The findings will enable the researcher to

be in a better position to proffer suggestions on how to save our

pupils from being swapped in the tide of illiteracy and alliteracy. There

is need to upgrade our knowledge about the pupils’ ability and power

of processing text. It is important to determine empirically what they

are doing now, what they find difficult and why they find such difficult.

It is equally imperative to find out the resources, the techniques and

the methods they are using and the ones they are neglecting. The

researcher will also be in a better position to conclude that pupils’

poor performance in text processing and the strong apathy towards

reading are as a result of either the variables that are associated with

the pupils or the textual variables like syntax and cohesion.

There is, therefore, the need to carry out the research of this type in

order to be in a better position to provide answers to some of the

questions and issues raised in the study. The findings of the study no

doubt will make it possible for both the teachers of reading and

educators to devise suitable comprehension instruments, and better

options and methods of teaching and testing learners at all levels of

84

education. Finally, the study will make it possible to answer the

question: To what extent can primary school pupils utilize syntactic

features and cohesive ties as text variables in text processing and

comprehension? Specifically, the study will be of immense benefit to

many people in these ways. The knowledge of different reading and

comprehension theories and models will make it possible for the

teachers to understand the best way and method of teaching reading

to ensure comprehension. The study will also make it possible for

teachers and educators to up grade their knowledge about the pupils’

ability to process texts. The study will make it possible for us to

determine what the pupils are doing now, what they find difficult and

why they find such difficult. Furthermore, the study will provide

information to the teachers, educators and the course designers

about the variables that may help in predicting and assessing pupils’

reading comprehension. The authors, especially children’s authors,

publishers and textbook selectors will also benefit from the study as it

will make it possible for them to guard against textual variables or

features that can impede or facilitate comprehension. Most

importantly, the study will help clear the misconception that reading is

the mere precise process that involves perception and identification

85

of letters, words and spellings. The study will equally make it possible

for the teachers to be familiar with the aspect of the language that

should be emphasized for effective teaching of reading and

comprehension skills. In summary, the study will be significant to the

teachers in the ways pointed out above and other ways that are not

raised in this study.

Delimitation of the Study

The scope of the study was limited specifically to written texts and to

two important text factors- syntactic features and cohesive ties and

three learner factors: gender, the socio-economic status of the

readers’ parents and the location of the readers’ schools. However,

other variables that are directly or indirectly involved in text

processing are held constant in the study.

Research questions

Research question 1: To what extent can primary school pupils utilize

their knowledge of cohesive tie as text factors in text processing and

comprehension using the expected criterion test of fifty percent as the

standard?

86

Research question 2: To what extent can primary school pupils utilize

their knowledge of certain syntactic features as text factors in text

processing and comprehension?

Research question 3: What aspects of cohesion and syntactic

features can they positively or negatively utilize in text processing and

comprehension?

Research question 4:To what extent do the mean scores of boys and

girls in text processing differ?

Research question 5:To what extent do the mean scores of the pupils

from semi-urban schools and rural schools in text processing differ?

Research question 6: To what extent do the mean scores of the pupils from

the different socio- economic status differ in the three instruments as text

factors in text processing and comprehension?

Hypotheses

HO1: Pupils do not statistically differ significantly in their mean scores

among the three instruments as text factors in text processing

and comprehension

HO2: Gender does not affect pupils’ achievement in the three

instruments as text factors in text processing and

comprehension

87

HO3: School location does not significantly affect pupils’ achievement

in the three instruments as text factors in text processing and

comprehension

HO4: Socio-economic status of parents does not significantly affect

pupils’ achievement in the three instruments as text factors in

text processing and comprehension

88

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

The processing and comprehending texts can be broken down into

more specific variables that relate to the learner, text and the teacher,

which will be described in greater detail. For this reason the literature

review is guided by socio-cognitive-based text processing model.

This is exactly what this chapter is set out to do.

The variables to be reviewed in this chapter are broadly categorized

into: conceptual issues and empirical studies. Specifically, the

variables in this chapter are examined under the following headings.

• Taxonomy of Text Processing and Comprehension

• An Overview of Text Processing and Comprehension,

• Conceptual Issues under Learner Factors

• Empirical Studies under Learner Factors

• Conceptual Issues under Text Factors

• Empirical Studies under Text Factors

• Conceptual Issues under Teacher Style Factors

89

Taxonomy of Text Processing and Comprehension

An important observation, which has to be made about taxonomy of

reading comprehension, is that it does not take into account the

background, which the reader brings to the comprehension tasks.

Background must in many cases be a deciding factor in the type or

level of comprehension required by the question. The type of

comprehension demanded and the difficulty of the task is a product of

(a) the selection, (b) the questions and (c) the reader’s background.

The taxonomy in its usual application can take only the first two into

account.

There are differences in the number and range of comprehension

levels. This may be as a result of intellectual nature of the process of

comprehension. Thomas and Robinson as cited by Nduka (25) think

of comprehension as an aggregate of many skills. They therefore

recognize the following levels:

1. Grasping directly stated facts or details

2. Understanding main ideas

3. Grasping the sequence of time, place, ideas, events and

steps.

90

4. Grasping implied meaning and drawing inferences.

5. Understanding setting and character, that is, emotional

reactions, motives and personal traits.

6. Sensing relationship of strife, place, cause and effect,

events and characters,

7. Anticipating outcomes

8. Recognizing author’s tone, mood and intent

9. Understanding and drawing comparison and contrast

10. Drawing conclusions or making generalizations and

11. Making evaluations.

Barret as cited in Strange (57) sees comprehension as hierarchically

ordered and identifies five categories. They include:

1. Literal comprehension

2. Reorganization

3. Inference

4. Evaluation

5. Appreciation

Literal level of Comprehension

This focuses on ideas and information that are explicitly stated in the

selection. Purposes for reading and teacher’s questions designed to

91

elicit responses at this level may range from simple to complex. A

simple task in literal comprehension may be the recognition or recall

of a simple fact or incident. A more complex task might be the

recognition or recall of a series of facts or the sequencing of incidents

in a text processing selection. Purposes and questions at this level

may have the following characteristics:

(1) Recognition, which requires the students to locate or identify ideas

or information explicitly stated in the reading selection itself.

Recognition tasks are:

(a) Recognition of details: The students are required to locate or

identify facts such as the names, characters, the time of the

story, or the place of the story.

(b) Recognition of main ideas: The students are asked to locate or

identify an explicit statement in or from a selection, which is a

main idea of a paragraph.

(c) Recognition of a sequence: The students are required to identify

the order of incidents in the selection.

(d) Recognition of comparison. The students are required to identify

likeness and differences in characters, times and places that are

stated in the selection.

92

(e) Recognition of cause and effect relationships. The students are

required to state reasons for certain actions in selection.

(f) Recognition of character traits. The students are required to locate

statements about a character.

(2) Recall

Recall requires the students to produce from memory ideas and

information stated in the selection. Recall tasks are:

(a) Recall of details: The students are required to produce from

memory facts such as the names of characters, the time of the story

and the place of the story.

(b) Recall of main ideas: The students are required to state a

main idea of a paragraph.

(c) Recall of a sequence: The students are required to state the

order of actions in a selection.

(d) Recall of comparison: The students are required to state the

likenesses and differences in characters, times and places that are

mentioned in a selection.

(e) Recall of cause and effect relationships: The students are

required to state reasons for certain actions in a selection.

93

(f) Recall of character traits: The students are required to make

statements about characters.

Reorganization level of comprehension

Reorganization requires the students to analyze, synthesize and or

organize ideas stated in the selection. Reorganization tasks are:

(a) Classifying: The students are required to place people, things,

and or events into categories.

(b) Outlining: The students are required to organize the selection

into an outline form.

(c) Summarizing: The students are asked to condense the selection

or paraphrase it.

(d) Synthesizing: The students are requested to consolidate

information from a source.

Inferential level of Comprehension

The students demonstrate inferential comprehension when they are

able to use the ideas or information in a selection, their intuition, and

their personal experience as basis for conjectures and hypotheses.

Inferences drawn by the students may be either convergent or

divergent in nature. In general, then, inferential comprehension is

stimulated by the purposes for reading and teacher’s questions,

94

which demand thinking and imagination that go beyond the printed

page. The tasks are:

(a) Inferring supporting details: In this case the students are

asked to conjecture about additional facts the author might

have included in the selection which would have made it more

informative, interesting, or appealing.

(b) Inferring main ideas: The students are required to provide the

main idea, general significance, theme, or moral that is not

explicitly stated in the selection

(c) Inferring sequence: The students may be requested to

conjecture as to what action might have taken place between

two stated actions, or they may be asked to hypothesize about

what would happen next if the selection had not ended the way

it did.

(d) Inferring comparison: The students are required to infer

likenesses and differences in characters, times, or places.

Such inferential comparisons revolve around ideas such as:

‘here and there’, ‘then and now’, ‘he and he’, ‘he and she’, and

‘she and she’.

95

(e) Inferring cause and effect relationships: The students are to

hypothesize about the motivations of characters and their

interactions with time and pace. They may also be required to

conjecture as to what caused the author to include certain

ideas, words, characterizations and actions.

(f) Inferring character traits: In this case the students are

required to hypothesize about the nature of characters on the

basis of explicit clues presented in the selection.

(g) Predicting outcomes: The students are required to read an

initial portion of the selections and on the basis of this reading,

they are required to conjecture about the outcome of the

selection.

(h) Interpreting figurative language: The students in this case,

are required to infer literal meanings from the author’s

figurative use of language.

Evaluation

The purposes for reading a teacher’s questions required the students

to respond as an indication to show that they have made an

evaluative judgment by comparing ideas presented in the selection

with external criteria provided by the teacher, other authorities, or

96

other written sources, or with internal criteria provided by the reader’s

experience and knowledge of values. In essence, evaluation deals

with judgment and focuses on qualities of accuracy, acceptability,

desirability, worth, or probability of occurrence. Evaluative thinking

may be demonstrated by asking the readers to make the following

judgments:

(a) Judgment of reality and fantasy: Could this really happen?

Such a question calls for a judgment by the reader based on

her experience.

(b) Judgment of fact or opinion: Does the author provide

adequate information or support for his conclusions? Is the

author attempting to sway your thinking? Questions of this type

require the students to analyze and evaluate the writing on the

basis of the knowledge she has on the subject as well as to

analyze and evaluate the intent of the author.

(c) Judgment of adequacy and validity: To what extent does the

information presented here agree with what you have read on

the subject in other sources? Questions ̀of this nature call for

the reader to compare written sources of information, with

97

an eye toward agreement and disagreement or completeness

and incompleteness.

(d) Judgment of appropriateness: Explore the part of the story

that best describes the main character. Such a question

requires the reader to make a judgment about the relative

adequacy of different parts of the selection.

(e) Judgment of worth, desirability and acceptability: With

concrete examples, proof the character’s action either right or

wrong. Question of this nature calls for judgment based on the

reader’s moral code or her value system.

Appreciation

Appreciation involves all the previously cited cognitive dimensions of

reading, for it deals with the psychological and aesthetic impact of the

selection on the reader. Appreciation calls for the learners to be

emotionally and aesthetically sensitive to the work and to have a

reaction to the worth of its psychological and artistic elements.

Appreciation includes both the knowledge of and the emotional

response to literary techniques, forms, styles, and structures. The

tasks of the reader are:

98

(a) Emotional response to the content: The students are

required to verbalize their feelings about the selection in terms

of interest, excitement boredom, fear, hate, amusement and so

on. It is concerned with the emotional impact of the total work

on the reader.

(b) Identification with characters or incidents: Teachers’

questions of this nature will elicit responses from the reader,

which demonstrate her sensitivity to, sympathy for, and

empathy with characters and happenings portrayed by the

author.

(c) Reactions to the author’s use of language: In this case, the

readers are required to respond to the author’s craftsmanship

in terms of the semantic dimensions of the selection, namely,

connotations and denotations of words.

(d) Imagery: In this case, the reader is required to verbalize his

feelings with regard to the author’s artistic ability to paint words

and pictures, which cause the reader to verbalize, smell, hear,

or feel.

99

While these levels and many others represent processes and

reasoning, some of them are so closely related facts or even

subsumed by others that segmentation is rather artificial. It might be

in realization of this that most authors and reading educators seem to

have consensus of opinion on the existence of three levels of

comprehension which calls for the use of different mental processes.

These levels are:

1. Literal or factual level

2. Interpretative or inferential level,

3. Critical or evaluative level

The Literal Comprehension

This means the skill of getting the literal meaning of a word, idea or

sentence in a context. There is no depth in this kind of reading. It is

the lowest rung in the meaning climbing of ladder but probably the

one on which most teachers give the readers or learners practice.

The literal level of comprehension is identified with the following skills:

a) Memorization/Recognition/Recall: Information under this skill is

explicitly stated.

b) Definition: terms in the passage are explained.

100

c) Generalization: This involves recognizing a common character

or common characteristics of group of ideas.

d) Identification: This involves identifying qualities expressed in

the passage.

Interpretative Level

Interpretative level of comprehension is concerned with supplying

ideas that are not exactly stated in the text. The reader must think of

the symbols and inferred meanings not directly apparent in the word

symbols themselves. The skills associated with this level are:

a) Comparison and contrast of ideas,

b) Implication, that is, arriving at an idea that depends on evidence

in the reading passage,

c) Inductive thinking – applying a generalization to a group of

observed facts.

d) Quantitative – using a number of facts to reach a conclusion.

e) Cause and effect. This implies recognizing an event leading to

a happening.

101

Critical Level

This calls for careful discriminative reading. It requires special

teaching technique. It involves the literal comprehension and

interpretative skills but goes further than any of these in that the

reader evaluates and passes personal judgment on the quality, value,

accuracy and truthfulness of what she has read. The reader has to

ask some questions like: Why has the author said this? Why did he

say that? Is it because he is not well informed? Is the author well

informed, knowledgeable or biased? Has she any other thing to add?

Does he want the reader to get what he has in mind? In the process

of answering these questions, the reader analyses and syntheses the

facts and information contained in the text. By the time she does all

this, she is in a position to make an evaluation of the author. In other

words, the reader arrives at conclusion through integrating the facts

and details of the text with extra textual information. This is

particularly so when there is contradicting information and set up

between part of the text and the reader’s schemata for that text.

Reading at this level implies bringing in the extra-text. It involves

a) An inquiring attitude towards the material and its author.

102

b) Sufficient information background to supply standards for

critical evaluation

c) Skill in suspending judgment and the influence of ones

own feelings until the selection is thoroughly understood.

d) Ability to analyse the logic of the material to differentiate

fact from the opinion and detect omissions and distortions

so as to achieve desired effect.

e) The evaluation of the author’s background and intentions,

his beliefs and implications.

Therefore critical reading is that level of comprehension, which

involves logical and value judgment based on the attitudes and

experiences of the reader. It implies that the reader approaches the

material with inquiring and analytical attitude.

Some authors seem to see some differences between creative and

critical reading. Critical reading deals with inquiring mind. The mind

tries to ask questions. Creative reading implies getting to know more

than is stated in the material. The reader tries to extend the frontiers

of knowledge in what is read. It implies or involves the development

of new ideas.

103

An Overview of Text Processing and Comprehension

Reading comprehension begins with the author (Adams and Bruce 2-

25). Understanding and comprehending information from text is a

complex process that is influenced by what the reader brings to the

reading event, what the author provides for the learner and what the

teacher and other members of the classroom and community do in

order to help the learner. According to Goodman and Rakestraw

(311-335), this process involves building coherent, representation of

information. The leaner must have the ability to understand the

meaning of individual words and phrases on a local, or word-to-word

and sentence-to-sentence level and on a global level, or constructing

meaning from the text as a whole. This interacts with the prior

knowledge, interest and motivation that the learner brings to the task

of reading. A text is both dynamic and static, depending on the prior

knowledge, skill and purpose the learner brings to the text. A text

meaning is therefore always evolving (Alexander and Jettson 285-

310). It is on this basis that a socio- cognitive-based text-processing

model is used to guide this literature review.

Three assumptions underline this perspective:

104

- The reader’s schema is important as it shows the nature of

ideas the she brings to the processing of a text.

- The nature of the text-how considerate the text is.

- The teacher and the socio-cultural context

Empirical Studies under Learner Factors

Learner factors are what the learner brings to the text processing

activity. Such factors are grouped under this subheading because a

lot of empirical studies have been done on them. One of such factors

is self-concept.

Self-Concept

A lot of work has been done on self –concept and reading

achievement. The works of Bricklin (10) and Sopis (64) suggest that

good readers tend to have more positive self-concept than poor

readers. Using a socio-cognitive-based text-processing model they

carried out studies with primary school pupils and discovered that

feelings of adequacy and personal worth, self-confidence and self-

reliance are important factors in the relationship with reading

achievement for all grade levels. A study carried out by Wattenberg

and Clifford (461-467) also shows that unfavourable view of the self

affects reading achievement of children. They were able to show that

105

measures of self-concept and ego strength at early stage were more

closely related to poor achievement in reading in the second grade

than was intelligence. They are of the view that sense of personal

worth and competence are important factors in children’s reading

achievement. In the same way the study of Mcmichael (115-124)

shows that there is an association between perceptions of self and

reading achievement.

Conversely the work of Carrillo (12) shows that poor readers show

lack of independence, avoidance of leadership opportunities, and a

poor attitude to responsibility. Underachieving readers are

characterized by immaturity, impulsivity and negative feelings

concerning themselves and their world.

Though children enter school with self-concepts rooted in their

significance within their family group, the knowledge that teachers’

expectations have strong effects on pupils’ performance has led to

the view that the child’s perception of himself becomes increasingly

dependent on teachers’ subtle indication of hope and indifference.

Again, since as Barker-Lunn (25) points out, streaming and teaching

style interact to influence children’s attitudes to themselves and their

106

performance, it would seem that children are distressingly at the

mercy of teacher’s significant participation in their daily life.

There are other factors acting upon the child’s self-esteem, which

make him more or less subject to the effects of derogatory or

rewarding remarks from teachers. Coopersmith as cited in Attey (98-

114) has focused attention on the features of their upbringing that

distinguish children of high and low self-esteem.

The present research work has a lot in common with these studies.

For instance, a socio-cognitive based text-processing model that

guided their work also guides the present study. Again, their subjects

were primary school pupils and in the present research work, primary

school pupils constitute the population. Conversely, the present work

is going to include the obvious missing links: comparison of the

effects of syntax and cohesion in text processing and comprehension;

the influence of sex and environment in text processing and

comprehension.

Cultural Background

Schema theory has also helped to explain the effects of socio cultural

variations on reading. Many people carried out research to show the

influence of cultural background on reading achievement. The studies

107

on the impart of cultural background as reviewed here are in line with

the present study. All the studies are descriptive survey design

research. They aim at describing facts and events as they are. For

example, a research conducted by Steffenson and Adernson (36)

shows that readers from distinctly different culture give differing

interpretation with reading materials deemed culturally sensitive.

Their research work with secondary school students shows that

individuals who read materials related directly to their culture spend

less time reading and they recall more information. A similar study

supports the idea that when individuals read material with identifiable

cultural content, their comprehension is directly influenced. If there is

a mismatch between the reader’s culture and the cultural content of

the text, the meaning constructed is different. Linguistically and

culturally diverse students may be unfairly evaluated if their teacher

focus only on how well their comprehension matches the text of

which they are required to read (Rupely 63-80). If the materials used

for reading instruction contain content that is culturally loaded,

students may not have the appropriate schemata to construct

meanings that are even approximate the interest of author.

108

These claims are also supported by Steffenson’s research findings as

cited by (Rupely 63-80). She compared the comprehension of adult

readers from two different cultural backgrounds, one group from

North America, and another group from India. She looked at the

ability of her subjects to recover meaning from two texts, one

describing a North American wedding, and another describing an

India wedding. Steffernson found that her North American subjects

had higher levels of comprehension on the passage describing the

North American wedding and the Indian subjects did better on the

passage concerning an Indian wedding.

Again, Guyotta as cited in Okafor (53) studied the comprehension of

three different groups on a passage taken from a medical text. One

group consisted of students from a non-medical faculty, another

consisted of students from a pre- medical faculty. In general, Guyotte

found out that content knowledge had significant effect on the ability

of the subjects to identify logical relationships in the passage.

The earliest experimental work on influence of culture was carried out

by Bartlett as cited in Emenyonu (9). Working in England and using a

North American India folk tale, ‘The war of the ghosts’, subjects

(English men) were asked to read and record the story. In some

109

cases the recalled period was up to ten years. The recalls, Bartlett

concluded were influenced by their background knowledge, which

provided a framework for understanding the setting, mood, and chain

of events. For example, in the original passage, when one character

died, ‘something black came out of his mouth. Englishmen called it

‘breath’ or ‘foaming of his mouth’ thereby rationalizing where

something in the story did not make sense. Furthermore, the Indian

tale had been selected because many of the incidents described

were not related to each other in an obvious way.

In another study as cited by Emenyonu (23), Black and White

American eight grade students read a passage that dealt with an

instance of ‘sounding’ or playing ‘the dozens’, a form of ritual insult

predominantly found in the Black American community. Blacks

correctly interpreted the passage as being about verbal play, while

Whites interpreted it as being about physical aggression.

Studies so far mentioned focus on the recall of story content using a

folktale presentation. But focusing on the recall of structure, Kintsch

and Green as cited in Emenyonu (11) had American university

students read a Grimm’s fairly tale and an Apache Indian tale. Nearly

twice as many propositions from Grimm’s fairly tale were

110

remembered (86% for Grimm versus 43% for the Apache tale).

Regretfully no Apache group could be used as the researchers felt

that most Apache university students would be bi-cultural and would

be familiar with Western story schemata and would thus be

“contaminated’. This is why Steffensen’s studies used a complete

design with both Indian and American subjects and Aboriginal and

American subjects.

Two years later, Mandler, ScrIbner, Cole and Deforest as cited in

Emenyonu(86) hypothesized that certain kinds of organization of

stories (structure or story grammar) are universal and that the cultural

content of a story is less important than its form in determining how

much is remembered. They suggested that Kintsch and Green used a

structure although universal (an episodic form) but one which is

inherently more difficult to remember. Their subjects were Vai-

speaking Liberians, fourth grade and college students in the United

States. Five stories, one Via-folktale and four foreign translated into

Via with changes in terminology for such expressions as ‘dragon’

(which became ‘water people’) and ‘princesses’ (which become

‘chief’s daughters’) were presented to the Vai speaking subjects while

their English equivalents were given to the American groups. Striking

111

similarities were found in the patterns of recall of Vai subjects and

fourth grade and college students from the United States. That is,

readers in a non-literate society’s recall of stories were very similar to

readers in a literate industrialized society.

Though the reviewed studies and the present study have certain

things in common, the use of subjects makes them differ. While the

reviewed studies used secondary school students and adults, the

present study makes use of primary school pupils.

Gender

In the discussion of stable reader characteristics, gender and its

influence on reading comprehension has been investigated by many

researchers. Research findings have shown that gender interacts

with the topic of the text to affect reading achievement. For example,

a study carried out by Bugel and Baunk, (15-31) on gender

differences in L2 reading comprehension on a national foreign

language examination revealed that males scored significantly better

on multiple-choice comprehension items for essays about laser

thermometers, volcanoes, cars and football players. Females

achieved significantly higher on the comprehension tests for essays

on text topics such as midwives, a sad story, and a housewife’s

112

dilemma. They concluded that the topic of a text is an important

factor in explaining gender-based differences in second language

reading comprehension.

Young and Oxford (43-73) conducted a study with English men and

women to examine comprehension and strategies involved in reading

two Spanish texts and one English text. Topics were economics, the

presence of foreign cultures on leisure and history. No significant

difference in performance by gender in the familiarity ratings with

passage topics or background knowledge of any of the passages was

recorded. With second year university level male and female

students, Chavez (64) tested the bottom-up reading strategies

instruction on the comprehension of two different literary texts. It was

discovered that a higher degree of reading comprehension among

females was reported. More specifically, every female group scored

higher on comprehension than the male groups regardless of

strategic training and comprehension assessment task with only one

exception: males with top-down strategy training did better than

females on multiple choice (but not on recall). Brantmeier( 1-23)

reported significant interactions between reader’s gender and gender-

oriented passage content with comprehension among second

113

language university learners of Spanish. The two passages utilized in

the study were authentic narratives about a boxing match and a

frustrated housewife. Self-reported topic familiarity ratings were also

significant by gender and text topic. This study provided evidence that

readers’ gender and passage content interact in ways that affect

second language reading comprehension.

Steiner, Steiner and Newman as cited by Emenyonu (20) viewed the

countries where gender differences have been recorded; it was

discovered that the greater proficiency in reading by girls over boys

has held up in the US, Canada and France. Their study did not record

any difference in reading achievement in Israel and Japan. In Nigeria,

England, India and Germany, Preston, Johnson and Downing as

cited by the same Emenyonu, recorded that boys surpassed girls.

Then Johnson’s study from the same source using four countries –

US, Canada, Britain and Nigeria gives special insight into the

Nigerian case. In Nigeria of the seventies, female education

traditionally lagged behind that of males. Although elsewhere in the

world (North America in particular), reading has been considered

somewhat of a ‘sissy’ activity that has not been true in Nigeria. If

reading were placed on active/passive continuum, it would certainly

114

fall on the passive side (Emenyonu 27). Much of the literature on sex-

role stereotyping has classified girls as stereotypically passive while

boys are stereotypically active. But in America, girls because of their

so-called passive nature would be involved with a passive activity like

reading; boys, on the other hand, would not, unless they did not mind

being seen as ‘girlish’. Johnson found that in Britain and Nigeria the

boys scored better than girls on the majority (15 out of 18 for Nigeria)

of the comparisons. Commenting on the “societal-cultural-

educational” factors that contributed to the differences, Johnson

noted a possible “pygmalian” effect (students may achieve to the

level their teachers expect of them) since all of the Nigerian teachers

believed their boys to be better.

Research has also been carried out to determine gender differences

in attitudes about computers (Meyer and Poom 789-807, Mitra and

Hullett 378-391). According to them, females had less positive

attitudes, felt less comfortable, and believed that computer was less

accessible when compared to males. Further, older participants were

less likely to feel comfortable reading from a computer screen (Meyer

and Poon 789-807). Ford and Chen (281-311) discovered that in

hyper text environments, males seemed to enjoy browsing more than

115

women, often with no clear plan, searching through the irrelevant to

find something meaningful, while women felt disenchanted and lost in

the internet environment, and tended to more extrinsically motivated

purposes for the Internet, using it for works, not play.

The present study is similar to the reviewed studies as all are

concerned with the influence of gender on reading achievement.

However, it is different from the reviewed studies because it is going

to make use of primary school pupils.

Conceptual Issues under Learner Factors

Learner factors under conceptual issues are the factors that affect

reading comprehension but empirical studies have not been done on

them. They are mainly views and opinions of individuals. They are

presented in this regard:

Prior knowledge

Constructionists view text comprehension as an interactive process

between the text writer and the person using the text. They assume

that meaning does not exist in the text but becomes available to the

reader as a result of his own contribution. Language users employ

text in comprehension as a set of guidelines to the active creation of

meaning. Jonz (30) in his explanation of the advantage(s) of adopting

116

a constructionist point of view says that one is able to speculate on

the structure of language knowledge and on the various stages in the

acquisition of such structures as well as their application to the

cognitive tasks involved in comprehension.

From the above statement, it follows that constructionists emphasize

the role of background knowledge in text processing and

comprehension.

Coady as cited by Jonz ( 25-30) presents us with a psycholinguistic

model of reading in which he illustrates the interaction of cognitive

tasks with background knowledge in reading task. Coady defines the

term ‘conceptual ability’ as general intellectual capacities and process

strategies as various subcomponents of reading skills, which also

apply to oral language. Regarding background knowledge, he

believes that it will become an important variable when we notice

students with Western background of some kind learn English faster,

on average, than those without such kind of background. Carrel and

Eisterhold (553-573) consider language background knowledge as an

important factor in comprehending a text. They express this

importance by saying that efficient comprehension requires the ability

to relate textual materials to ones own knowledge. Comprehending

117

words, sentences and entire texts involves more than just relying on

ones linguistic knowledge.

Further in their article, Carrel and Eisterhold (43-59) talk of two types

of background knowledge: formal and informal backgrounds. Formal

knowledge refers to the reader’s knowledge of the rhetorical

organizational structures of different types of texts; content

knowledge refers to the content area of a text. They also believe that

reader’s failure to provide the proper formal and particularly content

knowledge (Schema) would result in various degrees of non-

comprehension.

Farhady (43-59), in an attempt to examine the importance of learner

characteristics in relation to learner performance on ESL tests, comes

up with significant differences between his subjects with different

major fields. He also points out that this difference as a variable

should be esteemed in the tests that are designed in such a way as

to refrain from pushing any sort of injustice against learners in a

heterogeneous class.

Discussing the cognitive process involved in reading a text, Carrrel

and Eisterhold (43-59) distinguished two basic modes of information

processes: bottom-up and top-down. They further elaborate on how

118

these two modes function in a schema theory model. Schemata

according to them are hierarchically organized, from most general at

the top to most specific at the bottom. As these bottom-level

schemata converge into higher level, more general schemata, these,

too, become activated. Top-down processing on the other hand,

occurs as the system makes general predictions based on higher

level, general schemata and then searches the input for information

to fit into these partially satisfied higher order schemata.

The interactive view of processing a text recognizes the roles of both

the reader and the written text in reading comprehension. It is neither

top-down nor bottom-up. A reader has to compensate for deficiencies

in one or more of the knowledge sources by using information from

remaining knowledge sources (schemata). Those sources that are

more concerned with concepts and semantic relationships are called

higher-level stimuli; sources dealing with the print itself, which is

phonics, sight words and other word-attack skills are called lower-

level stimuli.

A reader’s background knowledge including purposes, beliefs,

values, life experience, culture, vocabulary, story knowledge, wrong

119

knowledge or conceptual knowledge has an overriding influence upon

the reader’s development of meaning and reading comprehensions.

The reader makes inferences based on prior knowledge when explicit

information is not provided. Some readers may draw wrong

conclusions or have conflicting interpretations. It then becomes the

person’s ‘best guess’ as to what value to put in the schema slot.

Gernsbacher as cited in Goldman and Rakestraw (311-335)

perceives this as a specific process of the reader laying conceptual

foundations, developing new ideas by mapping new to previous

information, erecting a new structure when incongruity exists.

Adams and Bruce (2-25) suggest that incorrect inferences are made

because of a lack of relevant vocabulary knowledge, but also of the

extensional (overall text meaning at a macro level) and intentional

meanings the reader assigns to an idea within the text. For example,

it is good for birds to eat worms. If the reader has the correct

intentional meanings, comprehension becomes easier. A reader with

inaccurate or atypical definitions may incorrectly infer meaning (Adam

and Bruce 12). It is not enough just to possess accurate prior

knowledge, but the reader must also make reliable inferences when

accessing that knowledge (Norris and Philips 391-412).

120

Reading comprehension, therefore, needs the activation, focusing,

maintaining and refining of ideas towards developing interpretations

that are plausible, interconnected and complete. In addition, there is a

sense in which the reader’s comprehension involves two other facets:

the reader knowing (either tacitly or consciously) that his or her

interpretation for a text is plausible, interconnected and completely

make sense and ideally, the reader’s evaluation of the transfer value

of any acquired understanding (Rupley 226). Below are

representations of schemata of semantic networks for chair and buy.

121

Fig. 1 Figure: 1 illustrates the semantic features of schemata-a partial

semantic network for chair. It shows how chair is a schema and also

how a member of other classes relate to each other (functional

furniture).

Furniture

Decorative Functional

Chair

Dining room Easy chair

Stool Couch Table

Seat

Back

Legs Office

Executive Secretarial

122

Slot for the buyer scenario

Fig.2

Fig.2 illustrates a partial representation of a possible buy schema

(Adapted from: Taylor, B., Hark, S. L. and Pearson, P.D. (13)

Rupley (63-80) is of the view that a schema may be changed,

elaborated on, or discarded as one proceeds through text. The reader

comprehends by using existing knowledge, which can change when

the reader encounters new information. Although changes in

Buyer Seller Object Meduim Place

Stoves, agencies, show rooms, and offices

Card, credit card, draft, loan and check chaft loan banker

Almost anything

Any one with something to sell

Some one with financial resources

Buy

Pleasing tries

Entrance Out come Sales pitch Awareness of buyer need

123

schemata happen slowly, they can be considered new learning. New

learning may result from modifying an existing schema or from

creating a new one. An important feature of schema selection is

inference. It plays a major role in filling slots and once a slot is filled,

inference influences the filling of other slots.

Another important issue we need to discuss under background

knowledge is metacognition. In addition to using background

knowledge to construct meaning, readers have to monitor their

comprehension and know whether the process is breaking down.

This monitoring of comprehension is called metacognition.

Good readers are aware of what they can do to construct meaning

and apply corrective strategies when comprehension is not occurring.

Crucial to metacognition are knowing how to achieve the goal that

has not been accomplished and knowing when a goal has been

recorded. Therefore, it is important that readers have purposes that

enable them to monitor their comprehension. This should help them

become aware of what they are doing, and why they are doing it. In

addition, teachers should model how to check, monitor and test

hypothesis. Metacognitive training makes students become aware of

what good readers do when reading for meaning. It enables them to

124

employ strategies to monitor their own reading and focus on

comprehension.

Reader’s metacognition in addition to reader’s background

knowledge is an essential element of reading comprehension.

Teaching strategies for constructing meaning from text, monitoring

comprehension and providing opportunities to apply metacognitive

strategies to learning are features of teaching comprehension.

Carrel and Eisterhold (43-59) distinguish three different dimensions of

schemata: linguistic (knowledge of the language), content (knowledge

of the topic), and formal (previous knowledge of the rhetorical

structures of different types of text). He contends that each of these

dimensions plays a role in the interaction among the text and the

reader and that when one or all are missing, reading can be

problematic. In a study that examines text type (stories and essays)

and comprehension, Horiba (223-267) reports that non-native readers

are affected by text type.

125

Motivation

Motivation can generally be defined as an individual’s desire for

information/something and enjoyment, which propels the working

system into action, sustains it throughout the duration of task, and

terminates the activity as the initial purpose is fulfilled or modified.

According to Mackey (90), most theories agree that the more and

better the motivation, the better the learning; that an incentive of

reward is to be preferred to one of punishment; that hope of success

is a better motivation than fear of failure.

Guthrie and Wigfield (403-422) define reading motivation as the

interaction of individual’s goals, values and beliefs with the topics,

processes and outcomes of reading. It is a temporary task-specific

source of energy, dependent on individual reading goals. Motivated

readers do so with purpose, a desire for understanding, a sense of

self-efficacy and ownership.

Motivation is an imponderable variable in the acquisition of language-

any language (Baldeh 9). In fact, there have been extravagant claims

that the only thing that matters in language learning (reading

inclusive) is motivation. The crux of the matter is, however, that any

teacher worth his salt will constantly strive to augment the motivation

126

of his students/pupils in order to turn out eminently successful

language learners (Baldeh 9).

Children learn language because they need to communicate. Their

oral language is continuously polished and improved to make it more

like the language of their family and subculture because the closer it

comes to the language of those around them, the more effective it is

in meeting their communicative need. A communicative need is the

most important motivation in reading as well as in speech. In our

society, the non-reader is seriously handicapped because there is

limited graphic communication. Streets and buses are labeled, letters

are written, and packages are printed something on. Most children

quickly become aware that all around them is language that can only

be understood by readers. For some children, the need to learn is so

great that they virtually teach themselves.

Children from highly literate homes have the additional stimulation of

large numbers of books of all kinds and the frequent example of

adults and siblings spending time reading. Children who read

frequently become aware of the pleasure and entertainment reading

may provide. A highly motivated child from a literate home may be

able to carry his enthusiasms through an extended learning period

127

during which little communication is involved. The material he is

reading may have little or no message or literacy quality, the hours

spent drilling on skill exercise may be unrelated to any

communicative goal the child can discern. But he is sustained

through all this by the knowledge that at the end of the process, he

will be a member of the prestigious society - he will be a reader.

For many children, however, the relationship between reading and

previous language experience may be temporarily or permanently

forgotten unless reading has an early and continuing communicative

function. Internal desires (intrinsic reasons) or external (extrinsic)

forces are factors that motivate readers to read and comprehend text.

Cultural influences around reading, such as home environment,

social atmosphere, and cognitive strategies also play a role in reading

engagement. We now discuss the two types of motivation -

intrinsic/integral motivation and extrinsic/instrumental motivation.

Intrinsic motivation comes from within the reader. Intrinsically

motivated readers have a learning-goal orientation: they read for its

own sake, to satisfy curiosity, or for the challenge or involvement

(Guthrie 432-445, Guthrie and Wigfield 403-422). There is increased

motivation and comprehension when learners read to answer their

128

own questions (Alexander and Jettson 285-310). This sense of self -

determination encourages students to engage more deeply, take

risks, create their own learning opportunities, and to keep plugging

along the face of reading challenges.

In instrumental/extrinsic motivation, the reader reads the material or

text for some utilitarian purpose - to do an assignment, to pass

examination or to carry out a compulsory task. Other aims of extrinsic

motivations include: recognition, competition, and work avoidance

(the reader uses strategies to reduce the amount of reading).

Extrinsically motivated readers do so to accomplish a performance

goal rather than a learning goal. The strongest extrinsically motivating

factors are grades, approval, incentives and recognition (Guthrie 432-

445, Guthrie and Wigfield 403-422). Motivations develop and evolve

within individual readers and increase as the reader develops a

sense of agency over his reading and purpose for reading.

‘Motivating from without’ happens with extrinsic factors, or making

something interesting to students. ‘Motivating from within’ is when

students discover the benefits for themselves, have a sense of

agency and efficacy in the task. These readers are more inclined to

be “knowledge seeking” (Alexander and Jettson 298). The teacher is,

129

therefore, a key player in promoting either intrinsic or extrinsic factors

that help to engage readers.

Computer-based activities can increase intrinsic motivations by

allowing students to customize their work, and increase the control,

curiosity and challenge of the task. At-risk populations may also

experience an increase in self-motivation and self-interest when using

computer environments that provide graphics, sound and other

special effects, although some of these bells and whistles may be

more extrinsically motivating or even confusing for some learners

(Dehelin 2006). Some computer based educational programmes

have been likened to ‘edutainment’ with their attendant glitzy, fun,

arcade-like atmosphere (Kamil, Intrator, and Klim 771-788) but may

provide additional advantages in promoting reader motivation and

interest. Computer-based environments facilitate learning and

achievement, and also have the potential to impact the emotion and

attitude of the learner. By providing motivation and structural interest,

learning becomes less of a chore, less boring and more fulfilling.

Therefore, computer-based instructional tools have the potential to

provide active engagement of the reader, the ability to find immediate

130

definitions for unknown words, and a “motivational bounce” needed to

nudge students in the right direction (Kamil et al 779)

Guthrie and Wigfield (403-422) suggest eight principles that increase

motivations for reading. They include: conceptual themes, real-word

interactions, self-direction, interesting text, social collaboration, self-

expression, cognitive strategy instruction, and curricular coherence.

All of these principles can be provided with both linear and non-linear

texts to promote engagement and motivation in reading.

Interest

Interest is very important in text processing and reading

comprehension (Alexander and Jettson (285-310). Interest has been

defined as an interactive relationship between the reader and the

environment and is comprised of both cognitive and affective

components (Hidi and Harackiewicz 151-179). Writers who have

attempted to define levels of readability have agreed that children can

read a material that is very difficult for them if their interest is intense.

Reading materials must also be conceptually suitable for children. It

is more important that the conceptual difficulty of reading materials be

controlled than that vocabulary is controlled. Words are more easily

131

learned than ideas; on the other hand, neither words nor ideas will be

retained if the ideas are not understood.

Interest can be described as situational and individual, or as

emotional and cognitive. Expository text has the ability to arouse

situational and individual (or personal) interest, as well as creating

emotional and cognitive interest. Emotional interest according to

Kintsch as cited in Alexander and Jettson (270) is the affective impact

created by the text, and is a result of how the reader personally

relates to or identifies with the text. It is a gut-level or emotional

response. Cognitive interest refers to the intellectual aspects

captured by the reader’s mind or thoughts.

Situational interest is a more transient or temporary interest

associated with increased arousal or attention (Alexander, Kulikowich

and Schulze 313-337). It is associated with the “tantalizing tidbits”

that authors sometimes use to grasp the reader’s attention or make

the text more interesting, but have little or nothing to do with the

overall main ideas of the text. Individual interest on the other hand

describes the reader’s preference for a specific topic or subject

matter. While situational interest is more permanent, and is highly

associated with the reader’s self-schemata, individual interest can act

132

as a catalyst for the reader to pursue more information on a topic

(Alexander and Jettson 290). Most readers enjoy more personally

involving, less technical expository text.

To sum up, material that provide opportunities for children to learn to

read should be selected with the following criteria in mind:

1. They must contain real language as close as possible to the

language the child already knows.

2. They must emphasize the most common patterns and sequences

of oral language. The most expected phenomenon should occur

with the greatest frequency.

3. Undue complexity should be avoided.

4. Ambiguity should be avoided.

5. Vocabulary control can be the sole means of sequencing

materials.

6. Children’s interest must be considered and choice offered to them.

7. Conceptual difficulty should be controlled.

Summary of Learner Factors

This section of the literature review has thus emphasized the

importance of a good match between reader and text, and the

interdependent nature of learner variables like background

133

knowledge, motivation, interest, self-concept, reading strategy,

gender and cultural background. Reading comprehension is impacted

by the reader’s inferences of the author’s intended meaning. Intrinsic

motivation is more lasting than extrinsic motivation, and may be

precipitated by situational as well as individual interest of the reader.

A review on the effect of culture on reading comprehension shows

that individuals who read materials related directly to their culture

spend less time reading and they recall more information. On the

influence of gender on reading comprehension, most of the reviewed

materials show that while females performed better on texts that are

female oriented in nature like midwives, sad story and housewife’s

dilemma, males performed better on topics that are masculine

oriented in nature. Based on this, it was concluded that the topic of a

text is an important factor in explaining gender-based differences in

second language reading and comprehension.

Empirical Studies under Text Factors

Textual features provided by the author help the learner to make

connections within the text and influence the way the text is

interpreted. Reading comprehension is facilited if the text is well

organized and the structure is apparent to the reader (Armbruster

134

202-217). This is especially important if text is unfamiliar to the

reader. Readers use text structure to find key ideas, but depending

on content schema and text schema of the reader, some structures

are easier to read than others. When text construction facilitates the

reader’s acquisition of information, it is known as ‘considerate’ text

(Ambruster 210). Hence, in this section, the structural features of text

that help to make it more considerate are discussed. They are

presented in this regard.

Text Genre

Text genre is an important factor in text processing and

comprehension. Text genres are expressed in linear and non-linear

forms, and are narrative, expository or a mix of the two. They can

have informative, entertaining and persuasive purposes, depending

on the intent of the author and the goal of the reader (Gordon 116;

Just and Carpenter 400-424). Studies have been conducted to show

the effect of text genre on reading comprehension. For example, the

researches carried out by (Gordon 100; Singer, Harkness & Stewart,

199-228) show that expository texts are less familiar, less predictable

and less ‘considerate’ than narrative texts. However, Zabrucky and

Moore (691-710) believe that reader variables, such as age, interest,

135

motivation and culture influence reading comprehension in all genres.

Their research on the comprehension of narrative and expository text

between older (mean age 69) and younger adults (mean age 22.5)

shows that the younger students had better recall for both genres,

especially narrative text. Total reading times for narrative text was

similar between both groups, but longer for expository text in older

adults. It was summarized that expository passages were more

disruptive to older adults reading because they were less likely to use

reading strategies to selectively re-read problematic text.

On the other hand, researchers have found that older readers had

better comprehension of expository texts because they were more

familiar with the genre (Goldman and Rakestraw as cited in Gorden

(115).

Syntax and Text Processing

Syntax has to do with the combination and arrangement of words to

form different sentences, clauses and phrases. Studies have shown

that text disabled children have deficiencies in their application as

well as understanding of syntax. Vogel (25-34) demonstrated that text

processing impaired children had deficits in areas measuring “the

syntax of expressive language” and found a significant correlation

136

between productive syntax scores and reading comprehension

scores, while Anderson (60) revealed that poor readers exhibit

syntactic deficiencies in the written language.

Martohardjono ,Othegu, Gabriele, Molone, Pyrzanowski, Troseth,

Silvia, Rivero and Schutzman (23) present two approaches with

respect to impaired readers and the source of their inferior

performance. Researchers, according to them, who associate poor

readers’ difficulties with underlying phonological processing deficits,

support the Processing Deficit Hypothesis (PDH). The PDH states

that unskilled readers do not experience deficits in representing or

processing syntactic information but do experience difficulty in

processing and retaining phonological information in working

memory. This deficiency occurring at the level of working memory

keeps information from being delivered at the necessary pace and

with the required precision for higher level processing. For example,

Shankweiler and Craurn (260-288) propose that difficulty in the

processing of complex syntactic structures should be interpreted as

difficulty at the phonological rather than the syntactic level.

The Structural Deficit Hypothesis (SDH) attributes difficulties in the

acquisition of text processing to syntactic processing deficiencies.

137

The SDH claims that an absence of grammatical knowledge or lack of

processing ability interferes with higher level text comprehension.

Under the SDH the acquisition of syntactic structures is staged and

gradual with inherently simpler structures preceding more complex

ones in language development. It is the more complex structures

that beginners and poor readers have more difficulty with. The

criterion for the complexity of syntactic structure is based on the claim

that one form or construction is simpler than other children can

produce and comprehend it first. For example, a sentence consisting

of both a main clause and a subordinate clause such as

“The woman saw a man who ate a sandwich” is

considered more complex than a co-ordinate structure such as

“The woman saw a man and he ate a sandwich”

because the former comes later in acquisition than the later.

Investigation into the relationship between syntactic processing and

syntactic knowledge has also included normal populations classified

into good and poor readers. Bentin, Deutsch and Liberman (147-

179) identified syntactic differences between good and poor readers.

In a three-experiment study they sought to examine the relationship

between reading ability and syntactic awareness in children. Unlike

138

the vast majority of previous studies, auditory rather than written

stimuli were used. The result indicates that the difference between

the correct identification of syntactically deviant and syntactically

accurate sentences was smaller in the group of children (with severe

reading disability) than in either good readers or relatively poor

readers. Good, as well as poor readers performed better than the

reading disabled children in the judgment task. According to Bentin

et al, this apparent inferiority of the later group cannot be explained

only by a reduction of the participants’ short-term memory span since

first, very short and simple sentences were used; second, when

tested formally all the children repeated sentences verbatim without

any problem; and third, the nature of the stimuli in question did not

involve the manipulation of subtle syntactic aspects but rather

included straight forward syntactic violations of the subject predicate

relation and word order. They argue that inadequate phonological

processing does not justify and explain all aspects of poor reading

since in their study poor readers were nevertheless good decoders.

The linguistic deficiency in these children is thus ascribed to syntax

rather than phonology.

Let us have a look at the following forms in the following categories.

139

Category A

(i) The man came.

(ii) The children promised the lonely woman companionship

(iii) One of the new pupils went into the office of the headmistress

with many interesting books about the animal called tortoise.

(iv) The gardener, with an old hoe in one hand and a large stick in

the other hand, swiftly killed the poor little goat, chewing grasses on

the lawn.

The four sentences in category A even though they vary in length are all good examples of a simple sentence.

Category B

(i) The boy came when I called.

(ii) He asked me to give him the novel, which I bought.

The sentences in category B are good examples of a complex

sentence. A complex sentence is made of one main sentence

and one or more subordinate clauses.

Category C

(i) The boy came in and shut the door behind.

(ii) Man proposes but God disposes.

(iii) He failed ten of his courses so he repeated a semester.

140

The three sentences in category C are examples of a compound

sentence.

Category D

1 (a) The girl standing beside the lady had a blue dress.

(b) The girl had a blue dress and she was standing beside the lady.

Though the two sentences are semantically the same, sentence

‘b’ is clearer. Sentence 1 (a) contains a reduce clause

separating the verb ‘had’ from its subject. It may be interpreted

as though the extended version is: “The girl was standing

beside the lady and the lady had a blue dress.”

2 (a) John’s father was anything but pleased.

(b) John’s father was not pleased at all.

3 (a) If only David had known, the dog was quite tame.

(b) The dog was quite tame, but David did not know that.

Both items in version ‘a’ contain what might be termed idiomatic

concealed negatives. Both convey negative meaning without

any formal negative on the surface.

4 (a) Paul saw the boy.

(b) The boy was seen by Paul.

141

Though the two sentences are semantically the same, sentence 4 ‘a’

is easier to understand.

5 (a) The children can be stubborn at times.

(b) Children are known to be stubborn at times.

Model auxiliaries such as can, might, could etc cause comprehension

difficulties for some readers. The two sentences - 5a and 5b are

semantically the same but sentence b is easier due to the absence of

modal auxiliary ‘can’.

All the sentences in the different categories are arranged differently

with words to convey meaning. However, some sentences are easier

to comprehend due to the way words are arranged. For this reason,

most people, especially specialists in reading feel intuitively that the

more a passage is in terms of its sentence structure, the harder it will

be to comprehend.

The summary of the five aspects of syntactic complexity is presented

in the table below:

Five types of difficulty related to syntax

Active versus passive verb

Active verbs are easier to read and to recall than passive verbs, and

they are less likely to be misunderstood when a negative statement is

142

made. For example: ‘the chairs were taken by the boys’ is harder

than ‘The boys took the chairs.’ Similarly, “The pay-slips were not

printed by the computer is harder than ‘The computer did not print the

pay-slips.’

Nominalization versus active verb

Active verbs are easier to comprehend and to recall than an abstract

noun form from the verb. For example, ‘The reduction in the length of

the string will produce an increase in the speed of the pendulum’ is

harder than: ‘If you reduce the length of the string you will increase

the speed of the pendulum.’

Modal auxiliaries

Generally speaking, modal auxiliaries such as might, could, may,

should, ought, would etc cause comprehension difficulties for poor

readers, and make recall more difficult for fluent readers.

Clauses per sentence

Generally speaking, the more clauses there are in a sentence, the

more difficult it is to understand.

Compression and substitution

Sentence length is not always correlated positively with text difficulty.

Compression reduces sentence length but can make comprehension

143

more difficult. For example: ‘The boat I bought was green’ may be

less clear than: ‘The boat which I bought was green’ or again: ‘So

did Nanu’ may actually mean: Nanu too had a problem’

Again, let us consider this sentence from a science worksheet as

cited by Harrison (1980:22).

Repeat, using the same quantities of thiosulphate solution, distilled

water and acid, and the same procedure as above, only first at 30oc,

then at 40oc then, at 50oc, and finally at 60oc.

The one-word main clause, ‘repeat’, precedes five subordinate

clauses of various types, which together are thirty-one words long.

The main clause is in fact highly compressed. It means repeat the

previous experiment, and the instructions for that are eighty words

long. The point here is that the sentence exemplified two types of

difficulty. A passage can be difficult if it is very complex in structure

because it puts too great a load on short-term memory and

information processing capacity. However, it can also be difficult if it

is too compressed and the reader has too few clues to allow her to

reconstruct the intended message quickly and correctly. In the

present case, the child has to cope with both kinds of difficulty,

complex and missing information, and one wonders whether the

144

teacher might not have made life easier for his pupils if he had written

the instructions in a style and formant which were near those of a

recipe book than a fifth-year book (Harrison 80). Again, a sentence

may neither be complex nor simple but at the same time difficult to

comprehend because of the way words are arranged. If we use the

sentence: the girl standing beside the lady had a blue dress, as an

example, we will notice that the verb ‘had’ is separated from its

subject. This makes it possible for some readers to understand the

sentence thus:

“The girl was standing beside the lady and the lady had a blue dress.”

Some researchers have provided some research findings that

concern aspects of syntactic complexity that appear to cause

difficulties for readers. For example Coleman (247-250) and Dawkins

(75) have provided convenient summaries of the relevant research.

Harrison is of the view, however, that these five aspects of syntactic

complexity don’t necessarily relate to flaws in the author’s writing

ability. A writer might well need to express a complex thought using a

complex sentence structure; similarly he might need to make frequent

use of model auxiliaries such as might and could. The point here is

145

not that it is wrong to use these, but rather that children do tend to

find sentences containing them difficult to understand.

There are occasions when simple prose and fewer modal verbs can

increase comprehension. In a study of oral lecturing by (Rosenshine

69), it was discovered that an excessive proportion of qualifying

words such as rather, few, some and more or less led to poorer

comprehension. Similarly, the use of what were called “probability

words” such as could be, might, usually, possibly and sometimes led

to laziness and vagueness. This in turn led to poorer reading

comprehension. Lecturers who gave similar talks to parallel groups,

but who avoided too many qualifiers and probability words, were

more successful in conveying their ideas to the students.

From what has been said in this subtitle, we can comfortably

conclude that syntax which has to do with the way words are

arranged to form sentences is an important factor that determines the

readability of a text. The present study has a lot in common with the

studies under review. A socio-cognitive-based text-processing model

guides both the reviewed studies and the present study. They make

use of primary school pupils as the subjects. However the reviewed

146

studies fail to include other variables like sex, environment and

cohesion in the study.

Conceptual Issues under Text Factors

Conceptual issues under text factors are variables that are

associated with comprehension, but studies have not been carried

out on them. Such factors are presented in this regard.

Advance Organizer

The term ‘advance organizer’ was coined by Ausubel (267-272) to

describe introductory paragraphs, which are used to help the readers

by summarizing the content and structure of the succeeding sections

of a textbook. Ausubel’s advance organizer served a more specific

function in relation to the conceptual content of his passage, in that

they presented general concepts that were subsequently developed

more fully, or served the function of supplying bridging concepts to

help the reader see how the new learning related to what she already

knew. In some text books especially in American ones, advance

organizers are normally set apart from the rest of the text by being

printed in italics, or by being surrounded by a border. A number of

experimental studies have confirmed the value of advance organizers

in enhancing learning but other researchers have found that in certain

147

circumstances organizer material can be more effective when it is

placed after the passage rather than before it. This is in harmony

with the results of the subheading research reported above: if the

organizer material has the effect of pre-empting and narrowing the

subsequent reading of the child, and causes him to focus only on the

material prepared for the organizer, then he may read the whole

passage less thoroughly, and end up with a poor understanding of it

than someone who was simply given the passage and told to read it

carefully for a test.

A similar phenomenon appears to occur in the use of questions

placed before (pre-questions), during (interspersed questions) and

after (post-questions) the passage to which they relate. An

impressively large and often confusing research literature suggests

that on balance it is more effective to have interspersed questions or

post-questions than pre-questions. Again, this seems to be because

pre-questions may have the effect of encouraging readers to

concentrate on certain aspects of the passage – those to which the

questions directly relate – while they pay less attention to other

aspects that may in reality be equally important.

148

It is perhaps worth noting that questions themselves differ in the

extent to which they are likely to cause readers to recognize their

understanding of a text in a profitable way. Rothkopt (325-336) used

the term methemagenic to describe activities on the part of the

reader, which give rise to learning. He felt that if a reader was

required to operate on the text in some way, for example by

answering a question, reciting a section aloud, or paraphrasing it,

there was a much greater chance of the material being transferred

from short-term memory into long-term memory. Clearly certain tasks

or questions will cause a deeper level of methemagenic activity, and

consequently better learning. A factual question which can be

answered by simply transforming a sentence from the passage

almost verbatim requires a shallower level of processing than one

which requires a paraphrase in the child’s own words (Harrison 28).

He is of the view that the search for synonyms tends to require a

much deeper level of verbal processing and this in turn tends to

produce better learning. According to him, the idea is not a new one;

it confirms our intuitions. What is important is the potentially striking

difference between a reader’s passive exposure to a text and the

result of methemagenic activities being applied to it. The concept of

149

the ‘active interrogation of a text’, which is developed in the Bullock

report as cited by Harrison (42) appears to have strong support from

this area of psychological research.

150

Cohesion and Text Processing

An area of linguistic structure of the sentence is cohesion among

sentences. The term ‘cohesion’, therefore, has been defined by

many people in a number of ways. Widdowson as cited in Nodaushan

defines it in terms of the distinction that is made between the

illocutionary act and the proposition. In his view as cited in

Nodaushan (2006), proposition, when linked together form a ‘text’

where illocutionary acts when related to each other, create different

kinds of discourse.

According to Halliday and Hassan (87), cohesion and register enable

us to create a text. Register is concerned with what a text means. It

is defined by Halliday and Hassan as ‘the set of semantic

configuration that is typically associated with a particular class of

context of situation, and defined the substance of the text.’

Cohesion, as contrasted with register is not concerned with what a

text means. Rather, it refers to a set of meaning relations that exist

within the text. These relations are not of the kinds that link the

components of a sentence and they differ from sentential structure.

The discovery of these meaning relations is crucial to its

interpretation. For instance, in the following text:

151

Jane bought a new book. She put it in her drawer.

The interpretation of the elements she and it is dependent on the

lexical items Jane and book. So, cohesion is in the semantic relation

that is setup between these elements.

The function of cohesion according to Halliday and Hassan is to

relate one part of a text to another part of the same text.

Consequently, it lends continuity to the text. By providing this kind of

text continuity, cohesion enables the reader or listener to supply all

the components of the picture to its interpretation. They hold that

cohesion in its normal form is the presupposition of something that

has gone before in the discourse, whether in the immediately

preceding sentence or not. Two types of presupposition exist. They

are: anaphoric and cataphoric presuppositions.

The anaphora is a term used in a discourse to make reference to an

already existing entity. It is a subsequent reference to an already

existing entity. It is a signaling mechanism that is always used in

pointing backwards to something already in existence in a text.

� The brothers quarreled over trivial matter long ago. That is

why the two brothers never visit each other’s house.

152

� Many married women never improved. They don’t take

advice and so they keep making the same mistake. It is a

terrible shame.

� Uche came here with a message. The message is for you.

Anaphora is endophoric, not exophoric. An exophoric expression

is situational. That is, it is used in pointing to a referent outside a

text. An endophoric expression (which is both the anophora and

cataphora are part of) is a textual reference. Such references are

made to entities within a text, and not outside it.

Fig: 3

Like the anophora, a cataphora is used for referencing. Suffice it to

say that it is also a process of pointing to something in a discourse. It

is used to refer to what is to be said. That is, it points forward.

Presupposition

Exophora Endophora

Anaphora

Cataphora

153

� My arguments are as follows: that since Virgin Mary housed

God for nine months in her womb, it is in order to say that she

is sinless.

� It never should have happened. She went out and left the baby

unattended

� This should interest you if you are still interested in drama: the

College Theater Group will act The Parliament of Vultures

tomorrow.

In the sentences above, ‘my arguments’ is a cataphora as it points to

the fact that Mary housed God for nine months in her womb and for

this reason, she is sinless. Again ‘it’ is a cataphora as it is presented

before the actual referent – she went out and the baby was left

unattended. Finally, ‘this’ points to The Parliament of the Vultures

that will be acted tomorrow.

The cataphora indeed drives its interpretation from something that

follows. The cataphora is not frequently used in a discourse, unlike

the anophora that is often used. Words that are used as anophora

can also be used as cataphora depending on how they are used.

� The provost is from Azia. He is a kind man.

� He can be caring, if Peter means to.

154

In both sentences he is used to point backward in the first sentence

and in the second sentence, he is used to point forward. He,

therefore, is anophorically and cataphorically used. A distinction

arises (that is, between the anophora and cataphora) if there is an

explicitly presupposing item present, whose referent obviously either

precedes or follows. But if the cohesive agent used is lexical, with the

same lexical item occurring twice over, the second occurrence has to

take its interpretation from the first; the first cannot be said to point

forward to the second.

John leads John to school everyday.

If for example, John follows John as in the above sentence, there will

be no possible distinction between anophora and cataphora. Both

appear elusive to many L2 learners of English.

Halliday and Hasan recognize five types of cohesion devices in

English and in the Lexicogrammatical system of the language. They

are reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.

Below are sentences to show different cohesive ties.

Reference: Obi’s uncle is a medical doctor. He is a pediatrician. (|He

refers or points back to Obi’s uncle).

155

Substitution: Jane is always studious. She never goes beyond

the third position after each examination. (She replaces the noun,

Jane.)

Lexical: Green plants grow towards the light. This is because plants

need light for energy. (Light is the lexical item that should go with

“plants need.”)

Ellipsis: Children like every other human being should be loved,…

and respected.(‘Cared for’ is to complete the intentionally unfinished

item.) Everything is set. The prayer is about to start …. (A relevant

statement is required also to fill the slot. For example “let everybody

participate fully in the prayer”)

Conjunction connective: The graduate student read too many

articles for her literature review. Consequently, it took much longer

than expected for her to write the paper. (Consequently links two

ideas in the two sentences together.)

At this point, we can comfortably repeat that cohesion is a set of

semantic resources for linking sentences. It is the set of possibilities

that exist in the language for making the text hang together. Other

sample connectives are:

156

Homophora (the), deixis (this, these), co-coordinators (and),

enumeratives (for example), sequencers (first), expectation deniers

(however) ,result injectors (hence) , condition indicators ( in this case)

causal markers (for this reason),compromisers(generally),diminishers

(slightly), maximisers (greatly), emphasizers (infact), exemplifiers

(such as), illustrative indicators (for example), reformulators (in other

words) ,time relaters (at last), place relaters (when), contrastive

markers (however), adversative markers (anyway), comparative

(like), analogy (likewise) and others.

These explicit cues help the reader relate one idea to another and

add to textual cohesion. Goldman and Rakestraw (311-335) and

Armbrusher (202 – 217) would refer to these connectives as a form of

local cohesion; a ‘linguistic morta’ used to hold ideas together.

Vocabulary

Ever since the nineteenth century, when the first attempts were made

to describe the comparative difficult levels of books, vocabulary has

been considered to be the most important factor that determines text

difficulty. Surveys of readers’ opinions going back to the 1930s

(Chall) as cited by (Harrison 19) support the view that vocabulary

plays a large part in whether a person finds a book readerable or not.

157

According to Harrison, research studies have consistently found

vocabulary to be the surest single predictor of text difficulty. There

are many ways of describing or attempting to measure vocabulary

difficulty but two of the most common ones are word length and word

frequency.

Word length is usually measured in letters per word or syllables per

word, and word frequency by how often the word tends to occur in

ordinary usage. The longer a word is, the more likely it is to be a

comparatively rare one, and vice versa. Thus, when a child

complains that a book has too many long words, he is not simply

expressing frustration at having words with many syllables; he is

rather, making a statement about his lack of familiarity with the words

used; and their meanings. Long words also tend to be abstract in

their meaning, rather concrete.

We have said that the frequency of a word in a text determines how

difficult the meaning of the word is. But it would be naïve to assume

that a sentence such as ‘If he is as I am, I am to be as he’ is suitable

for an infant reading book, simply because it has no word of more

than two letters. In normal writing most of the words that are used

most frequently are ones, which bind other words together – the

158

structural elements of a sentence. For example, such words as the,

and, in, a, to, are, and not do not carry meaning in the same way as

do most nouns and adjectives. They function more as operators,

which determine the network of relationships between the words,

which carry more meaning.

What might appear to be a confounding factor in this argument is the

point that many of the most frequent nouns and verbs have a great

many different meanings. For example, Webster’s Revised

Unabridged Dictionary lists twenty-four (24) meanings for ‘top’ and

has 54 for ‘set’, not counting dozens more verb phrases in which it

has further uses. This suggests that a word such as set might

actually be more difficult to construe than a less frequently used word

that at least has an unequivocal meaning.

Ambiguity and vagueness

Ambiguity and vagueness make reading and comprehension difficult.

If we decide to look at ambiguity that is created due to lexical factors,

we consider polysemy and homonymy. They are the greatest source

of ambiguity in understanding the meaning of vocabulary. Polysemy

refers to a word with different shades of meaning. One thing to note

about polysemy is that all the various meanings derive the same

159

source etymologically. The word ‘spring’ has different meanings

depending on the context it is used.

Fig: 4

It follows from the above diagram that a simple sentence such as: ‘I

have seen the spring’ is not simple in meaning because we want to

know what you have seen. Have you seen the metal, season,

movement or source of water?

Again, the word ‘board’, for example, may mean a plank, a tablet, a

table, food, people and others.

S3 Source of water (n)

S4 a mechanical device (n)

S2 Leap up (v)

S1 Season (n)

Spring

160

Board

Fig: 5

Normally, only one of these will fit into a given context but

occasionally there may be some confusion in the readers’ mind. For

example, the simple sentence ‘Bow to the board’ is ambiguous

because we do not know whether we should bow to the table, the

food on the table, the plank, or the people sitting at the council to

name but these. That was the reason why when Oliver Twist in

Oliver Twist was told to bow to the board and seeing no board but the

table bowed to it.

Homonyms on the other hand are words written in the same way.

|They sound alike but they have different meanings. Good examples

include:

S1 a thin plank (n) S2 a tablet (n)

S3 a table (n) S4 food (n) served at the table

S5 persons (n) sitting at the council table

161

Pupil: A young learner in school

Pupil: Circular opening in the centre of the Iris of the eyes.

Break: A pause for rest between activities, i.e. the period of

time when you stop what you are doing in order to rest,

eat, etc. as in ‘I have worked all day without a break’.

Break: to separate into two parts as in ‘The child dropped the

plate and it broke.’

Light: not heavy

Light: the energy from the sun

Other examples are:

Page page vice vice

Pen pen plain plain

Box box dear dear

Bank bank till till

Boil boil faint faint

Ball ball

Both words have the same form but differ semantically. Thus the

simple sentence:

‘I have been to the bank’ is not as simple as it appears. This is

because my listeners may begin to wonder whether I mean I have

162

been to the bank where money is kept or whether I mean bank of the

river.

Vagueness is a statement that allows for several interpretations. In

other words, it is an expression with more than two expressions or

with more than two interpretations. Human beings have the problem

of explaining what they mean. The reason is that many terms are

inherently vague and cannot be precisely explained. Consider this

sentence:

‘I need a good woman to marry.’

A lot of meanings can be derived from this sentence. ‘Good woman’

can mean one of the following:

A woman who is morally good,

A woman who is intellectually sound,

A woman who is socially sound,

A woman who is politically sound,

A woman who is psychologically, physically, emotionally or

sexually sound.

Because none of these qualities is specified, we can conclude that

the sentence is vague. In real life, whenever such a sentence is

directed to us, our response will be: ‘Good woman in what aspect’?

163

The problem is compounded when we look at other phrases

containing good. For example, “A good child’, describes either a child

who behaves well or a child who works well or even a child who is full

of realistic ambitions.

Again, the possessive construction is a source of vagueness. For

example:

‘Obi’s car’ can be used to describe the car Obi made, the car he

owns, the car he has been driving, the car he was using when he

came back. Obi’s food could mean, the food he cooked, the food he

owns, the food he has been cooking, the food he has been told to

cook or the food he was cooking when something happened. To

avoid this type of vagueness, there is need to establish the

relationship between the possessor and the possessed. For example:

� I like the toy Obi was carrying when he came in.

� The food Obi cooked was delicious.

� The toy Obi made is like mine.

Another aspect of vocabulary that contributes in determining text

difficult is the use of idiomatic expression. An idiom is a fixed group

of words with a special meaning, which is different from the meaning

of the separate words from which it is formed. Thus, the meaning of

164

idioms is not obvious through the knowledge of the individual

meanings of the constituent words but through the learning of the

words as a whole. For example, the expression ‘He kicked the

bucket’ means ‘He died’. You cannot understand the meaning of

‘kicked a bucket by structural analysis. You may say that ‘kicked’ =

verb + ed, and ‘bucket’ = noun + singular. These analyses do not in

themselves give this meaning. The individual words give the concept

of someone who stumbled against the bucket. Conversely, the

words cannot undergo any morphological or structural transformation.

For example,

‘The bucket was kicked’.

A reader who is not familiar with any idiomatic expression may have a

problem decoding its meaning in a text.

We can summarize this subtitle by saying that the length of words,

the frequency of words, the words with two or more lexical meanings

and idiomatic expressions are important factors that determine text

difficulty as far as vocabulary is concerned.

Organization

The degree of organization within a text can affect the difficulty level.

More recently, a number of researchers have turned their attention to

165

the internal structure of stories. Kintsch and his associates (196-214)

have considered the comprehension and recall of text as a function of

such variables as the number of concepts in a passage and the

number of underlying basic propositions that the text contains. Under

this subtitle, many aspects of organization will be treated. They

include:

(1) Rhetorical Relationship

Rhetorical relationships play an important role in content

structure, help readers make associations within the text at a

global level (Mayer 789-807 and Goldman and Rakestraw 31-

35). They interrelate sentences, and give the text its structure.

They help guide the reader’s processing of the text. Rhetorical

devices that help authors construct a more coherent text

include organization or structural cues, linguistic cues, and

signaling devices. Comprehension is enhanced with the

repeated and consistent processing of these devices.

(2) Syntactic rules

Understanding basic organizational and syntactic rules in

expository text makes it possible for the reader to find the

location of main ideas within the text on both a local and global

166

level. For example, the reader must understand how to

generalize global concepts into a simple proposition, and to

draw conclusions or make inferences about these propositions.

Placement of main ideas within the text and the paragraph

affects reading comprehension depending upon where the

author puts them. Readers tend to look for important

information at the beginning and end of a passage. I believe

this may be a primary or latency effect, since information tends

to be remembered better at the beginning or end of a

paragraph but it may also be a way for the author to ‘set the

stage’ for the main idea, and summarize the conclusion of a

paragraph.

(3) Questions and Summaries.

Questions and summaries provided by the authors can

increase reading comprehension (Just and Carpenter 400-424).

Summaries can be placed at the conclusion of main ideas

within the text or at the end of the text. Readers who read

summaries performed better on test of retention than those who

did not read summaries (Just and Carpenter 405).

167

Questions can also be placed at the beginning or end of the

text or can be interspersed throughout the text to enhance

comprehension. There is a relationship between location of

questions in the text and the amount of information learned by

the reader. When questions are at the end of the text, the

reader tends to remember required information as well as non-

required information. When questions are located at the

beginning, readers tend to simply remember the information

related to specific questions. Interspersed questions help the

reader adopt a monitoring and organizational strategy, and help

motivate reader to retain the information (Just and Carpenter

400). There should be a balance between main idea questions

and questions about facts and details, otherwise, the questions

may encourage readers to attend to local details at the expense

of global or main ideas (Goldman and Rakestraw 311-335).

(4) Subheadings

The judicious use of subheadings makes it possible for the

reader to pinpoint information. An experiment on the use of

relevant subject headings within the passage to help the reader

organize the information for himself did not produce higher

168

scores (Harrison 126). It is interesting to speculate why this

was so. One possibility according to Harrison is that by using

headings, the author demand less critical thinking from the

readers who then read less closely than they did under the

other two conductions.

Other studies have shown that the use of typographical effects

such as bold type, underlining or italicizing can be effective in

improving comprehension. Harrison is of the view that this

should not be overused. For example, he is of the opinion that

the use of capitals, underling and coloured inks all at once, or

for different purposes on the same page would certainly distract

the reader. Another point to bear in mind is the level of the

reader’s sophistication. In some cases it would be worth telling

potential readers that they should take account of these

variations in a particular way. Perhaps readers might be told to

read aloud the main points italicized in sections, or they may be

told to use section headings as headings in their own note-

making. It would be wrong to assume that without such

guidance all the children would make the best use of the extra

information.

169

(5) Signaling Devices

Signaling devices emphasize content or structure, and help the

reader attend to important content. Examples include the use

of titles, preview or repetition of content. Signaled information

is processed longer and recalled better by making the reader

more aware of important points at a global level. Major

concepts and important key ideas can be highlighted by using:

♣ Paragraph indentation

♣ Numbered list

♣ Underlining

♣ Changing the font, colour or size, bolding or italicizing,

bullets, arrows or tables.

♣ Illustration

(6) Content

The purposes of expository texts are to persuade, inform or

explain procedure. (Alexander and Jettson 285-310; Beck,

Mckeown, Sinatra, and Loxteman 251-276; Bovair and Kieras

206-226). The content of the expository text is an important

variable in reading comprehension, but the most important

aspect is that the text be a good match with the reader’s prior

170

knowledge, skills, interest, learning goals, and culture

(Alexander 313-337 and Meyer 789-807). Unfortunately, many

expository texts make incorrect assumption about the reader’s

adequate additional information or explicit link to help the

reader out of the text (Beck, I.L, McKeown, M.G; Hamilton, R.L.

and Kucah, L. 66-71)

(7) Density

The best learning environment, whether linear or non-linear is

to challenge learners to confront their misunderstanding, build

on interest and preference, and stimulate thinking (Alexander et

al 250). The reader’s prior knowledge and the author’s attempt

to provide explicit information and cues may help the reader

comprehend more difficult text. Expository text is known for

presenting condensed ideas and concepts in a way that may be

difficult to comprehend (Gordon 92). This takes us to the text

structure.

(8) Text Structure

Text structure has to do with the overall structure of narrative

and expository texts. The structure of expository and narrative

texts is an important variable in reading comprehension. Many

171

techniques are used in structuring text for easy comprehension

by the reader. The most important ones are treated below.

(a) Story Schema/Story Grammar

Story schema is an important technique in reading

comprehension. It is a set of explanations about how stories

are usually organized. An internal organization of story

knowledge enables readers to process print by retaining story

information in memory until it makes sense by adding more

information as the reading progresses. A reader’s story

schema also is important in recalling what is read. Many

reading researchers have investigated story schema, and they

have proposed several descriptions as below:

Area of needed reading instruction ability to understand story parts

Intended learning outcome: students will be able to match sentences from a selected passage to the appropriate story parts

Past learning:

172

♣ Students have an existing sight vocabulary and words

identification skills for reading a simple story.

♣ Students understand story analysis and its importance in

getting meaning from print.

♣ Students understand that story analysis is related to reading

comprehension.

Review students’ past experiences with the major categories of story

analysis by providing a simple story on the chalkboard, listing each

sentence next to its appropriate category, and guiding students

through directed discussion of each category. Explain that the major

categories of analyzing a story are setting, initiating event, internal

response, attempt sequence and reaction.

An analysis of the story “The Strange Tracts” by Rupley and Blair

(166-168) might look like this:

Reading Background

173

Setting Introduces characters

and provides

background

information

Once there was a man who lived

on a mountain

Initiating event Begins the episode One afternoon while climbing the

mountain he saw some huge

strangely shaped tracts in the

snow.

Internal

response

Decision The man was curious and

wanted to learn more about the

tracts.

Attempt A try at reaching a

goal

He followed the tracts for two

days. On the third day, a heavy

snow storm covered the tracts

and made it impossible for him

to search further.

Consequence Outcome The man discontinued his

search and returned to his cabin

on the mountain

174

Table1: An Analysis of the Story ‘The Strange Story’

The example above is how to teach a story schema. Let us also study

guide lines for teaching story schema by Gordon and Braun (116-

121)

1. Use well-formed stories to introduce both the structure and the

terminology of story grammar. Walk the students through this

initial story and several others by relating the information to

their experiential and conceptual backgrounds.

2. Set and illustrate reading purposes. It is important to activate

the students’ background knowledge in relation to the story

content and concept and to guide the students’ thinking by

referring to familiar examples.

3. Identify the story structure before identifying the content.

Initially, discuss the structural features to enable the students to

see the permanence of the structure.

4. Once students can associate story structure with specific story

content, ask story specific questions. Phrase the questions so

that they match the features of the story structure being

addressed. Focus on internal comprehension of the story.

175

After the students have identified story structure with the

teacher’s direction, ask inferential questions.

5. Begin to introduce less well-organized stories to ensure that the

students realized that not all stories follow the ideal story

structure.

(b) Story Frames

Story frames focus on the structure rather than the specific

content of stories. They help direct students’ attention to how

the content fits the structure. Cudd and Robert (75-79) found

that their use of story frames was successful for teaching

reading comprehension to first graders. Below are good

examples of the story frames.

The Basic Story Frame

Title: The Best Birthday. In the story the problem starts

When: Maria gets sick and she cannot have a birthday party.

After that: Her friends want to make her feel better.

Next: They go and get a clown and ask him to help.

Then: The clown goes to Maria’s house. The problem is finally

resolved

When: The clown makes Maria laugh. The story ends.

176

When: Maria says: This is the best birthday ever.

Story Frames with Key Sequence Words

Title: Mike’s house. A little boy made a playhouse out of a

box.

First: He made windows on the sides.

Next: He made a door on the front.

Then: He put a rug on the floor.

Finally,: He put a sign on the door.

The sign said: Mike’s House.

(c) Story Maps

Story maps usually display story information and help students

to represent and integrate the events and concepts found in the

stories. Such maps can represent main ideas, events,

character companions and cause-effect relationships. To assist

students in understanding story structure, separate maps are

developed for the important elements and then integrated.

Good examples of story maps are presented below.

177

Rose garden Adams

James Manson

Few appearances

Wilson presidency

Similarities

White House

Wife of president

Hanks’ locked doors

John Adams

Often seen Taft

presidency

Differences

Fig: 6- story structure (Adapted from Reutzel, 401-403)

A compare-contrast map

178

Fig: 7 Story structure-using maps. (Adapted from Reutzel, 401-403)

Story Map of Cause Effect Chain

Main idea – sequential detail

White House

Most Famous Mrs

Rosevei

Queen Wihelmi

Abe Lincoi

Mrs Coolidge

Employees

Ghosts

Main ideas

Abigail Adam

President Wife

Busy Ghost

W.H. Taft

Door

White House

Halls

Strange Noises

NamelessGhost

Loud Laughter

Cold Winds Past

employe

White House

Dolley appearanc

Roses remain

White house

President’s wife

Mrs Wilson Gardene

rs

Leaving roses

179

E C E/C C/E Fig: 8-story structure: Adapted from Reutzel (401-403)

Outlining and Networking

Outlining and networking enable the writer to present his story in a

skeletal form. Outlining represents the main points of the material in a

hierarchical format with each detail organized under a higher-level

Remains in the same spot

Mrs Wilson ordered move

Dolly Madison Garden

Dolly Ghost appeared and ordered move to stop

Gardeners started to move

180

category. In networking, the main ideas are identified and then

connections between them are diagrammed. A network that presents

factual materials about shark in figure 11 is a good example.

Fig: 9 A network of facts about shark before instruction

Near Florida beaches Warm water

Large

More than 6ft.

Size Habita

t

Deep Water

Characteristics

Structures

Gill slits

Dorsal fin

Sharp jaws

Kinds Species

Movies

Hammer head

Great white shark

Jaws

Shark

Great white

Man eater

Attracted by the smell of blood

No bones cartilage

Fast swimmer

SHARK

181

(e) Recall Method

This has to do with the reader’s ability to recall what he has read.

This is made possible by the way the writer structures or organizes

his ideas. In these ways, it will be easy for the reader to process the

text and recall the ideas later in his story. The author can structure

his story by repeated and consistent use of structural cues, linguistic

cues and signaling device. He can also use topic sentences to

summarize the main ideas and thereafter place them at the beginning

of the paragraphs. In these ways, it will be easy for the reader to

process the text and recall the ideas later.

f) Readability

It is generally accepted that text comprehension does not depend

only on the text itself, but also on who is reading it. Readability is an

attribute of texts; comprehension is an attribute of readers. If

someone defines a text as readable, he may be referring to the

comprehensibility of the text, the ease in which it is read, its interest

to the reader, or the ease in which it is understood (Klare 681-743).

Dale as cited in Chall (74) defined readability as: the sum total

(including interactions) of all those elements within a given piece of

printed material that affects the success of a group of readers in

182

reading comprehension. The success is the extent to which they

understand it, and find it interesting.

Since the early 20th century, researchers have tried to understand

what makes a text easy or hard to read in order to create a good

match between the reader and the text (Chall 70 ; Klare 634). There

has been strong debate in the field of education that rating textbooks

according to readability estimates kept school children from reading

‘more mature texts’ from the same (Chall ; Klare ).

Readability formulae are predicative devices that offer estimates of

reading difficulty. Some of them are: SMOG, Flesh-Kincaid,

Gunning’s Fog Index, Dale Chall, Fry readability formula, The Lorge

and Close Procedure. Apart from close procedure, these methods

estimate the reading difficulty of materials by using a combination of

formulae that use the length of words and sentence length, and/or the

predictability of words compared to standard list.

Making text easier to read has been shown to produce significant

increase in reading comprehension, learning and retention; however,

the reader plays the greatest role in text comprehension. Factors

such as reader competence, motivation, interest, culture, context, and

183

prior knowledge all have an impact on comprehension of text (Klare

632).

The predictive power of readability formulae with complex content

and sentences can be a problem. Klare stated that syllable counts in

readability formulae produce low readability scores (more difficult to

read) when special technical words are repeated. He advises that

such words can be dropped from the syllable counts with the intent of

concentrating on the rest of the text. This presents an interesting

research idea that could be extended to the writers of children’s

books and texts. The point that is brought home here is that both

context and content density are important factors to consider when

writing prose for students.

Summary of Empirical and Conceptual Text Factors

The review of textual variables has covered important text variables

like syntax, cohesion, organization, vocabulary, text structure like

story schema/story grammar, story frames, story maps, outlining and

networking, recall method and readability. These are the ways the

authors can construct a more considerate text.

184

Teacher Style Factors

We have seen that vocabulary from time immemorial has been

considered to be the most important factor that determines text

difficulty. It also plays a vital role in determining whether a text is

readable or not. In spite of its significant role in text processing, many

second language learners shy away from it. This is so because of the

way many second language teachers teach reading. Associating

experiences and concepts with words contributes significantly to

reading comprehension.

Effective vocabulary instruction helps students relate new words to

their background knowledge. Providing various opportunities to

encounter and practice new words is a key factor in promoting

vocabulary growth and reading comprehension. Engaging students in

active discussion of new words is critical in promoting vocabulary

development. Research has shown that teachers who employ some

of the new approaches in teaching reading have succeeded in

helping the students to develop interest in reading comprehension

and at the same time perform better.

The new approach to teaching reading advocated that vocabulary

emphasis should include direct instruction and appropriate practice in

185

specific skills along with the opportunity for wide reading and other

language activities. Vocabulary instruction is most effective when it

relates new words or derivations of words to existing vocabulary and

background knowledge. For example, a student who thinks that all

animals are pets would have a difficult time with such concepts as

farm animals and zoo animals. Sending this student to a dictionary or

listing words on the chalkboard would not be effective for teaching the

vocabulary or words associated with milk cows, farm life or zoo

animals. Such teaching styles that affect text processing and

comprehension are discussed here in this regard:

1. Semantic Mapping

Semantic mapping according to Heilman, Blair , Rupley and Williams

( 78) makes it possible for students to expand their vocabulary,

understand relationship between existing and new concepts,

understand multiple meanings of words and learn actively. Semantic

mapping structures information categorically so that students can

more readily see relationships of new words and concepts to their

existing background knowledge.

Frederickson (1975) as quoted in Izuagba (10) described semantic

mapping as graphic arrangements consisting of semantic “tokens” or

186

“concepts” connected by related links. Exploring the use of semantic

mapping in the teaching of reading, Braden (1983) as quoted in the

same source above indicates that its effectiveness lies in the way it

holistically conceptualizes the content of the text, as the relationship

between parts to the whole and whole to the part are clearly

illustrated through the overall configuration and connective links.

Research findings have shown the superiority of semantic mapping

as a teaching method over traditional method of teaching vocabulary.

The finding showed that a significant difference existed between the

experimental and control groups. This is because in semantic

mapping, data are organized into logical semantic categories.

For instance, in using semantic mapping to teach a word like board’, a

network of related words are called up indicating either synonymous or

antonymous relationships as in the example below.

Board

A table (n)

A thin Plank (n)

Food served at the table (n)

A tablet (n)

Persons sitting at the council table (n)

187

Fig: 10 Semantic mapping (self developed)

From the example above, one can confidently say that semantic

mapping is a key word that commands an army of others. With

semantic mapping the teaching of words in isolation is de-

emphasized. This new direction in language teaching and learning is

based on the strong relationship between reading and vocabulary

learning. Davis (1968) as cited by Izuagba (11) confirmed this when

he said that the factor that correlated highly with comprehension is

knowledge of word meaning and this is why the ability to comprehend

a text hinges on the reader’s ability to decipher the meaning of

individual words that make up the discourse. As meaning does not

reside in the text but is derived from the construction the reader

makes based on her prior knowledge, semantic mapping becomes an

effective method as it helps to activate the learner’s prior knowledge

by helping her to analyze and integrate what has been read thereby

enabling her have a holistic view of the text.

There are well-defined procedures in the use of semantic mapping in

the teaching of vocabulary for effective reading comprehension.

Heilman et al (90) identified five steps and they include:

• Selecting a word that is central to a topic or story,

188

• Writing the central word on the chalkboard or a chart,

• Brainstorming words related to the central theme or topic and

writing these words,

• Grouping the words into categories and labeling these

categories,

• Noting additional words essential to the topic and placing these

additional words in the appropriate categories.

Upon completion of a semantic map, the teacher discusses with the

students how the new vocabulary words relate to words that they

already know. Thus, students have a better understanding of the

content of the topic they will cover or the story they will read.

Essentially, semantic mapping activates existing background

knowledge and relates it to new vocabulary and concepts.

Mammal

Animals

Amphibians

Reptiles

Egg

Lizard Snake Chameleon

Breast

Man Goat Sheep Cat Cow

Mammals

Fly Fowl Turkey Pigeon Kite

Wild

animals

Water Frog Toad Snake

Bush Lion Elephant Tiger Zebra Monkey Leopard Antelope

Birds

189

Fig 11: Semantic map for Animal (self developed)

Words in boxes are taught directly. Bold-faced words are given to

students. Students contribute light faced words during discussion in

full map treatment. The blank box is for students to fill in a new

category during reading.

2. Concept of Definition Instruction

A variation of semantic mapping is a procedure developed by

Schwartz and Raphael (201) to help students develop a concept of

definition. They recommend direct instruction. To help students

develop a concept of definition, three questions about a concept to be

studied should be considered and they include: (1) what is it? (2)

What is it like? (3) What are some examples? Four defined

procedures in the use of concept of definition are identified.

• Introducing the strategy

Introduce students to the idea that they can develop a strategy

to aid them in the reading process. Focus on what is to be

learned, why it is important, and what they will be doing.

Following the general introduction, introduce the word map and

organize complete independent activities, mapping given words

190

and a word of their choice. After mapping, have the students

use the information to verbalize a definition with the class.

• Refining the Strategy

Following the introduction, the teacher gives the students

sentences that provide at least one (what is it?), three

properties (what is it like?), and three examples. Discuss the

sentences with the students and mark (check, circle, or

underline) the type of information necessary to map the

information. Following this mapping, have the students provide

oral or written definitions for the given concepts. Help them

realize that they do not have to always identify three properties

or three examples; they may use fewer or more in

understanding the word.

• Further refining the concept

Use a context that is less complete than that used in number 2.

Encourage the students to use sources of word meanings (such

as dictionaries, textbooks) to complete their word maps.

Encourage them to use their background knowledge and the

other sources of information.

191

• Writing a definition

All the mapping components are used without using a map.

This is internalization. Ask the students to evaluate given

definitions as to whether or not they are complete. If definitions

are complete, have them write whatever additional information

is needed.

Schwartz and Raphael (201) indicate that the students in their

study could write more elaborate definitions than students who

did not receive the concept of definition instruction.

Furthermore, the students had greater understanding of how to

figure out the meaning of new words.

The procedure helps teachers provide students with opportunities to

discuss new concepts, and discussion appears to be a key in

promoting active thinking about words.

Beagle Collie Puppy

Pet

What is it like? Big/Small What is it?

Animal

What are some examples?

Hairy

Dog

192

Fig.12: Map showing concept of definition instruction, adapted

from Schwartz and Raphael (201)

3. Webbing

Webbing is similar to semantic mapping and word mapping. It

graphically illustrates how to associate words in a meaningful fashion.

Words or concepts selected for use in webbing can come from

materials students have read or can be new. In this strategy just like

in others, Rupley and Blair (166-168) identified eight steps and they

include:

• Area of needed reading instruction ability to develop and

understand meaningful vocabulary

• Intended learning outcome-students will construct a web of

meaningful word associations from a word source selected by

the classroom teacher.

• Past Learning: Students understand that words can be

associated with a group of related words to construct a web of

meaningful information. Students can draw inferences and

meanings from words and word associations.

193

• Building Background: Demonstrate word association by writing

a familiar phrase on the chalkboard and asking students to help

you construct a web of word association.

• Teacher Directed Instruction –Provide students with a second

web of word associations dealing with a familiar theme. In this

instance, do not write the theme in the center of the word

association web. Have the students use the word association

listed in the web to infer the theme of the web. Stress that those

words in a web of word association must relate to the word

phrase in the center of the web if the web is to make sense.

Remind them that in the webs drawn on the chalkboard in the

lesson, all the words can be directly associated with the center.

• Independent Student Practice

Allow students to construct their own webs of word

associations. Prepare a handout showing a word that you

select at the center of the web, put one or two written examples

on the web to make sure that all the students understand the

activity.

194

• Ongoing Diagnosis

The teacher evaluates students’ individual word association

webs. He interviews students about why they include certain

words and why their choices were associated with the other

words in the web. (Such information will provide insight into

how students use their experiential backgrounds and reasoning

strategies in identifying words.)

• Modifying Instruction

The activity can be used as an independent instructional activity

for groups of students who have difficulty constructing webs.

For example, the teacher can hand out a web that has several

of circles already filled in and has a few blank circles for

students to complete. This procedure maximizes students’

chances of success. Webbing words and word phrases can be

used in content area reading and as well can encompass

historical events, science terminology and activities, social

studies concepts etc. Web can also be given to students before

they read to give them an overview of important text elements

and essential relationships found in their reading materials.

195

An additional variation of this activity is to provide students with

webs and to direct them to write short stories that expand on

the relationships illustrated by the webs.

Fig. 13: Directed lesson using webbing (self- developed)

Animals Wild animals

Lion

Elephant

Zebra

Reptiles Snake

Lizard

Chameleon

Birds

Turkey Pigeon

Fowl

Domestic animals

Cow Sheep

Goat

Mammals Goat

Sheep Man

Cat Amphibians

Snake

Toad

Frog

196

4.Teacher-Directed Instruction

It provides students with a second web of word associations dealing

with a familiar theme. In this instance, do not write them in the center

of the word association web. The students can use the word

association listed in the web to infer the theme of the web. For

example, the teacher can construct the following word association

web and allow students to infer the theme-colour. She can stress that

words in a web of word association must relate to the word phrase in

the center of the web if the web is to make sense. She can remind

them that in the webs drawn on the chalkboard in this lesson, all the

words can be directly associated with the center-word.

Fig.14: Web of word-Association (self developed)

Blue

Yellow

Red Green Orange

197

Independent Student Practice

The teacher can allow the students to construct their own webs of

word association by asking them to prepare a handout showing a

word that she selects at the centre of the web. She can put one or

two written examples on the web to make sure that all the students

understand the activity.

Ongoing Diagnosis

Teacher’s evaluation of students’ individual word association webs:

Here the teacher can interview the students about why they include

certain words and why their choices are associated with the other

words in the web. (Such information will provide insight into how

students use their experiential backgrounds and reasoning strategies

in identifying words).

Modifying Instruction

The activity can be used as an independent instructional activity for

group of students who have difficulty constructing webs. For example,

the teacher can hand out a web that has several of the circles already

filled in and has a few blank circles for students to complete. This

procedure maximizes students’ chances of success. Webbing words

and word phrases used in content area reading can as well

198

encompass historical events, science terminology and activities,

social studies concepts and so on. Webs can also be given to

students before they read to give them an overview of important text

elements and essential relationships found in their reading materials.

An additional variation of this activity is to provide students with webs

and to direct them to write short stories that expand on the

relationships illustrated by the webs (Heilman, Blair, and William 90).

5.Semantic Features Analysis

This can help students to understand relationships among words and

to relate their background knowledge to the new words. Semantic

features analysis is most appropriate for words related by class or a

common feature.

To analyze, list several familiar words that are related (like books,

newspapers, magazines, catalogues, brochure) on the chalkboard or

a chart. Direct the students to discuss features associated with the

words listed. As the students suggest features, write them across the

top of the board or chart, creating a matrix that the students can

complete in terms of present (+), or absent (-) and sometimes (0). As

the students broaden and define their concepts, they add words and

features to the list and analyze them.

199

Semantic features analysis can be used with narrative reading

material to analyze characters, settings, plots and so on. It is also

effective in the content areas when introducing new topics, reviewing

topics and integrating topic across different content areas. The

materials can be refined and added to as students’ experiential and

conceptual backgrounds grow.

Fig. 15: Table showing Semantic features analysis

Summary of Teacher Style Factors

Reading is one of the most important skills that is bestowed on

mankind by civilization. This is because ones perception and

expression of the reality around one depend on ones knowledge of

Enjoyment Information Buying Current events Sports Books + + 0 - 0 Newspapers + + + + + Magazines + + 0 + 0 Catalogs + + + - 0 Brochures + + 0 + 0 Key: Present(+),absent(-),sometimes(0)

200

words to express them. The key to ones thought and ideas is the

number of words to ones disposal.

Students on the other hand need increased vocabulary and ability to

process text with comprehension in order to succeed academically.

They have more time to engage in private reading and studying than

in attending lectures. It then means that they have to be properly

equipped with the necessary reading skills. This section therefore

focused on those strategies that emphasise direct instruction and

appropriate practice in specific skills along with the opportunity for

vocabulary acquisition, wide reading and other language activities.

The strategies treated in this section include:

- Semantic mapping which incorporates many of the principles

for vocabulary teaching and structures information so that the

students can see relationships of new words and concepts to

their existing background knowledge,

- Concept of definition instruction which makes it possible for the

teachers to provide students with opportunities to discuss new

concepts thereby making discussion appear to be a key in

promoting active thinking about words.

201

- Webbing which gives the students the opportunity to increase

their power of inference.

- Teacher directed instruction

- Semantic Features Analysis

There are other useful strategies that could not be treated in this

section due to lack of space. It is the sincere hope of the writer that if

teachers of reading should apply the ones treated here judiciously,

our students may complain less about their inability to read with

comprehension. They will develop reading friendly attitude.

General Summary of the Literature Review

Reading comprehension is an interactive process that involves the

reader, the text and the teacher. A good match is needed between

the reader and the assumptions that the author has made of the

reader’s prior knowledge and goals for reading. The literature has

shown that both the reader and the text possess specific attributes

that can either impede or assist reading comprehension. These

attributes interact with the teacher’s style to determine the outcome of

text processing and comprehension.

202

Learner factors are grouped into empirical studies and conceptual

issues. Research works on empirical studies include: self-concept,

gender and culture, conceptual issues include prior knowledge,

motivation and interest. They are summarized in this regard:

Self -concept

Many researchers reveal that self-concept is positively related to text

processing achievement (Bricklin 10; Sopis 64; Wattenberg & Clifford

461-467;Mcmichal 115-124). The works of others reveal that self –

concept is positively related to independence, acceptance of

leadership (Carrillo 12). Added to these, some others found that

positive self –concept depends on teachers’ attitude towards their

pupils (Barker – Lunn 25; Coopersmith as cited in Attey 98 –114).

Cultural Background

Many researchers reveal that cultural background is an important

factor in processing and understanding of story content texts. (

Stenffenson & Aderna 36; Rupely ,1990 ;Steffenson as cited in

Rupely 63-80 ;Bartlett as cited in Emenyonu 9). But focusing on the

recall of structure, many researchers reveal that cultural background

is positively related to text processing achievement (Kintsen & Green

as cited in Emenyonu 11)

203

However the works of some researchers show that cultural content of

a story is less important than its form in determining how much is

remembered.

Gender

Many researchers have shown that gender interacts with the topic of

the text to affect reading achievement ( Bugel & Baunk 15; Chavez

64; Brantmeier 1 –23 , Preston , Johnson, & Downing, as cited in

Emenyonu 20). But the work of Young & Oxford (43 –73) reveals

that there was no significance difference in the reading achievement

of male and female.

On the issue of computer, studies of Meyer & Poom 789 –807; Mitra

& Hllett 378 –391; Ford & Chen 281 -311 reveal that females had

less positive attitudes towards computer.

The summary of review of learner factors under conceptual issues is

presented in this regard:

Prior Knowledge

Many researchers believe that prior knowledge is positively related to

text processing and comprehension (Coady as cited in Jonz 25 –30;

Carrel & Eisterhold 553 –573 ; Farhaday 44 –59 ;Gernsbacher as

cited in Goldman & Rakestraw 311 –335 ; Adams & Bruce 2 –25).

204

Added to these, some scholars are of the view that a reader in

addition to possessing accurate prior knowledge should be able to

make reliable inferences when accessing that knowledge (Norris &

Philips 391 –412; Rupely 226)

Motivation

Motivation has been generally defined as an individual’s desire for

information/ something which propels the working system into action

sustain it throughout the duration of task, and terminates the activity

as the initial purpose is fulfilled or modified. Many scholars are of the

view that both instrumental and integral motivations are positively

related to language acquisition (reading inclusive) (Mackey 90;

Guthrie & Wigfield, 403 –422; Baldeh 9; Guthrie 432 –445; Alexander

& Jettson 285 -310). On motivation and computer, some scholars

believe that computer- based activities can increase motivation (

Dehelin, 2000 ; Kamil ,Intrator & Kirn 771 –788).

Interest

Interest has been defined as an interactive relationship between the

reader and the environment and is comprised of both cognitive and

affective components (Hidi & Harackiewicz 151 –179). Many writers

are of the view that interest of any type is positively related to reading

205

and reading achievement ( Alexandder & Jettson 285-310 ; Kintsch

as cited in Alexander & Jettson 285-310).

Empirical Studies under Text Factors

Textual features are those things the author incorporates when

writing in order to make the text considerate. Such text features are

summarized in this regard:

Text Genre

Many researchers have revealed that text Genre is positively related

to text processing and comprehension (Gordon 92; Singer, Harkness

and Stewart 199-228). Studies reveal that expository texts are less

familiar less predictable and less considerate than narrative texts. But

Zabrucky and Moore’s study (691 –710) reveals that age, interest,

motivation and culture influence reading comprehension in all genres.

Goldman and Rakestraw’s study as cited in Gorden (92) reveals that

older readers had better comprehension of expository genres.

Syntax

Evidences abound that syntax, which has to do with the way words

are arranged to form sentences of all types is an important factor that

determines the readability of a text (Vogel 25 –34; Anderson (60).

Some researchers like Coleman (247 – 250) and Dawkins (75) have

206

provided convenient summaries of the relevant research. Items under

conceptual issues are summarized below.

Advance Organizer

Advance organizer was coined by Ausubel (267 – 272 ) to describe

introductory paragraphs which are used to help the readers by

summarizing the content and structure of the succeeding sections of

a textbook. There is a controversy on the placement of advance

organizer. While some scholars believe that it should be placed

before a passage, others support the view that it should be placed

after it.

Rothkopt (325 –336) used a different term methemagenic to

describe activities on the part of the reader, which give rise to

learning.

Cohesion

We have seen that cohesion is a set of semantic resources for linking

sentences. It is the set of possibilities that exit in the language for

making the text hang together. For example, Jane bought a new

book. She put it in her bag. ‘She’ and ‘it’ are dependent on the lexical

items Jane and book. Two types of presupposition: anaphora and

cataphora exist( Haliday & Hassan 96). While anaphora is used to

207

make reference to an already existing entity, cataphora is used to

make reference to what is yet to be said.

Vocabulary

It has generally accepted that vocabulary is the surest single

predictor of text difficulty (Harrison 19). The most common ways of

measuring vocabulary difficulty are word length and word frequency.

Other aspects of vocabulary that determine the readability of a text

include: ambiguity and vagueness and the use of idiomatic

expressions.

Organisation

The degree of organization can affect the difficulty level of a text and

because of this a number of researchers have turned their attention

to the internal structure of stories( Kintsch & his associates 196 –

214). Aspects of organization that are treated here include: rhetorical

relationship like structural cues, linguistic cues and signaling devices;

syntactic rules that have to do with the placement of the main ideas in

a text; questions and summaries that are placed either after the

conclusion of main ideas or at the end of the text increase reading

comprehension (Just & Carpenter 400-424); subheadings; signaling

device like paragraph indentation, numbered list underlining,

208

illustration changing the font etc; content; density and text structure

that include: story frame, story maps, outlining and networking, recall

method and readability.

Teacher Style Factors

This has to do with the various techniques the teacher uses in making

his teaching of reading effective and interesting. They include:

semantic mapping, concept of definition instruction, webbing, teacher

directed instruction and semantic features analysis.

There are missing links in the synopsis as the related literature

reviewed shows that in this part of the world, the primary school level

of education has been neglected in the areas of research. Most

researchers tend to use secondary and higher institution students as

their subjects. Again, it was discovered that the influence of cohesion

as a significant factor in text processing among primary school

bilinguals has not been carried out in this part of the world and

elsewhere in the world. Literature review also shows that studies

have been carried out on the effect of syntax on text processing and

comprehension, but no study has been carried out to compare the

effects of syntax and cohesion on pupils’ text processing and

comprehension. It is, therefore, these missing links (uncovered areas)

209

that the present study sets out to cover. Hence the choice of the

present study: Text Processing among the Primary Six Bilinguals in

Anambra State.

210

CHAPTER THREE

TEXTUAL DESCRIPTION AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The following subheadings are discussed in this chapter:

ϖ The Textual Description of the Instrument

ϖ The Design of the Study

ϖ The Area of the Study

ϖ The Population of the Study

ϖ The Sample and Sampling Techniques

ϖ The Instrument for the Data Analysis

ϖ The statistical tools

ϖ Validation of the Instruments

ϖ Pilot Study

ϖ Establishing the Reliability of the Instruments

ϖ Procedure for Administering the Instrument.

Description of the First Instrument

Three categories of instruments were used for the study. One

instrument was used to test the effect of cohesion on pupils’ text

processing and comprehension ability. This was based on a selection

of a suitable passage from children’s storybook – Takataka’s Father.

211

The pupils’ knowledge of the use of cohesive ties was tested. The

following cohesive ties were presented: anophora, homophora,

cataphora, deixis, co-ordinators, enumeratives, sequencers,

expectation deniers, result injectors, condition indicators, causal

markers, compromisers, diminishers, maximisers, emphasizers

,examplifiers, illustrative indicators, reformulators, time relaters, place

relaters, contrastive markers, adversative marker, comparative

analogy and others.

Some of these cohesive ties will be fully presented in the passage, as

they will appear in the questions.

The Sampled Instrument 1:

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” said her husband. He had already

opened the boot of the car, lifted one heavy case out of the boot and

put it on the ground, and now he was lifting another one. “ First things

first. Alade and I want the tool kit. Where is the tool kit?” “I don’t

know, dear. You put the things into the boot not me,” said Mrs. Bako.

“I can’t even see it.”

Questions:

1. Write out the other words that the pronoun “I” refers to in the

text

212

2. Write out the words that the phrase ‘her husband’ refers to in

the text.

3. Write out the words that the pronoun ‘it’ refers to in the text.

4. What does the word ‘dear’ refer to?

5. Whom does the word ‘he’ refers to?

The Sampled Instrument 2

James glared at his brother, took the money from the box and

threw it angrily into the fire, where it cracked swiftly into flame.

This appeared to amuse him, for he burst out laughing and

walked toward the door, which did not improve matters. Mary

marveled that he could be so nonchalant. Surely its loss could

not leave him unmoved.

Questions

What does the pronoun it in sentence 1 refer to?

Who was amused according to the text?

The pupils would be required to answer the questions after reading

the passage that would be given them. The instrument would be

administered to every pupil in the sample irrespective of sex and

school location.

213

Description of the Second Instrument

The second instrument was based on syntactic structure. A search

was made in some primary school books- grammar books, readers

and story books and sentences were chosen which appeared to

exhibit certain syntactic features judged to be deviant from the speech

forms heard by most bilingual pupils and to be potentially ambiguous

in certain respects. The instrument tested the extent the pupils can

utilize their knowledge of syntactic features in text processing and

comprehension. Jessie (383) in his study reveals that children who

learn to read try to make use of their implicit knowledge of grammar.

The construction of the second instrument is, therefore, based on the

belief that certain syntactic features of the language in children’s

storybooks and textbooks make comprehension difficult. Pairs of

fifteen experimental sentences are constructed giving us version ‘A’

and version ‘B’ groups. For each pair of sentences, a question with

two options as answers is asked. The subjects were expected to

choose the right option. For example, the sentence:

The children were met by the enemy when they went

home without their mother.

is followed by the question and answer options as:

214

Who did the enemy meet?

a) The children’s mother

b) The children

The two option answers are assigned to the fifteen item questions. As

a control measure, half of the sampled subjects were given the

reverse sentences. Hence, the fifteen sentences with their

accompanying questions and answer options constitute version 2A of

the instrument.

Sentences in version 2B are constructed by rewriting each sentence

so as to replace the syntactic features considered to be confusing.

For example, the sentence above is rewritten for clarity by using

active construction rather than passive construction.

The children went home without their mother and they met the

enemy in the house.

Each rewritten version is then followed by the same question and

answer options as in version 2A. The rewritten fifteen sentence items

with their answer options constitute version 2B. Version 2B served as

a controlled group.

215

Presenting the Scenario

The list of cohesive ties and what the pupils are expected to do with

regards to the story is presented in the table below in this regard:

Sentence The cohesive tie

Type of cohesion Pupils’ activity

Sentence 2 She

Anaphora. It points backward to something already in existence.

To write other words the pronoun ‘she’ refers to

Sentence 2 But Contrastive marker To name one contrastive marker from the passage

Sentence 3 Their Anophora - Sentence 3 The Homophora To identify two

sentences that contain the definite article ‘the’ (homophora) .

Sentence 4 They Anophora To write out other names the pronoun ‘they’ refers to

Sentence 4 And Co-ordinator To identify two coordinators

Sentence 5 That Anophora To write other words that the pronoun ‘that’ points to

Sentence 6 They Anophora To write out the names the pronoun ‘they’ refers to

Sentence 7 This Anophora To write out the sentence ‘this’ refers to

216

Sentence 8 Them Anophora To name the words the pronoun ‘them’ refers to

Sentence 10

She Anophora To write out the word the pronoun ‘she’ refers to

Sentence 10

Just then Time relater -

Sentence 11

Her Anophora – refers to Rukutu

-

Sentence 12

It Anophora To name the word the pronoun ‘it’ refers to

Sentence 13

He Cataphora- points forward to Mr Dogu

To write out the word the pronoun refers to

Sentence 14

My dear Anophora To identify the person the phrase ‘my dear’ refers to

Sentence 15a

Really Emphasizer -

Sentence 15b

I Anophora To identify the word the pronoun ‘I’ refers to

Sentence 15c

There Place relater To name one place relater (adverb) from the passage

Sentence 16a

His Anophora -

Sentence 16b

In fact Emphasizer -

Sentence 16c

For example

Examplifier To name one use of exemplifier from the passage

Sentence 17

This Anophora – refers to the 16th sentence

To identify the sentence/phrase the word ‘this’ refers to.

Sentence Her son Anaphora – refers to To identify the word

217

18 Rakutu the phrase ‘her son’ refers to

Sentence 19

He, it Anaphora- refer to Takataka, and laughter respectively

To identify the words he and it refer to respectively.

Sentence 20

It Cataphora, points to the 22nd sentence

To identify the sentence it refers to

Sentence 21

It Cataphora, points to 22nd sentence

To identify the sentence it points to

Sentence 22

His father Anophora To identify the word or phrase the phrase refers to.

Sentence 23

This Cataphora, points to the last part of the last sentence

To identify the sentence/the part of the sentence ‘this’ refers to

Table: 2 Scenario Table

Research design

The design of the study is a descriptive research design. A

descriptive research design is concerned with the collection of dada

for the purpose of describing and interpreting the data. A descriptive

research design is not the collection of data per se, but the discovery

of meaning in the data collected so that facts and events can be

better understood, interpreted and explained.

As far as the present study is concerned, a descriptive design is

preferred to other research designs because the study does not seek

218

to explain relationships, to explain cause, or to make predictions or to

test hypothesis about the cause of pupils’ poor performance in text

processing. Based on this, a descriptive research design was used to

describe the extent the primary school pupils are able to use the two

text variables – cohesion and syntax in processing and

comprehending texts.

The Area of the Study

The area of the study is Anambra State of Nigeria. It is a state in the

South East. The state was created in August 1991. It is one of the

most densely populated states in Nigeria. It derives its name from the

Placid Omambra River, easily called Anambra River, which is a

tributary of the River Niger. The people of Anambra are widely known

to be very resourceful and hardworking. Skilled manpower resources

are therefore readily available in almost every field: business,

profession, management, commerce, and industry. A great deal of

importance is attached to education. By the 1991 national population

census, the state has a population of 2796475 and density of 633

persons per square km. By the 2006 population census, it has a

population of males of 2174641 and females of 2007391 and total

4182032 with a land area of 4416sq km with an average density of

219

947 persons per sq km. The state is therefore one of the most

densely populated areas in Nigeria. It has six education zones. They

are: Aguata Education Zone, Awka Education Zone, Nnewi Education

Zone, Ogidi Education Zone, Onitsha Education Zone and Otuocha

Education Zone (Library of Congress, July, 2008).

Aguata Education Zone is the area of the study. The zone is made up

of three local government areas: Aguata Local Government Area,

Orumba North Local Government Area, and Orumba South Local

Government Area. The zone has two federal government institutions:

Federal College of Education (Technical), Umunze and Federal

Polytechnic, Oko. There are one hundred and sixty –one government

owned primary schools in this zone.

Many reasons informed the researcher to use the zone. One, for the

study to be authentic, the researcher has to use the area she is

familiar with. Two, there is need to use the said education zone for

easy access to both semi-rural and rural schools. Three, the choice of

the zone makes it possible for the researcher to interact with the

teachers and the pupils and monitor them during the field work

proper.

220

The Population of the Study

The population of the study was all the primary six pupils in all the

primary schools in Aguata Education Zone of Anambra State. The

review of the related literature has shown that in this part of the world,

primary school level of education is neglected in the areas of

research. Most researchers tend to use secondary and higher

institution students as their subjects. They forget that being the

foundation on which the rest of he structure is built, its administration

should be well planned and secured. There is provision in National

Policy on Education that primary six pupils have to move to the next

stage, which is Junior Secondary School. Before such movement,

there is need to determine their challenges in the area of reading in

order to proffer solutions. This is the first thing that informed the

researcher to select the primary school level of education. The

second factor is based on the fact that primary education is the

concrete foundation and floor upon which sound progressive

educational development in terms of acquisition, analysis, synthesis,

and application of knowledge is based. Therefore a deficiency or lack

of primary education in reading predisposes the child to the problem

of adjusting to secondary and even tertiary education, which should

221

normally continue where primary education ends. Thus, a child

without sound knowledge of text processing skills may lack smooth

transition to secondary school. Third, the acquisition of solid

permanent literacy at this level especially primary six is very

important as functional literacy at higher levels of education would

either be coherent, sound or disjointed depending on the children’s

nature and acquisition of the language skills.

This is the reason why the researcher subjected the pupils to

cohesion and syntactic features as text factors in order to describe

the extent they were able to use them in text processing and

comprehension. By this the researcher was optimistic that the

findings of the present study would serve as an eye opener to

individual teachers, educators, government and indeed the general

public to either help the pupils at the formation stage tackle their

reading problems or improve on their reading skills.

Sample and Sampling Techniques

A stratified sampling technique was used to stratify the schools into

semi urban and rural schools as indicated in the table below:

222

Aguata Local G.

A.

Orumba South

L.G.A.

Orumba North

L.G.A.

Semi

Urban

Schools

Rural

Schools

Semi

Urban

Schools

Rural

Schools

Semi

Urban

Schools

Rural

Schools

2 67 2 38 2 49

2 13 2 8 2 9 36

Table: 3 The number of schools in Aguata Education Zones

After stratifying the schools into different strata, simple random

sampling technique was used to sample the schools from each

stratum. All the schools in the heart of the town of each of these local

government headquarters and the schools in the towns where there

are higher institutions were classified as being in semi urban areas

while other schools outside these areas were classified as being in

rural areas. With the use of cluster sampling technique, the schools

were sampled as follows:

223

Two semi- urban schools from Aguata Local Government Area, two

semi -urban schools from Orumba South, two semi-urban schools

from Orumba North.

What this means is that all the semi-urban schools from the three

local government areas were used giving a total of six semi-urban

schools. Again, cluster-sampling technique was used to sample 20%

of schools from each stratum of each rural school as follows:

Thirteen rural schools from Aguata

Eight rural schools from Orumba South

Nine rural schools from Orumba North

A stratified sampling technique was used again to break each

sampled school into two strata – boys and girls. Each stratum was

split into two by using a simple random sampling technique using

even and odd numbers in the attendance register to constitute Group

A and Group B.

Specifically, the use of slips of paper was used to select the schools.

The names of the schools were written in different papers. The slips

were folded and put in a container. After thorough reshuffling, the

researcher, not looking into the container, dipped her hand and

picked one slip. She unfolded the slip, recorded the name of the

224

school, folded it again and put it back into the container. The process

was repeated until she drew the required number of schools from

rural schools. The total number of schools for the study was 36

schools – 6 semi-urban schools and 30 rural schools.

Procedure for Administering the Instrument

The researcher had a briefing session with the class teachers who

administered the test. The teachers were properly informed of what

were expected of them. The pupils were made to understand the

seriousness of the test. The instrument on cohesion was

administered to every sampled pupil. As the pupils settled to write the

test, version 2A test scripts were given to them alternately, that is, the

teacher gave the first pupil and jumped the second, the third and

jumped the fourth down the line. After that, version 2B test scripts

were given to the rest of the pupils in the class. This meant that

each pupil was expected to write two tests – test on cohesion and test

on either version 2A or version 2B on syntax. The time allowance was

generous since it was important to give every child a chance to try

both tests. Practice items were given before the test proper.

225

Statistical Tools

The data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, ANOVA and

Bonferroni.

Validation of the Instruments

Face and content validation were established for the instruments. To

ensure content validity the sentences that contained measures of

syntactic features were chosen from primary school grammar books,

readers other story books and external examination questions. This is

to say that every thing was based on the scheme of work for primary

school pupils, especially as it concerned primary four, five and six. In

addition to this, face and content validity were established for the

instruments. Experts in the English Language in the college and three

primary school teachers validated the instruments. Only questions

rated fit by 9/12 of the validators were used. The following questions

served as guide to the validators:

1) Having gone through the research questions, hypotheses, and the

purpose of the study, which of the items can actually elicit the

information they are intended to elicit?

2) Which of the items lack clarity?

3) Is the language and expression appropriate to the respondents?

226

4) What have you to say with regards to the overall adequacy of the

instruments?

227

PILOT STUDY Having validated the three instruments, a pilot study was carried out

using primary six pupils from a near by state who had similar

characteristics with the actual subjects of the study. The essence of

this was to see how they would react to the questions/items: whether

the questions were clear enough and easily understood, whether

there was need to include or remove certain items or whether there

were some items the majority of the pupils avoided

Based on the class teachers’ observations and comments and the

pupils’ positive and negative reactions to some of the questions, the

three instruments were modified in the following ways:

It was discovered during the pilot study that certain important

instructions like indicating the sex of the pupils and the names of their

schools were omitted. The time it took the weakest ones to finish the

tests was calculated and based on this, the time for each instrument

was increased from twenty minutes per instrument to thirty minutes.

Because of the number of the pupils involved and the number of the

scripts to mark, the questions were changed from theory to objective

questions with two options as answers. The questions /items the

228

majority of the pupils avoided were either removed or restructured.

Again, the items that lacked clarity were also restructured.

After the amendments that made the language and the expression of

the items/questions appropriate to the respondents, the reliability of

the instruments were established using test-retest reliability

technique.

229

THE RESULTS OF THE PILOT STUDY

Research question 1: To what extent can primary school pupils

utilize their knowledge of certain syntactic features and cohesive ties

as text factors in text processing and comprehension?

Table: 4The Mean Scores of the Respondents in the Three

Instruments

Report

PERCENTAGE ACHIEVEMENT

24.9697 33 14.5956

79.4444 18 20.5890

63.6875 16 13.8165

48.8507 67 29.1487

INSTRUMENTSINSTRUMENT 1COHESIONVERSION 2BINSTRMNT SYNTAXVERSION 2AINSTRMNT SYNTAXTotal

Mean N Std. Deviation

The respondents performed poorly in syntax 2Bversion and syntax

2A version instruments with mean scores of 79.4444 and 63.6875

respectively.

The test of hypothesis one: Pupils do not statistically differ

significantly in their mean scores among the three instruments as text

factors in text processing and comprehension.

230

Table 5: ANOVA Test on the Mean Scores of the

Respondents on the Three Instruments

ANOVA Table

39189.656 2 19594.828 74.263 .00016886.852 64 263.85756076.507 66

(Combined)Between GroupsWithin GroupsTotal

PERCENTAGEACHIEVEMENT *INSTRUMENTS

Sum ofSquares df Mean Square F Sig.

The above hypothesis is rejected, as there is significant difference in

the performance of pupils in the three instruments

Research question 2: To what extent do the mean scores of boys

and girls in text processing differ in the three instruments?

Table 6: The Mean Scores of Boys and Girls in Instrument One-

Cohesion

Reporta


28.3000 10 15.944723.5217 23 14.093424.9697 33 14.5956

GENDER OF PUPILSMALEFEMALETotal


INSTRUMENTS = INSTRUMENT 1 COHESIONa.

Girls performed better than boys in cohesion with a mean score of

23.5217 and the boys with a mean score of 28.3000

231

Table 7: The Mean Scores of Boys and Girls in Syntax 2B

Version

Reporta


87.5714 7 12.286374.2727 11 23.546179.4444 18 20.5890



INSTRUMENTS = VERSION 2B INSTRMNT SYNTAXa.

Girls, again, performed better than boys in syntax 2B version

instrument with a mean score of 74.2727and the boys with a mean

score of 87.5714

Table 8: The Mean Scores of Boys and Girls in Syntax 2A

Version

Reporta


55.3333 3 4.041565.6154 13 14.643263.6875 16 13.8165



INSTRUMENTS = VERSION 2A INSTRMNT SYNTAXa.

The boys performed better in syntax 2A version with a mean score of

55.3333and girls with a mean score of 65.6154

232

The test of hypothesis two: There is no significant difference in the

mean scores of boys and girls in instrument one -cohesion


Instrument One -Cohesion

ANOVA Tablea

159.131 1 159.131 .741 .3966657.839 31 214.7696816.970 32


PERCENTAGEACHIEVEMENT *GENDER OF PUPILS


INSTRUMENTS = INSTRUMENT 1 COHESIONa.

The above hypothesis is accepted, as the difference in performance

of both boys and girls in cohesion is insignificant.

The test of hypothesis three: There is no significant difference in the

performance of boys and girls in syntax 2B version.

233

Table10: ANOVA Test on the Mean Scores of Boys and Girls in

Instrument Syntax 2B Version.

ANOVA Tablea

756.548 1 756.548 1.877 .1906449.896 16 403.1197206.444 17




INSTRUMENTS = VERSION 2B INSTRMNT SYNTAXa.

The above hypothesis is accepted, as the difference in performance

of both boys and girls in syntax 2B version is insignificant

The test of hypothesis four: There is no significant difference in the

performance of boys and girls in syntax 2A version


Instrument Syntax 2A Version.

ANOVA Tablea

257.694 1 257.694 1.385 .2592605.744 14 186.1252863.437 15




INSTRUMENTS = VERSION 2A INSTRMNT SYNTAXa.

The above hypothesis is accepted, as the difference in performance of both boys and girls in syntax 2A version is insignificant

234


60.050.040.030.020.010.00.0

INSTRMT: 3.00 INSTRUMENT 1 COHESION12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Std. Dev = 14.60

Mean = 25.0

N = 33.00

Fig 18: Histogram with normal curve distribution in cohesion Figure 18 above shows that the distribution of achievement scores in instrument 1-cohesion is close to normal

distribution. The instrument was within the level of the pupils with few pupils scoring very high and very low

scores, and a preponderant falling within average.


100.080.060.040.020.0

INSTRMT: 4.00 VERSION 2B INSTRMNT SYNTAX10

8

6

4

2

0

Std. Dev = 20.59

Mean = 79.4

N = 18.00

Fig 19:Histogram with negative skewed distribution in syntax 2B

235

Figure 19 above shows that the pupils’ achievement in this

instrument is negatively skewed. This shows that majority of the

pupils got marks well above the average.


90.080.070.060.050.040.0

INSTRMT: 5.00 VERSION 2A INSTRMNT SYNTAX6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Std. Dev = 13.82

Mean = 63.7

N = 16.00

Fig.20:Histogram with uniform distribution of marks in syntax

2A

Figure 20 above shows that the pupils are almost uniformly

distributed over the range of marks. This means that the distribution

differs from normality even though there is uniform distribution.

236


100.090.0

80.070.0

60.050.0

40.030.0

20.010.0

0.0

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Std. Dev = 29.15

Mean = 48.9

N = 67.00

Fig 21:Histogram with almost normal distribution

The figure above is almost normally distributed showing that a great

number of the respondents got marks that fall within the average

score.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE RELIABILITY OF THE INSTRUMENTS

After the pilot study certain items in the three instruments were

emendated. After amendment that made the language and the

expression of the items/questions appropriate to the respondents, the

reliability of the instruments were established using test-retest

reliability technique. The different scores of the pupils at the first test

and the second test were correlated. The time between the first and

the second test was one month. Below are the results for the three

instruments:

237

Cohesion Reliability

Reliability coefficient=2items

Alpha=. 9082 Standardized item alpha=. 9144

The reliability level of instrument 1-cohesion is very high showing the

alpha level of .9144. The instrument is trustworthy for assessing

cohesion among primary school pupils.

Version 2A Reliability

Reliability coefficient =2 items

Alpha = .8608 Standardized item alpha =. 8673

The reliability level of instrument syntax 2A is very high showing the


syntax among primary school pupils.

Version 2B Reliability

Reliability coefficient =2 items

Alpha =. 9672 Standardized item alpha =. 9686

The reliability level of instrument syntax 2B is very high showing the


syntax among primary school pupils.

238

CHAPTER FOUR

PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS

In this chapter, the data are analyzed and the results are presented in

the tables below.


utilize their knowledge of certain syntactic features and cohesive ties

as text factors in text processing and comprehension using the

expected criterion test of fifty percent?

Table 12: Descriptive Statistics of the Three Instruments

Different versions of

instruments

Mean N Standard

Deviation

Instrument 1 – Cohesion: 1.3168 990 .11820

Version 2B Instrument-syntax 1.2892 501 .19313

Version 2A Instrument-syntax 1.3551 487 .18442

Total 1.3192 .15916

The respondents performed better in syntax 2B version instrument with a

mean score of 1.2892 followed by instrument 1-cohesion with a mean score

of 1.3168 and lastly syntax 2A version instrument with a mean score of

1.3551.

239


utilize certain syntactic features as text factors in text processing and

comprehension?


Respondents in Instruments 2B Version and 2A Version

Version 2B Instrument

Version 2A Instrument

Questions 1-15 Mean

(X)

N Questions 1-

15

Mean

(X)

N

Q 1 1.2415 501 Q 1 1.2404 487

Q 2 1.4710 501 Q 2 1.4704 487

Q 3 1.1876 501 Q 3 1.3101 487

Q 4 1.1078 501 Q 4 1.1643 487

Q 5 1.2156 501 Q 5 1.6530 487

Q 6 1.2754 501 Q6 1.3183 487

Q 7 1.3493 501 Q 7 1.3581 487

Q 8 1.1497 501 Q 8 1.1971 487

Q 9 1.1457 501 Q 9 1.3060 487

Q 10 1.4132 501 Q 10 1.4236 487

240

Q 11 1.4830 501 Q 11 1.4987 487

Q 12 1.3253 501 Q 12 1.3491 487

Q 13 1.2675 501 Q 13 1.3368 487

Q 14 1.3333 501 Q 14 1.3593 487

Q 15 1.3313 501 Q 15 1.3457 487

Overall 1.2892 Overall 1.3551

The respondents’ mean scores in each item in syntax 2B version instrument

and syntax 2A version instrument respectively are presented in the above

table.

Research question 3: What aspects of cohesion and syntactic

features can they positively or negatively utilize in text processing and

comprehension?

241


Respondents in Different Aspects of Syntactic Features and

Cohesive Ties

Instrument 1: Cohesion Instrument 2A: Syntax Type of cohesive ties

Mean X

N

Type of syntactic features

Mean X

N

Cataphora 1.2800 501 Passive voice 1.3183 487 Anaphora 1.2848 501 Placement of

qualifier 1.2372 487

Homophora 1.4606 501 Concealed Idiomatic negative

1.4856 487

Coordinator 1.3929 501 Model auxiliary 1.4076 487 Examplifier 1.0172 501 Clauses 1.3060 487 Contrastive marker

1.7232 501 Double negatives 1.2936 487

Place relater 1.3131 501 Nominalization 1.4887 487 Neither … Nor 1.3491 487 Compound,

complex sentence 1.3368 487

The use of ‘none’ 1.3593 487 The use of ‘or’ 1.2957 487

The aspects of the syntactic features and cohesive ties, which the

primary six pupils can positively and negatively utilize in processing

texts, are presented in the above table.

Research question 4: To what extent do the mean scores of boys

and girls in text processing differ in the three instruments?

242

Table 15: Descriptive Statistics of the Three Instruments by

Gender

Gender of the

Subjects

Mean (X) N Standard Deviation

Boys 1.3284 1046 .16426

Girls 1.3089 932 .15267

Total 1.3192 1978 15916

The figures in the above table show that girls performed better than boys in

the three instruments with the mean scores of 1.3089 and 1.3284

respectively.

Research question 5: To what extent do the mean scores of the

respondents from semi-urban schools and rural schools in text

processing and comprehension differ?

243

Table 16: Descriptive Statistics of the Three Instruments by

Location

Location of schools Mean (X) N Standard Deviation

Rural schools 1.3216 1497 .17868 Semi-Urban schools

1.3185 481 .15242

Total 1978 15916

The figures in the above table show that the respondents from semi-

urban schools performed better than the respondents from rural

schools in the three instruments with the mean scores of 1.3185 and

1.3216 respectively.

Research question 6: To what extent do the mean scores of the

respondents from different socio-economic status differ in text

processing and comprehension?

244

Table 17a: Descriptive Statistics of the Respondents on

Instrument 1-Cohesion by Socio-economic Status

Socio-economic status of parents Mean N Std. Deviation

Educated & workers 1.3323 337 .12466 Educated business parents 1.2978 396 .10883 Uneducated business parents 1.3214 106 .11883 Uneducated farmers 1.3285 151 .12076 Total 1.3168 990 .11820

The figures in the above table show that children of educated

business parents performed better in instrument 1-cohesion with a

mean score of 1.2978 followed by children of uneducated business

parents with a mean score of 1.3214 and then children of uneducated

farmers with a mean score of 1.3285 and lastly children of educated

working class parents with a mean score of 1.3323.

245

Table 17b: Descriptive Statistics of the Respondents on Syntax

2B Version Instrument by Socio-economic Status

Socio-economic status of parents Mean N

Std. Deviation

Educated & workers

1.3010 169 .19136

Educated business parents 1.2755 197 .19252 Uneducated business parents 1.2644 58 .22268 Uneducated farmers 1.3169 77 .17207 Total 1.2892 501 .19313

The figures in the above table show that children of uneducated

business parents performed better in instrument 2B version with a

mean score of 1.2644 followed by children of educated business

parents with a mean score of 1.2755 and then children of educated

working class parents with a mean score of 1.3010 and lastly children

of uneducated farmers with a mean score of 1.3169.

246

Table 17c: Descriptive Statistics of the Respondents on Syntax

2A Version Instrument by Socio-economic Status

Socio-economic status of parents Mean N

Std. Deviation

Educated & workers 1.3681 167 .15861 Educated business parents 1.3307 205 .20301

Uneducated business parents 1.3636 44 .17400

Uneducated farmers 1.3897 71 .18539

Total 1.3551 487 .18442

The figures in the above table show that children of educated

business parents performed better in instrument 2A version with a

mean score of 1.3307 followed by children of uneducated business

parents with a mean score of 1.3636 and then children of educated

working class parents with a mean score of 1.3681 and lastly children

of uneducated farmers with a mean score of 1.3897.

Table 18a: Bonferooni Multiple Comparison Test on Difference of the Mean Scores of the Respondents in the Three Instruments

247

95%

Confidence Interval

(I) Different versions of instruments

(J) Different versions of instruments

Mean Difference (I-J)

Std. Error Sig.

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Syntax-version 2B

.02761* .00864 .004 .0069 .0483 Cohesion-Appendix1 Syntax-

version 2A

-.03833* .00872 .000 -.0592 -.0174

Cohesion-Appendix1

-.02761* .00864 .004 -.0483 -.0069 Syntax-version 2B

Syntax-version2A

-.06594* .01002 .000 -.0900 -.0419

Cohesion-Appendix1

.03833* .00872 .000 .0174 .0592

Bonferroni

Syntax-version 2A

Syntax-version 2B

.06594* .01002 .000 .0419 .0900

*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

The table above shows a Bonferroni post hoc test indicating that the

three instruments with the means as presented therein differ

significantly from each other with significant levels less than 0.05

level of significance for each pair. The mean achievement of pupils is

248

highest in version 2A instrument –syntax followed by instrument 1-

cohesion and then version 2B instrument-syntax.

HO1: Pupils do not statistically differ significantly in their mean scores

among the three instruments as text factors in text processing and

comprehension

Table 18b: ANOVA Test on the Mean Difference of the Three Instruments

Sum of

Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 1.086 2 .543 21.883 .000 Within Groups 48.995 1975 .025 Total 50.081 1977 Signific

ant

The analysis of variance test of the three instruments shows a F-ratio

of 21.883 and a significance level of .000 indicating that the three

instruments differ significantly among themselves. It also shows that

the variation within the groups is less by far than variation between

the groups.

HO2: Gender does not affect pupils’ achievement in the three

instruments as a text factor in text processing and comprehension

249

Table 19a: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Gender in Instrument 1-

Cohesion

Sum of


Between Groups

.000 1 .000 .015 .902

Within Groups

13.817 988 .014

Total 13.817 989 NS

The information in table 19a above shows that there is no significant

difference in the mean scores of boys and girls in instrument 1-

cohesion. The hypothesis that gender does not affect pupils’

achievement in cohesion is accepted.

Table 19b: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Gender in Instrument

2B Version

Sum of


250

Between Groups

.260 1 .260 7.066 .008

Within Groups

18.388 499 .037

Total 18.649 500 Significant

The hypothesis that gender does not affect pupils’ achievement in

instrument 2B version is rejected as the information in the above

table shows that there is a significant difference in the mean scores of

boys and girls in instrument 2A version.

Table 19c: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Gender in Instrument 2A

Version

Sum of


Between Groups

.085 1 .085 2.504 .114

251

Within Groups

16.444 485 .034

Total 16.529 486

Not significant

The hypothesis that gender does not affect pupils’ achievement in

instrument 2B version is accepted as the information in the above

table shows that there is no significant difference in the mean scores

of boys and girls in instrument 2B version. This is indicated in a F-

ratio of 2.504 and a significance level of .114.

HO3: School location does not significantly affect pupils’ achievement

in the three instruments as text factors in text processing and

comprehension.

Table 20a:ANOVA Test on the Effect of School Location on the

Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument 1-Cohesion

Sum of


Between Groups .073 1 .073 1.962 .162 Within Groups 18.576 499 .037 Total 18.649 500 NS

252

The above hypothesis that school location does not affect pupils’

achievement in instrument 1-cohesion is accepted as the information

in the above table shows that there is no significant difference in the

mean scores of respondents from semi-urban areas and respondents

from rural areas. This is indicated in a F-ratio of 1.962 and a

significance level of .162.

Table 20b: ANOVA Test on the Effect of School Location on the

Respondents’ Achievement in Syntax 2B Version Instrument

Sum of



253

The above hypothesis that school location does not affect pupils’

achievement in instrument 2Bversion is accepted as the information

in the table above shows that there is no significant difference in the

mean scores of respondents from semi-urban areas and respondents

from rural areas. This is indicated in a F-ratio of 2.537 and a

significance level of .112.

Table 20c: ANOVA Test on the Effect of School Location on the Respondents’ Achievement in Syntax 2A Version Instrument

Sum of


Between Groups .086 1 .086 2.537

.112

Within Groups 16.443 485 .034 Total 16.529 486 NS

254

Sum of


Between Groups .086 1 .086 2.537

.112

Within Groups 16.443 485 .034 Total 16.529 486 NS Again the hypothesis that school location does not affect pupils’

achievement in syntax 2Bversion instrument is accepted as the

information in the table shows that there is no significant difference in

the mean scores of respondents from semi-urban areas and

respondents from rural areas. This is indicated in a F-ratio of 2.537

and a significance level of .112.

HO4: Socio-economic status of parents does not significantly affect

the respondents’ achievement in the three instruments as text factors

in text processing and comprehension

255

Table 21a: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Socio-economic Status

of Parents on the Respondents’ Achievement in Instrument 1-

Cohesion

Sum of


Between Groups .247 3 .082 5.983 .000 Within Groups 13.570 986 .014 Total 13.817 989 Signifi

cant

The hypothesis that Socio-economic status of parents does not

significantly affect the respondents’ achievement in instrument 1-

cohesin as a text factor in text processing and comprehension is

rejected as the information in the above table shows that there is a

significant difference in the mean scores of the respondents from

different socio-economic status. This is indicated in a F- ratio of 5.983

and a significance level of .000. In other words, socio-economic

status of parents affects pupils’ achievement in cohesion as a text

factor in text processing and comprehension.

256

Table 21b: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Socio-economic Status

of Parents on the Respondents’ Achievement in Syntax 2B

Version Instrument

Sum of


Between Groups .155 3 .052 1.392 .244 Within Groups 18.493 497 .037 Total 18.649 500 NS The hypothesis that Socio-economic status of parents does not affect

the respondents’ achievement in syntax 2B version instrument as a

text factor in text processing and comprehension is accepted as the

information in the above table shows that there is no significant

difference in the mean scores of the respondents from different socio-

economic status. This is indicated in a F- ratio of 1.392 and a

significance level of .244. In other words, socio-economic status of

parents does not affect pupils’ achievement in syntax as a text factor

in text processing and comprehension.

Table 21c: ANOVA Test on the Effect of Socio-economic Status

of Parents on the Respondents’ Achievement in Syntax 2A

Version Instrument

257

Sum of



The hypothesis that Socio-economic status of parents does not affect

the respondents’ achievement in syntax 2A version instrument as a

text factor in text processing and comprehension is accepted as the

information in the above table shows that there is no significant

difference in the mean scores of the respondents from different socio-

economic status. This is indicated in a F- ratio of 1.351 and a

significance level of .072. In other words, socio-economic status of

parents does not affect the pupils’ achievement in syntax as a text

factor in text processing and comprehension.

The Summary of the Major Findings

The major findings of the research work include:

258

1. That using the expected criterion test of fifty percent as a

standard, the respondents’ performance in the three

instruments respectively is between 50% and above and that

they performed better in instrument 2B version with a mean

score of 1.2892 followed by instrument 1-coshesion with a

mean score of 1.3168 and lastly instrument 2A version with a

mean score of 1.3551.

2. That comparing instrument 2B version that served as a control

group and instrument 2A version that served as an

experimental group, the respondents performed better in

instrument 2B version – syntax with a score of 1.2892 and that

the difference in performance was statistically significant.

3. That in order of difficulty, contrastive marker with a mean score

of 1.7232, homophora with a mean score of 1.4606, coordinator

with a mean score of 1.3929 and place relater with a mean

score of 1.3131 are the aspects of cohesion that posed problem

to the respondents, and that in the reverse order, exemplifier

with a mean score of 1.0172, and cataphora with a mean score

of 1.2800 are the aspects of cohesion that did not pose problem

to the respondents.

259

4. That in order of difficulty, nominalization with a mean score of

1.4887, concealed idiomatic negative with a mean score of

1.4076, “neither … nor” with a mean score of 1.3491, “none”

with a mean score of 1.3592 etc are the aspects of syntax that

posed a problem to the respondents.

5. That the girls performed better than the boys in the three

instruments with a mean score of 1.3089 and boys, with a

mean score of 1.3284.

6. That the location of the school affects achievement in text

processing with the respondents from semi-urban areas

performing better with a mean score of 1.3185.

7. And finally, that the socio-economic status of the parents affect

achievement in text processing with the respondents of the

educated, and probably wealthy business parents performing

better with a mean score of 1.3013 followed by the subjects of

uneducated business parents with a mean score of 1.3160 and

then, respondents from educated and working class parents

with a mean score of 1.3338 and lastly, the subjects of

uneducated farming class parents with a mean score of 1.3450.

260

CHAPTER FIVE

DISCUSSION

261

In this chapter, the findings of the study, together with the implication,

the recommendation, and the summary of the study are discussed in

detail. The study, specifically, attempted to investigate and to

describe empirically the extent to which primary six pupils in Anambra

State could utilize their knowledge of certain syntactic features and

cohesive ties in text processing and comprehension. The study

equally attempted to describe how the two text factors interacted with

learner factors: gender, environment and socio-economic status of

the parents to influence the subjects’ achievement in text processing

and comprehension.

The findings of the study show that using the expected criterion test

of fifty percent as a standard, the respondents’ performance in the

three instruments: cohesion and syntax 2B version and syntax 2A

version respectively is between fifty percent and above and that they

performed better in instrument 2B version. The scores of the brighter

ones helped to raise the scores of the weaker ones and this made it

possible for the subjects to have an average fifty percent and above

in the three instruments. Comparing their performance in

instrument1-cohesion and syntax 2A version instrument, it was

discovered that they performed better in cohesion. Their good

262

performance in cohesion could be attributed to the fact that the

sentences under syntax, 2A version contain certain features that give

room to misinterpretation. Since no study has been carried out to

compare the effect of syntax and cohesion as text factors on

children’s text processing and comprehension, the researcher stands

on the findings of the present study to say that cohesion, as a text

factor, positively affects children’s performance in text processing and

comprehension more than syntax for the reason stated above. The

result of hypothesis one ( ) revealed that the difference in

achievement in the three instruments was significant.

Again, comparing instrument 2B version that served as a control

group with instrument 2A version that served as an experimental

group, the respondents performed better in instrument 2B version

with a mean score of 1.2892 and 1.3551 respectively. The difference

in performance in the two instruments can be attributed to the fact

that version 2A instrument contains stylistic features which occur

rarely in speech environment of the children especially the second

language environment. It is believed that the children have not learnt

how to interpret them. The finding was in line with Jessie’s research

finding.

263

Still in support of this, the result of hypothesis one ( ) showed that

there was not only a significant difference in the performance of the

respondents in the two instruments but that the difference was very

significant. The lexical items that bring about the overall difference in

performance in the two instruments are discussed in detail below:

Items 1 and 2 are in the passive voice. 24% and 48% respectively of

the respondents misinterpreted the two sentences as “the enemy

meeting the children’s mother” and “the woman following the

children.”

Items 3 and 4 with the qualifiers “with an old hoe and a large stick”

and “a long dangerous stick” respectively are separated from the

noun phrases, “the angry and poor old gardener” and “the madman”.

For this reason, 31% and 16% of the respondents interpreted the

sentences as “the boy holding a hoe and a stick” and “the children

holding a long dangerous stick” respectively.

Items 5 and 6 are concealed idioms and for this reason about 65%

and 31% the respondents respectively misinterpreted them as “my

father being pleased” and as “the speaker knowing that the boy was

quite innocent”

264

Items 7 and 8 contain modal verbs and for this reason, 34% and 18%

respectively of the respondents misinterpreted them as “children are

not always stubborn” and “the person is not hungry.”

Item 9 is a complex sentence and for this reason, 31% of the

respondents misinterpreted it as “the twin baby boy always taking the

best place in the palour.”

Item 10 contains double negatives and for this reason, 41% of the

respondents interpreted it as “a snake not giving birth to something

long.”

In item 11, the verb is nominalized and so, 19% of the respondents

misinterpreted the sentence as “many children going to school.”

Item 12 uses neither…. nor, and 35% of the respondents

misinterpreted boy’s shirt as being new and old.

Item 13 is a compound complex sentence, and 34% of the

respondents misinterpreted the sentence as “the parts of goods being

caused.”

Items 14 and 15 make use of none and or respectively and so, 36%

and 33% respectively of the respondents misinterpreted the

sentences as “some places offering comfort” and “cygnets” as being

different from the little swans.

265

The study revealed that the respondents performed better in syntax

version 2B because the sentences were restructured by removing the

features that caused the confusion in instrument version 2A. This is in

line with Jessie’s (382) research finding that certain syntactic features

that are seldom used in the speech environment of children make text

processing and comprehension difficult. Harrison (24) is of the view

that these features that appear in syntax are not flaws on the part of

any writer. A writer might decide to use them to present his ideas.

Since the features are not flaws, the second language learners

should be helped early in life by enriching their speech

environment/situation with these features that occur in written

language.

Furthermore, the study revealed, in order of difficulty the contrastive

marker with the highest mean score of 1.7232, followed by

homophora with a mean score of 1.4606, coordinator with a mean

score of 1.3929 and place relater with a mean score of 1.3131 etc as

aspects of cohesion that posed problem to the respondents. The

study revealed, in reverse order, the following as aspects of cohesion

that did not pose problem to the respondents: exemplifier with a

266

mean score of 1.0172, cataphora with a mean score of 1.2800, and

anophora with a mean score of 1.2848.

In the same way, the study revealed in order of difficulty, the aspects

of syntax that posed problem to the respondents beginning with

nominalization with the highest mean score of 1.4887, concealed

idiomatic negative with a mean score of 1.4856, modal verb with a

mean score of 1.4076, the use of none with a mean score of 1.3491,

compound-complex sentences with a mean score of 1.3368. In a

reverse order, too, the following did not pose any problem to the

respondents: placement of the qualifier with a mean score of 1.2372,

double negative with a mean score of 1.2936, the use of “or” with a

mean score of 1.2957, complex sentence with a mean score of

1.3060 and the use of passive voice with a mean score of 1.3183. No

study has been carried out to show the order of syntactic features

and cohesive ties that pose problem to the primary school pupils. For

this reason, the researcher stands on the findings of the present

study to say that what are presented above are the order and aspects

of syntax and cohesion that pose problem to the primary school

pupils.

267

Again, the study revealed that gender is a relevant factor in text

processing achievement. This, according to research findings, is due

to the fact that males and females differ in a number of sensory and

perceptual capacities. The results of the study showed that the girls

performed better than the boys because of the nature of the texts.

This is in line with Bugel and Baunk’s (15-31) research findings that

while girls perform better in the topics that have to do with midwives,

sad stories and house dilemma, boys perform better on topics that

have to do with cars, football, mathematical and spatial abilities. The

findings are also in line with Jackline’s as cited in Morgan at al(1979)

and Brantmeier’s(1-23) research findings. Dehelin’s(2006) work not

only revealed that girls performed better than boys but that they also

were more likely to persist reading than were boys.

The girls performing better than the boys in the present study could

be attributed to the fact that the topics have nothing to do with sports,

cars, and so on. However, the result of the hypothesis two ( )

revealed that the difference in performance in the three instruments

was only significant in syntax version 2A instrument. The difference in

the performance was not significant in instrument 1- cohesion and

syntax version 2B instrument. This is consistent with the findings from

268

research works, which had shown contradictory evidence in

academic achievement of students due to sex. For example, Dramole

(83) and Orji (108) found that there was no statistical significant

difference in the performance of girls and boys in reading

achievement.

The study again revealed that the respondents from semi-urban

areas performed better than the respondents from rural areas with a

mean score of 1.3185 and 1.3216 respectively. This could be

attributed to the fact that the children from semi-urban areas had

access to both human and material resources. The findings of the

study are consistent with Lloyd’s (http//www) research findings, which

showed that it is not necessarily where children live later in life that

matter for understanding literacy in early adolescent, but where they

lived years earlier. The result is also in line with the statement that

children’s reading comprehension may be set on a negative course

early in life if children and their families are living in resource deprived

places.

The researcher’s personal experience or discovery during the

fieldwork was that most of the schools in the rural areas lack teachers

and only God knows how competent and devoted the ones they have

269

are. In some schools you see a teacher handling primary four and

five pupils or two and three together. Still in some others, you see a

teacher moving from one classroom to the other in the name of

keeping the children busy. The researcher also personally observed

that many of the children leave the school compound to play either

street football or other rough games. Many of the schools visited

could not boast of sufficient teaching aids. Dilapidated structures,

rough floors and dirt remain the typical features of most of the rural

schools. In line with the researcher’s personal observation and the

findings of the present study, Onoko(9) has this to say: “It is criminal

for pupils to learn under bad condition[sic]. It is also a waste of

resources and time for any school to function below minimum

standard [sic]. Children should be given the right orientation to

encourage learning.” And the researcher adds that it is an abuse of

children to learn under such condition. It is, therefore, in order to

agree with Lloyd’s research findings that resource-deprived places

negatively affect achievement in text processing and comprehension.

However, the result of hypothesis two (Ho2) revealed that the

difference in performance of the respondents in the three instruments

was not statistically significant. The hypothesis that location does not

270

significantly affect reading achievement in the three instruments is

accepted. The difference in performance not being significant could

be attributed to the fact that both semi-urban and rural schools have

almost the same features and they all are government public schools.

Finally, the overall mean scores of the respondents in the three

instruments revealed that while the respondents of the educated and

business parents with a mean score of 1.3013 took the first position

followed by the children of the uneducated and business parents with

a mean score of 1.3160 and children of the educated and working

class parents with a mean score of 1.3338, the children of the

uneducated and farmers appeared last with a mean score of 1.3450.

The results showed really that the socio-economic status of the

parents affect children’s achievement in text processing and

comprehension. Two powerful factors that affect performance in this

study are education and the wealth of parents. For children to

perform positively, their parents must, in addition to be educated,

have money as the study revealed. The findings are in line with many

research findings. For example, Lloyd’s research work (http//www)

revealed the same thing, which the present study revealed that

children from higher economic status perform better than children

271

who come from poor and uneducated parents. This is also in line with

many research findings that parents’ educational and economic

status exert a strong effect on children’s text processing ability. This

is because acquiring text-processing skills involves the collective

efforts of parents, educators, family friends and community as well as

access to good schools, libraries, after-school programmes and other

educative resources. The results are equally consistent with Jessie’s

and other research findings that children from literate and wealthy

homes learn to read because they need to communicate. Again,

children from high socio-economic and educated parents tend to

excel in text processing activities because they have the additional

stimulation of a large number of books of all kinds and the frequent

examples of adults and siblings spending time in reading. The result

of the hypothesis four (H04) revealed that except in instrument one

which is on cohesion where the difference in performance among

children from different socio-economic status is significant, the

difference in performance in instrument 2B version and 2A version is

not significant.

272

Implications of the Study

The results of the study have obvious implications for the learning of

the second language, as there is an urgent need to bridge the gap

between speech and its graphic representation. The gap can be

bridged by starting early to equip the child through enriching her

speech environment/situation with those aspects of syntactic

complexity and cohesive ties that appear in written language.

Harrison is of the opinion that using them in writing is not in any way

related to flaws in writing. For this reason, depriving a child the

opportunity of hearing and listening to these features will constitute

serious barrier in her bid to learn not only the second language but

also his mother tongue (Jessie 383).

Again, the study revealed that environment is an important learner

factor in text processing. The x-ray of the state of primary schools,

especially the ones in the rural areas by Ayu (7), has shown that they

function very much below minimum standards. The rural schools are

characterized by the lack of both human and material resources.

Since the majority of the pupils are rural dwellers, there is need to

provide public libraries and other educational facilities at strategic

places in every town. This is to guard against Lloyd’s statement that

273

children’s reading comprehension may be set on a negative course

early in life if children and their families live in resource deprived

places.

Since the findings of the present study revealed that socio-economic

status of parents exert a strong effect on children’s text processing

achievement, there is an urgent need to help the poor and the rural

dwellers by making education free for all and by providing rich

libraries, after- school programmes and other facilities both in the

schools and in the towns. This is a challenge to individuals, churches,

organizations, town unions, age grades, business people, and men

and women of good will.

Finally, since the present and previous studies have revealed that

gender is a powerful factor in text processing achievement due to the

fact that males and females differ in a number of sensory capacities,

and that males excel in spatial and mathematical abilities, topics that

have to do with cars, football etc and females excel in topics that

have to do with midwives, sad stories and house dilemma, there is,

therefore, the need to guard against this by adopting reading

materials that favour the boys and the ones that favour the girls. In

co-classes, different reading materials or mixed reading materials

274

should be adopted so that both will benefit. The study, therefore,

encourages the importance of putting into consideration the nature of

boys and girls while choosing the reading topics.

Recommendations

Based on the findings of this work, the following recommendations

are made:

1. Parents, family friends and well-wishers should help to

supplement the efforts of the schools by enriching the speech

environment of the children from 6 years and above with

aspects of syntactic features and cohesive ties that appear in

written language.

2. The government, individuals, churches, communities, and

organizations should help the rural dwellers/pupils by providing

resource-enriched environments through libraries, educational

centers and other educational facilities.

3. There should be free and qualitative education for all in order to

accommodate children from poor socio-economic status.

4. Reading should be seen and handled as a separate course at

all levels of education.

275

5. Authors, curriculum planners, teachers and, indeed, parents

should always put into consideration the reading topics that

favour the boys and the ones that favour the girls and, of

course, the ones that favour both, hence, the importance of

gender and individual differences in language learning.

6. Parents, as a matter of priority should discourage their children

from engaging themselves so much in operating home videos

as the findings of the present study have equally shown that

they find it difficult to read textbooks whenever they mean to

watch or operate the videos

Limitations of the Study

The study has the limitations of the respondents’ absence from the

school after the sampling exercise. The exercise was carried out

twice in each thirty-six sampled schools. The problem encountered

therefore was that some pupils who did the first test on cohesion

were not present on the second day for the tests on instrument 2B

version and 2A version. This problem also led to the problem of

unequal boys and girls and unequal number of respondents in

different groups.

276

Another problem encountered was the insincerity on the part of some

teachers and the headmasters/mistresses. They saw the exercise as

government activity that would attract tangible national award to the

winners. This nearly pushed them into aiding their pupils. To get a

desired result/feedback, the researcher had to be physically present

on the days the tests were administered.

Conclusion

This research work focused on text processing among primary school

pupils in Anambra State. Conceptually, text processing is the term

that denotes cognitive activities involved in understanding, retaining

and remembering text. It is a process of one committing oneself to

the total thinking or reasoning on the topic that is expressed and

presented before one. Text processing is one of the most important

skills bestowed on humanity by civilization for individual and societal

progress and development. The importance of this gift of civilization

was first discovered and cherished in the United States of America in

the early 1960s. Since then, the focus of reading specialists and,

indeed, different agencies worldwide has been essentially on the

search for the effective ways of teaching text processing and

particularly on the effectiveness and hence the appropriateness of

277

alternative methods of instruction in arresting the learners’ problem of

learning meaningfully.

The focus of this work is therefore in line with the noble objective,

especially as the work explored different reading theories, models

and issues that underline text processing and comprehension

activities. The theories include: perceptual, cognitive, linguistic,

psycholinguistic and schema theories of text processing and

comprehension. The advantages and disadvantages of each have

been highlighted in this work.

Despite the widespread divergence in the perception of what text

processing truly is, no one is in doubt that it is the process of

decoding information from written or printed texts. It is based on this

that two theoretical definitive thrusts that emphasize either the

processes involved or the products emerged. Those who argue that

text processing is a psycholinguistic guessing game do so to

subscribe to the process theoretical school. The product school

places premium on information retrieval, the result of the text

processing activity. None of these views could be dismissed as

irrelevant since they are debating on decoding versus meaning. Be

278

this as it may, the researcher’s view is that too much emphasis

should not be given to the concept of text processing.

Like any other profession, teachers are held accountable for the ways

in which they carry out their professional tasks. For this reason, they

should bear in mind or buy the views of the two schools of thought

and at the same time make efforts or device other strategies towards

improving the teaching of text processing at various levels of

education in Nigeria. They should also make conscious effort to

bridge the gap between the children’s speech environment and the

written language. They should do this by introducing early those

syntactic features and cohesive ties that are used in written language

in the children’s speech environment. They should also bear in mind

that gender, environment and socio-economic status of parents are

important learner factors in text processing achievement.

If professional teachers in general and language teachers in

particular, should put into consideration the above facts and go ahead

to put them into practice, it is the sincere belief of the researcher that

teaching of text processing would no longer be seen as a ‘do’ or ‘die’

affair by the learners but rather will produce individuals with an all

279

round education who will not only be useful to themselves but also to

their society.

280

WORKS CITED Adams,M. and Bruce, B. “Background Knowledge and Reading

Comprehension.” Reader Meet Author: Bridging the Gap. Eds. Langer, J.A. and Smith- Burke, M.T. Newark, D.E: International Reading Association, 1982. 2-25.

Aghenta, J.A. “Strategies for Reform of Vocational Education in

Nigeria.” Education and Development 2 .1(1982): 342-345. Alexander, P.A. “Knowledge-Seeking and Self-schema: A Case for

the Motivation Dimensions of Exposition.” Educational Psychology.32.2 (1997): 83-94.

Alexander, P.A. and Jettson, T.L. “Learning from Mext: A

Multidimensional and Developmental Process.” Eds. Kamil, M. L. Mosenthal, P.B., Pearson, P.D. and Barr, R. Handbook of Reading Research. 3. Mahwah, N.J: Erlbaum, 2000 .285-310.

Alexander, P. A., Kulikowich, J. M. &Schulze, S.K. “How Subject

Matter Knowledge Affects Recall and Interest.” American Educational Research Journal. 31.2(1994): 313-337.

Alexander, P. A., Kulikowich, J. M. &Jetton, T. C. ‘The Role of

Subject Matter Knowledge & Interest in the Processing of Liner and Non –liner Text.’ Review of Educational Research.64.2(1994):201-252.

Anderson, R.C. “Schema –directed Processes in Language

Comprehension.” Cognitive Psychology & Instruction. Eds. A. M. Lesgold et al. New York: Plenum, 1978. 78-112.

Anderson, J. “Language Form and Linguistic Variation.” A Paper

Dedicated to Angus Mclntoish John Benjamins , 2004. Armbruster, B.B. “The Problem of Inconsiderate Text.”

Comprehension Instruction: Perspective and Suggestion. Eds. Duffy, G.G., Roehler, L.R. and Mason, J. New York: Long man, 1984. 202-217.

281

Ausubel, P. “The Use of Advance Organizers in the Learning and Retention of Meaningful Verbal Material.” Journal of Educational Psychology . 21. 51(1960): 267-272.

Attey Irene. “Affective Factors in Reading.” Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. Eds. Singer, Harry and Ruddell, Robber B. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, 1971. 98-114.

Ayu, I. “New Direction in Nigeria Education.” Education Today. 7(1) (1994): 1-16 Baldeh, Foder. Better English Language Learning and Teaching. Nsukka: Fudladu Publishing Company, 1990. Barker-Lunn, J.G. Streaming in the Primary School. Slough: NFER

Brookover, W.B, 1970. Beck, I.L, McKeown, M.G., Sinatra, G.M. and Loxterman, A.

“Revising Social Studies Text from a Text Processing Perspective: Evidence of Improved Comprehensibility.” Reading Research Quarterly. 26.3(1991): 251- 276.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., Hamilton,R.L. and Kucah, L.

“Getting at the Meaning: How to Help Students Unpack Difficult Text.” American Educator .22.2(1998): 66-71.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G. “Comprehension: The Sine qua non of

Reading.” Teaching and Change. 6.2(1999)197-211. Bentin ,S., Deutsch ,A and Liberman ,I .Y “Syntactic Competence

and Reading Ability in Children.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 48(1950): 147-172.

Bovair, .S. and Kieras, .D.E. “Toward a Model of Acquiring

Procedures from Text.” Handbook of Reading Research Eds. Barr, R., Kamil, M.L., Mosenthal, P.B. and Pearson, P.D. NewYork: Longman,1991.

282

Brantmeier, C. “Does Gender Make a Difference? Passage, Content and Comprehension in Second Language Reading.” Reading and a Foreign Language 15.1(2003): 1-23.

Brantmeier, C. “Gender, Violence-oriented Passage, Content, and

Second Language Reading Comprehension.” 2004, 1-19 Cbrantine @ artsci Wustle. Edu.

Bricklin , Patricia M. “Self-Related Concepts and Aspiration:

Behavour of Achieving Readers and Two Types of Non - achieving Readers.” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation,1965. Temple University.

Bugel, K. and Baunk, B.P. “Sex Differences in Foreign Language

Text Comprehension: The Role of Interest and Prior Knowledge.” Modern Language Journal . 80(1996): 14-31.

Cairns, H. S.,Mc Danial, D., Hsu, J.R., Defino, S.P., Konstantyn, D.

“Grammatical and Discourse Principles in Children’s Grammar : The Pronoun Conference Requirement.” CUNNY Forum, 19 PhD Programme in Linguistics, CUNNY Graduate Center, 1995.

Carrel, P.L. and Eisterhold, J.C. “Schema Theory and ESL Reading

Pedagogy.” TESOL Quarterly. 17(1983): 43-59. Carrillo, L.W. “The Relation of Certain Environmental and

Developmental Factors to Reading Ability.”1964. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Indiana University.

Carrol, John B. “The Nature of Reading Process.” Theoretical Models

and Processes of Reading. Eds. Singer, Harry and Ruddell, Robber B. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, 1971.292.

Chale, J.S. “Readability and Prose Comprehension: Continuities and

Discontinuities.” Understanding Reading Comprehension: Cognition, Language, and the Structure of Prose.Ed.Flood,J. Newark, DE: International reading Association,1984.

283

Chavez, M. “Gender in the Language Classroom.” New York: Mc Graw Hill,2001.64.

Chief Examiner’s Report on May/June SSCE, 2000, 2002 and 2003. Coleman, E.B. “Experimental Studies of Readability.” Elementary

English. 45(1968): 166-178. Coppersmith, S. The Antecedents of Self-Esteem. Sanfrancisco:

Freeman,1967. Cudd, E.T. and Robert, L.L. “Using Story Frames to Develop Reading

Comprehension in 1st Grade Class Room.” The Reading Teacher. 41(1987): 75-791.

Daramole, S. O “The Influence of Location and Sex Difference on the Knowledge of Basic Physics Possessed by Four 4 Students in Kwara State.” Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, University of Ilorin,1983. Darlington. “Sex Difference in Education.” The Encounter (1971)

6(2) 6. Dawkins, J. Syntax and Readability. Newark Delaware: International

Reading Association, 1975. Dehelin, Jill. “Reading Comprehension: Finding a Match between

Reader and Text www.dehelin.com., 2006. Doak, C.C., Doak, L.G. and Root, J.H. Teacher Patients with Low

Literacy Skills. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott , 1996. Driscoll, M. Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Boston: Allyn and

Bacon, 1994. Durkin, Dolores. “Children Who Learn to Read before Grade One.”

Reading Teacher. 1(1979): 418. Emenyonu, P.T. Reading and the Nigerian Cultural Background.

Enugu, Lagos, and Abuja: New Generation Books, 2000.

284

Erickson, E.L. and Jones, L.M. Self-concept of Ability and School Achievement III. Michigan: Educational Publishing Services, College of Education, University of Michigan, 1967.

Faloyajo, W., Mokoju, G.A.E, Okobukola, P., Onugha, D. and

Olubodum, J. “Assessing of Learning Achievement of Primary Four Pupils in Nigeria.” Nigeria: Scamp production, 1997.

Farhaday, H. “Measures of Language Proficiency from the Learners’

Perspective.” TESOL Quarterly. 16(1982): 43-59. Ford, N. and Chen, S.Y. “Individual Difference Hypermedia

Navigation and Learning: An Empirical Study.” Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia .9.4 (2000)281-311.

Fries, C.C. Linguistics and Reading. New York: Holt Rinehart and

Winston, 1963. Gagne, Robert M. Conditions of Learning. New York: Holt, Rinehart

and Winstone, 1965. Geyer, John J. “Models of Perceptual Processes in Reading.”

Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. Eds. Singer, H. and Ruddell, R. Newark , Delaware: International Reading Association , 1971.

Goldman, S.R. and Rakestraw, J.A. “Structural Aspects of

Constructing Meaning from Text.” Handbook of Reading Research. Eds. M.L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson and R. Barr. Mahwah, N.J: Erlbaum, 2000.311-335.

Goodman, Yetta. “Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game.”

Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading. Eds. Singer, H. and Ruddell, R. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association. , 1971.

Gorden, C.J. “The Role of Prior Knowledge in Narrative and

Expository Text.”1992. ERIC Document Reproductive Service.

285

Gorden, C.J. and Braun, C. “Guidelines for Teaching Story Schema.” The Reading Teacher\.2(1983): 116-121.

Grellet, F. Developing Reading Skills: A Practical Guide to Reading

Comprehension. New York : Cambridge University Press, 1981. Gunning, Thomas G. “Creating Reading Instruction for all Children.”

Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 6(1996): 192-236. Guthrie, J.T. “Educational Content for Engagement in Literacy.” The

Reading Teacher. 49. 6(1996): 432-445. Guthrie, J.T. and Wigfield , A. “Engagement and Motivation in

Reading.” Handbook of Reading Research. Eds. M. K. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson and R. Barr. 3. Mahwah, N. J.: Erlbaum , 2000.403-422.

Halliday, M.A.K and Hassan, R. Cohesion in English. London:

Longman UK Group Limited, 1996. Halliday, M.A.K. “Text and Content: Language in a Social-Semiotic

Perspective.” Linguistic. Ed. Sophia. VL. Tokyo: Sophia University Graduate School of Languages and Linguistics, 1980.

Hillinger, M.L. “Using Hypermedia to Support Understanding of

Expository Text: Examples from the Workplace and Classroom.” Recreating the Revolution, Proceedings of the Annual National Computing Boston, M.A. 1994. ERIC Document Reproduction Service

Harrison, Colin. Readability in the Classroom. London, New York,

Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Hewitt, G. A. “Critique of Research Methods in the Study of Reading

Comprehension.” British Educational Journal. 8.1(1982): 86-92. Heilman, Arthur, W. Blair, T.R. Rupley and H. William. Principles and

Practice of Teaching Reading. (7ed.) New York, Oxford, Singapore: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990.

286

Hidi, S. &Harachiewicz, J. M. “Motivating the Academically Unmotivated: A Critical Issue for the 21st Century.” Review of Educational Research. 70.2(2000): 151 –179.

Hodges, John C. and Whitten, Mary E. Harbrace College Handbook. New York/ London/ Sydney/ Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1982.

Horiba, Y. “Reader Control in Reading: Effects of Language

Competence Text Type and Task.” Discourse Processing. 29. 3(2000): 223- 267.

Huey, Edmund Burk. The Psychology Pedagogy of Reading. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1968.

Humffman, Lois E. “Spotlighting Specifics by Combining Focus Questions with K- W- L.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 6(1998): 470-471.

Ike-Nwafor, G.N and Udensi, U.J. Style and Clarity in English. Lagos:

Mofolu Printing, 2006. Ikonta, Nonye R. “Reading to Write: A Strategy for Improving the

Writing Performance of PRE-Service Student Teachers of English Languages.” Journal of Literacy and Reading in Nigeria. 10.1(2004): 104.

Imosemi, B. “Giving the Child the Best Legacy.” Daily Time.7 June,

1996. 13. Jessie, Red and Harry, Donaldson. Reading: Problems and Practice.

London: Ward Lock Educational, 1977. 383. Jonz, L “Textual Cohesion and Second Language Comprehension.”

Language Learning. 37: 30(1987): 25- 30. Just, M.A. and Carpenter, P.A. Learning from Text: The Psychology

of Reading and Language Comprehension. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1987. 400-424.

287

Kamil, M.I., Intrator, S.M. and Kirn, H.S. “The Effects of Other Technologies on Literacy and Learning.” Handbook of Reading Research. Eds. M.K. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal , P.D. Pearson and R. Barr. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2000.771-788.

Katims, David S. “Improving the Reading Comprehension of Middle

School Students in Inclusive Classroom.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 2(1997): 116-124.

Kavan, James “Forward.” Theoretical Models and Processes of

Reading. Eds. Singer, Herry and Ruddell, Robert B. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association , 1971.ix-x.

Keppel, Francis. “Research: Education’s Neglected Hope.” Journal of

Reading .8(1964): 3-9. Kintsch, W., Kozmmnsky, E. , Streby ,W. J., McKoon, G. and

Keenan, J. M. “Comprehension and Recall of Text as a Function of Content Variables.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour. 14(1975):196-214

Kitao, Kathleen S. “Textual Schemata and English Language

Learning: Cross Currents.” 3(1994): 147-155. Klare, G .R. “Readability.” Handbook of Reading Research. Ed.

Pearson, P.D. New York: Longman, 1984.181- 243. Kress, Roy A. “An Investigation of the Relationship between Concept

of Formation and Achievement in Reading.” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, 1955. Temple University.

Langer, J.A. “Process of Understanding: Informative Purposes.”

Research in the Teaching of English .24. 3(1990): 229-260. Lawless, K.A, Brown, S. W., and Mills, R. “Knowledge, Interest, Recall and Navigation: A Look at Hypertext Processing.” Proceedings of Selected Research and Development Presentations at the National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology St Louis, M. O. 1998. ERIC Document Reproduction Service.

288

Lloyd. http.//wwww.ubc.ca Longe, V. “Teaching to Read and Understand.” The Teaching of

English Studies: Reading for Colleges and Universities. Ed. Ubahakwe, M. A.. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1979.

Lyons, J. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1977. 573- 584. Mackey, William Francis. Language Teaching Analysis. London:

Longman, 1965. Martohardjono, G., Othegu, R., Gabriele, A., Malone, M.,

Pyrzonowski, M., Troseth, E., Rivero, S., and Schutzman, Z. “Impaired

Readers and the Source of their Inferior Performance.” Graduate Center. University of New York, 2008.

Mcmichel , Paquita “Self- esteem, Behavour and Early Reading Skills

in Infant School Children” . Reading, Problems and Practices. Eds. Jessie, F. Field and Harry, Donaldson, 1977. 115-124.

Meyer, B.J.F. and Poo, L. W. “Age Differences in Efficiency of

Reading Comprehension from Printed Text Versus Computer Displayed Text.” Educational Gerontology. 23.8(1997): 789-807.

Meyer, B.J.F. “Organizational Aspect of Text: Effects on Reading

Comprehension.” Promoting Reading Comprehension Ed. J. Flood. New Mark: D. E. International Reading Association, Inc., 1985.113-138.

Miller, George A. “Some Preliminaries to Psycholinguistics.”

American Psychology. 20.18 (1965). Mitra, A. and Hullett, C. R. “Toward Evaluating Computer Aid

Instruction: Attitudes, Demographics, Context, Evaluation and Programme Planning.” Reading Journal. 20.4(1997): 379- 391.

289

Morgan,C.T.; King,R.A., Robinson,N.M. Introduction to Psychology (6th ed.). Tokyo: McGraw-Hill KOGAKUSHA Limited, 1979. Musonza, Ignatius. Takataka’s Father Series Reading World :Every

Day World. Level 6. Malaysia: Macmillan, 2004. Nduka, D. “Reading Comprehension.” Communication Skills in

English. Eds. Osakwe, N., Okoye, I., Umeasiegbu, R. Enugu: John Jacob’s Classic Publishers Ltd, 1997.

Ngonebu, C. L. “The Structure of English in Science and Technology: A Study of the Discourse Features in Expository Writing of Engineering Students.” Concepts and Issues in Language Studies. Eds. Emeka Otagburuagu and Polycarp Anyanwu. Owerri: Springfield Publishers, 2002. 82-105. Nodushan http//www.languageIndia.com. (6) 2006. Norris, S.P. and Philip, L. M. “The Relevance of a Reader’s

Knowledge within a Perceptual View of Reading.” Journal of Reading Behaviour.26.4(1994):391-412.

Nuttall, C. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. Ibadan:

Heinemann, 1982. Odumuh, Theresa Ohi. “Primary School Literacy as a Tool for Youth

Development and National Integration in Nigeria.” Journal of Literacy and Reading in Nigeria .10.1(2004): 130-134.

Okabukola, F. O. “Children’s Emergent Reading in English: From

Theory to Practice.” Journal of Literacy and Reading in Nigeria. 10.1(2004): 9-12.

Ohihausen, M.M. and Roller, C.M. “The Operation of Text Structure

and Content Schemata in Isolation and in Intersection.” Reading Research Quarterly. 23.1 (1998):70-88.

Okafor, A. M. “The Relationship between Reading Attitude and

Achievement in the English Language among Students of

290

Federal College of Education (Technical), Umunze, Anambra State.” Unpublished M. A. Thesis, NAU, Awka, 2004.

Onoko, G. M. Which Way for a Nigerian Child? Champion. 4 Oct.

1993.9 Onuigbo, S. “English Language in a Technological Age: Special

Mechanism for Information, Storage and Conveyance.” Journal of Technology Education Reviewer. 2.1(1990): 127- 133.

Orji J. O. The Effects of Two Reinforcement of Schedule on the Academic Performance of Children in Primary Science Programme . Unpublished M. ED. Thesis of the Department of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, 1994. Otagburuagu, E. J. “The Reading Skill in English Language Studies:

A Conceptual Analysis and Teaching Model for the ESL University.” Common Frontiers in Communication Skills: Focus on the Nigerian University System. Ed. Emeka Otagburuagu. Abuja: Kane Global Link Communication, 1998.132-140.

Otagburuagu, E. J. “The English Language in Nigeria: Some

Historical Landmarks.” Concepts & Issues in Language Studies.Eds. Emeka Otagburuagu and Polycarp Anyanwu. Owerri: Springfield Publishers,2002. 82-105.

Otagburuagu, E. J. “Language Texts: Criteria for Evaluation and

Selection.” Concepts & Issues in Language Studies. Eds. Emeka Otagburuagu and Polycarp Anyanwu. Owerri :Springfield Publishers,2002. 82-105.

Otagburuagu, E. J. “Literature in Language Teaching.” Teaching

English Language Skills: A Foundation Course in Educational Linguistics. Eds. E. J. Otagburuagu, T .Y. Obah , S. M.Onuigbo,and R. I. Okorji. Nsukka: Anyi-P & Sons Printing Press, 2007.

291

Pearson, P.D. and Camperell, K. “Comprehending of a Text Structure.” Comprehension and Teaching: Research Review. Eds. John T. Guthrie Delaware :IRA,1981. 345-372.

Perkins, K. and Angelis, J. P. “Schematic Concept Formation:

Concurrent Validity for Attained English Language Reading Comprehension.” Language Reading, 32(1985):2

Perkins, D. N. “Educating for Insight.” Educational Leadership.

2(1991): 4-9. Price, E. and Driscoll, M. “An Inquiry into the Spontaneous Transfer

of Problem Solving Skill.” Contemporary Educational Psychology. 22(1997): 472-492.

Pritchard, R. “The Effects of Cultural Schema on Reading.” Reading

Research Quarterly 25.4(1990): 273-295. Quirk, R.W. et al. A University Grammar of English Essex:

Longman,1973. Rosenblatt, L.M. “The Transactional Theory of Reading and Writing.”

Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading .Eds. R.B. Ruddel, M.R. Ruldell, and H. Singer (4ed.) Newark, DE: International Reading Association,1994. 1057-1092.

Reutzel, D.R. “Story Maps Improve Comprehension.” The Reading

Teacher .38(1985):401-403. Rosenshin, B. “New Correlates of Readability and listenability.”

Reading and Realism. Ed. J.A. Figurel . 1968 Proceedings. 13.1 Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association ,1969.

Rothkopf,E. Z. “The Concept of Mathemagenic Activities.” Review of

Educational Research.40 (1970): 325-336. Rupley, W.H. and Blair T.R. Teaching Reading: Diagnosis, Direct

Instruction and Practice. Columbus, Ohio: Merill Publishing, 1988.40-60.

292

Rupley, W.H. “Strategies in Teaching Comprehension.” The Reading

Teacher .4(1990):63-80. Schwartz, R.M., Raphael, and T.E. “Concept of Definition: A key to

Improving Students’ Vocabulary.” The Reading Teacher. 39(1985): 201.

Schwartz, N., Ellsworth, L., Graham, L. and Knight, B. “Accessing

Prior Knowledge to Remember Text: A Comparison of Advance Organizers and Maps.” Contemporary Educational Psychology. 23(1998):65-89.

Singer, M., Harkness, D. and Stewart, S.T. “Constructing Inferences

in Expository Text Comprehension.” Discourse Processes, 24.3(1997):199-228.

Singer, M. “Conceptualization in Learning to Read: New Frontiers in

College Adult Reading.” The 15th Yearbook of the National Reading Conference, Eds. G.B. Schick and M.M. May, 1996.116-132.

Singer, Herry and Ruddell, R. Eds.Theoretical Models and Processes

of Reading. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association Inc., 1971.

Spache, George. Reading in the Elementary School. Boston: Allyn

and Bacon, 1964.12. Sopis, Josephine F. “The Relationship of Self-image of a Reader to Reading Achievement.” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. New York University, 1965.

Steffensen, M.S., Joag-Dev, C. and Anderson, R.C. “A Cross Cultural

Perspective on Reading Comprehension.” Reading Research Quarterly. 15(1979):10-29.

Strange Ruth. “The Nature of Reading.” Reading: Today and

Tomorrow. Eds. Amelia Melnik and John Merritt. London: University of London Press Ltd., 1972.

293

Taylor, B., Harkis, L.H. and Pearson, P.D. Reading Difficulties: Instruction and Assessment. New York: Random House,1988.13.

Tomori, S.H. Olu. The Morphology and Syntax of Present Day

English: An Introduction. Ibadan: Heinemann Edu. Books Ltd., 1999.

Trauth, G. and Kazzazi K. Routledge Dictionary of Language and

Linguistics. London and New York: Routledge R, 1996. Udensi, U.J. “The Role of ICT in Enhancing the Teaching of

Reading.” Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Enhancement of Education in the 21st Century in Nigeria. Eds.Nnaka, V.C. and Okafor, A.A., 2004.116-120.

Udensi, U.J. “Reading Special: Mechanism for Communication,

Acquisition and Dissemination of Information.” Eastern COEASU Journal of Teacher Education (ECOJOTE). 2 .1(2006): 11-86.

Udensi, U.J. “Dramatic Play in Early Childhood Education: A

Neglected Issue.” Journal of Childhood and Primary Education. 2.1(2006): 184-189.

Udensi, U.J. “Strategies in Vocabulary Teaching for Effective Reading

Comprehension.” A paper awaiting Publication. Udensi, U.J. “Assessing the Readability of Provosts’ Matriculation

Speeches Using Cloze Procedure: A Study of Students of F.C.E. (T), Umunze.” UJET 1.3(2008): 1-8.

Udensi, U.J. and Ike-Nwafor, G.N. A Pragmatic Approach to

Language and Communication Skills. (2nd ed.) Onitsha: University Publishing Co., 2005.

Unoh, S.O. The Study of Reading: An Introductory Survey. Ibadan:

University Press, 1968. Unoh, S.O. Reading to Remember: A Guide to Efficient Reading.

Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1969.

294

Vogel, S.A. Syntactic Abilities in Normal and Dyslexic Children.

Baltimore, M.D: University Park Press, 1975. Wattenberg, W.W. and Clifford, C. “Relation of Self-concept to

Beginning Achievement in Reading.” Child Development.35(1964): 461-467.

Young, D.J. and Oxford, R. “A Gender-related Analysis of Strategies

Used to Process Input and Foreign Language.” Applied Language Learning.8 (1997):43-73.

Zabrucky, K.M. and Moore, D. “Influence of Text Genre on Adults’

Monitoring of Understanding and Recall.” Educational Gerontology,1999. 691-710.

295

Appendices

Appendix 1: Reliability Analysis – Scale (Alpha)

(1) Cohesion Analysis

Correlation Matrix

Test 1 Test 2

Test 1 1.0000

Test 2 .8422 1.0000

N of cases =23.0

Inter –item

Correlations Mean Minimum Maximum Range Max/Min

Variance .9422 .8422 .8422 .0000 1.0000

.0000

Item –total Statistics

Scale scale Correlated

Mean Variance Item-Squared

If item if item Total Multiple

Alpha

If item

Deleted Deleted Correlation Correlation

Deleted

296

Test 1 35.0000 445.4545 .8422 .7093

Test 2 45.0000 325.0000 .8422 .7093

Reliability Coefficients 2 items


(2) Syntax2A Version Reliability Analysis

Correlation Matrix

Test 1 Test 2

Test 1 1.0000

Test 2 .7657 1.0000

N of cases = 16.0

Inter –item


Variance .7657 .7657 .7657 .0000 1.0000

.0000

Reliability Coefficient 2 items


297

(3) Syntax 2B Version Reliability Analysis

Correlation Matrix

Test 1 Test 2

Test 1 1.0000

Test 2 .9391 1.0000

N of cases =18.0

Inter –item


Variance .9391 .9391 .9391 .0000 1.0000

.0000

Reliability Coefficient 2 items


298

Appendix 2: Reliability Test on Instrument 1-Cohesion

Please read carefully the passage below and answer the questions

that follow it. Before reading the passage, write and tick as

appropriate the following:

Name of my school:

……………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………

Gender: Boy Girl

Socio-economic status of my parents: My parents are: educated and

workers educated but business people

uneducated and business people

uneducated and farmers

Instrument 1

Rakutu was a morning star and queen mother. 1 She was beautiful,

but suffering had drastically reduced her to nothing. 2

One day, as the sun set, Takataka and his mother, Rakutu were

sitting outside their hut. 3 They were really confused and helpless. 4

That is the reason why they could not continue with the work they

were doing. 5 They could not provide solution to the problem before

them. 6 This compounded their problem. 7

299

People from the homes nearby ran out to watch them. 8 Rakutu

disappeared into the hut immediately. 9 Just then, she reappeared in

the doorway. 10 She had on her lovely colourful necklace. 11

Takataka had not seen it on her a moment ago. 12

“Good! Takataka, he is home!” she said, with a voice full of laughter.

13 “My dear, he is really home”, she continued. 14 I really thought

as much.15a There he is.” 15b

Mr. Doga had been away from his family for a very long time. 16a In

fact, he was away for long .16b For example, he was away for more

than five years.16c This contributed to their suffering. 17 Her son

wished that would stay in her voice forever. 18 He wondered if it

would. 19

It should not have happened. 20 But it happened. 21 His father soon

went off to drink beer, leaving them sad and disturbed again. 22

This should sound as a note of warning: Fathers, as heads of their

families should strive to take care of the members of their families.

23

300

Answer the following questions by ticking the right answer

options

Questions

1. Write the cohesive tie the words Rakutu, morning star and

queen mother refer to in this context.

(a) She

(b) He

2. Select another word the phrase ‘his father’ refers to in this

context.

(a) My Doga, Takataka’s mother, Rakutu’s brother

(b) Mr. Doga, Takataka’s father, Rakutu’a husband

3. What other phrase does the noun Takataka point to in this

context?

(a) My dear

(b) Takataka’s father

4.Write another word that the pronoun ‘1’ in sentence 15a refers to

in this context.

(a) Rakutu

(b) Takataka

301

5.Write the words that point to the pronoun ‘they’ in sentences 4

and 6 in this context.

(a) Rakutu and Doga

(b) Takataka and Rakutu

6.What sentence in this context does the word ‘this’ in sentence 17

point at?

(a) Sentence 16b

(b) Sentence 16b

7.What sentence in this context does the word ‘this’ in sentence 7

point at?

(a) Sentence 6

(b) Sentence 8

6. Write the word the pronoun ‘he’ in sentence 19 refers to.

(a) Takakata

(b) Doga

7. What problem in this context does ‘it’ in sentences 20 and 21

point to?

(a) His father went to drink leaving them sad and disturbed.

(b) His father died and left them helpless.

8. What sentence/phrase does ‘this’ in sentence 17 point to?

302

(a) Sentence 19

(b) Sentence 16

9. Identify sentences that contain definite article (homophora).

(a) Sentences 3, 8, 9,10

(b) Sentences 3 and 2

12. Identify two coordinators from the passage.

(a) The & and

(b) And & but

3. Identify the sentence that contains exemplifier from the

passage.

(a) Sentence 16a

(b) Sentence 16b

4. Name one contrastive marker from the passage.

(a) But

(b) Really

5. Name one place relater (adverb of place) from the passage.

(a) This

(b) There

303

Appendix 3: Reliability Test on Instrument 2A Version

Please read carefully each sentence below and answer the question

that follows by circling the correct option.

Before reading the sentences, write and tick as appropriate the

following:

Name of my school

……………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………

Gender: Boy Girl


workers educated but business people uneducated

and business people uneducated and farmers

1. The children went back home without their mother and they met

the enemy in the house.

Question: Who did the enemy meat?


b) The children

2. The children followed the woman.

Question: Who went first?

a) The children

304

b) The woman

Good Placement of Qualifiers

3. The angry and poor old gardener with an old hoe and a long

stick swiftly killed the poor little boy playing on the lawn.

Question: According to the sentence:

a) The gardener was holding a hoe and a stick

b) The boy was holding a hoe and stick.

4. The madman held a long dangerous stick and was standing

near the children.

Question: Who held a long dangerous stick?

a) The madman

b) The children

Plain Idiomatic Negative

5. My father was not pleased at all.

Question: The sentence means that:

a) My father was pleased

b) My father was not pleased

6. The boy was quite innocent, but I did not know that.

Question: This means that:

a) The speaker did not know the boy was quite innocent.

305

b) The speaker knew the boy was quite innocent

The Use of Verbs

7. Children are known to be stubborn.


a) children are not always stubborn

b) children are naturally stubborn.

Two Sentences Joined together by the Coordinating

Conjunctions

8. He is hungry, for he has not eaten since morning.


a) The person is not hungry

b) The person has not eaten any food.

9. The twin baby girl always took the best place in the parlour, so

the twin baby boy did not like her.

Question: Who always took the best place in the parlour?

a) The twin baby girl

b) The twin baby boy

The Use of Single Negative

10. Our people say that a snake does not fail to give birth to

something long.

306


a) A snake gives birth to something long

b) A snake does not give birth to something long.

The Use of Active Verb

11. If the price of the school fees is reduced, many children will go to

school.


a) Many children don’t go to school.

b) Many children go to school.

Other Plain Sentences

12.The boy’s shirt was not new and it was not old.

Question: According to the sentence

a) The boy’s shirt was new and old.

b) The boy’s shirt was not new and old.

13. A merchant caused all his goods to be conveyed on camels.

Question: Which of the statements is true of the sentence?

a) Part of the goods was caused.

b) All the goods were caused.

14. I want you to understand that no place is a bed of roses

307

Question: Which of the statements is true?

a) No place offers comfort

b) Only one place offers comfort.

15. Cygnets are little swans, and they can swim very well.


a) Cygnets are also called little swans

b) Cygnets are different from little swans.

308

Appendix 4: Reliability Test on Instrument 2B Version

Please read carefully each sentence below and answer the question

that follows by circling the correct option.

Before reading the sentences, write and tick as appropriate the

following:

Name of my school: ……………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………

Gender: Boy Girl


workers educated but business people uneducated

and business people uneducated and farmers

1. The children were met by the enemy when they went home without

their mother.

Question: Who did the enemy meat?


b) The children

2.The woman was followed by the children.

309

Question: Who went first?

a) The children.

b) The woman

The wrong placement of the qualifiers

3. The angry and poor old gardener swiftly killed the poor boy with an

old hoe and a long stick playing on the lawn.

Question: According to the sentence.

a) The gardener was holding a hoe and a stick

b) The boy was holding a hoe and stick.

4.The madman standing near the child held a long dangerous stick.

Question: Who held a long dangerous stick?

a) The madman

b) The children

Concealed Idiomatic Negative

5. My father was anything but pleased.


a) My father was pleased.

b) My father was not pleased.

6. If only I had known the boy was quite innocent.


310

a) The speaker did not know the boy was quite innocent.

b) The speaker knew the boy was quite innocent.

The Use of Modal Auxiliaries

7.Children can be stubborn at times.


a) Children are not always stubborn

b) Children are naturally stubborn.

Two simple sentence joined together by the co-coordinating

conjunction

8. He must be hungry, for he has not eaten since morning.


a) The person is not hungry.

b) The person has not eaten any food.

The Use of Clauses

9.The twin baby boy did not like the twin baby girl, who always took

the best place in the parlour.

Question: Who always took the best place in the parlour?

a) The twin baby girl

b) The twin baby boy

The Use of Double Negatives

311

10. Do our people not say that a snake does not fail to give birth to

something long?


a) A snake gives birth to something long.

b) A snake does not give birth to something long.

Nominalization

11. The reduction in the price of the school fees will make many

children go to school.


a) Many children don’t go to school.

b) Many children go to school.

The Use of Neither Nor, None, Or and Other Sentences

12.The boy’s shirt was neither new nor old.

Question: According to the sentence;

a) The boy’s shirt was new and old.

b) The boy’s shirt was not new and old.

13. A merchant who had much property to sell caused all his goods to

be conveyed on camels as there was no railway in that country.

Question: Which of the statements is true of the sentence?

a) Part of the goods was caused.

312

b) All the goods were caused

14. I want you to understand that none of the places is a bed of

roses.


a) No place offers comfort.

b) Only one place offers comfort.

15. The little swans or cygnets can swim very well.


a) Cygnets are also called little swans.

b) Cygnets are different from little swans.

313

Table 22: Public Primary Schools in Orumba North L. G. A.

S/N Name of Schools No of Pupils 1 National School, Ajalli 32 2 Central school, Amaetiti 36 3 Community School, Awa 10 4 Primary School ,Awa 25 5 Primary School ,Awa 22 6 Amugu School ,Awgbu 11 7 Central School, Awgbu 35 8 Community School ,Awgbu 31 9 Osikwunato Primary School, Awgbu 26 10 Okpokoro Primary School, Awgbu 7 11 Primary School, Awgbu 25 12 Union School, Awgbu 53 13 Community School, Mbato 14 14 Central School Ifite – Nanka 48 15 Community School Agbiligba, Nanka 18 16 Community School Amako, Nanka 20 17 Isigwunwagu Community School,Nnaka 25 18 Okpolonabia Community School, Nanka 23 19 Primary School Agbiligba, Nanka 55 20 Primary School Enugu, Nanka 35

314

S/N Name of Schools No of Pupils 21 Primary School Nkwoagu ,Nanka 40 22 Central School, Ndikelionwu 26 23 Community School, Ndikelionwu 17 24 Primary Schoo,l Ndikelionwu 5 25 Town School ,Ndikelionwu 3 26 Community School, Ndiokpalaeze 15 27 Central School ,Ndiokpalaeze 6 28 Central School, Ndiowu 62 29 Eastern Primary School, Ndiowu 29 30 Central School Ozzu, Ndiukwuenu 11 31 Community School Mamu ,Ndiukwuenu 16 32 Community School Mkpogho/Ubani,

Ndiukwuenu 5

33 Central School, Oko 21 34 College Primary School, Oko 37 35 Ezene School ,Oko 19 36 Okoko Primary School, Oko 56 37 Okwute Primary School, Oko 30 38 Primary School, Oko 38

39 Central School, Okpeze 12

40 Community school ,Omogho 18

41 Community School, Ufuma 7

42 Community School Ikenagu, Ufuma 10

43 Community School Umueji ,Ufuma 21

44 Community School Umuogem, Ufuma 22

315

S/N Name of Schools No of Pupils 45 Community School Umuonyiuka, Ufuma 8 46 Community School Umuonuiba, Ufuma 24 47 Primary School, Ufuma 27 48 Primary School Enugwuabo, Ufuma 35 49 Primary School Umuaguosibe, Ufuma 22 50 Primary School Umuonyiuka ,Ufuma 17 51 Primary School, Amaokpala 19 52 Migrant School, Ndiokolo

Total 1257

316

Table 23: Public Primary Schools in Orumba South L.G.A.

S/N Name of Schools No of Pupils 1 Central School ,Agbudu 11 2 Comm. School ,Akpu 24 3 Primary School, Akpu 28 4 Comm. School ,Enugu-Umuonyia 16 5 Central School, Eziagu 33 6 Central School ,Ezira 7 7 Comm. School ,Ezira 20 8 Primary School, Ezira 39 9 Comm. School, Ihite 30

10 Primary School, Ihite 17 11 Central School, Isulo 21 12 Primary School ,Isulo 9 13 Central School ,Nawfija 34 14 Comm. School ,Nawfija 41 15 Comm. School , Umuchukwu (Nkerehi) 19 16 Central School ,Ogboji 38 17 Primary School, Ogboji 17 18 Comm. School, Ogbunka 26 19 Ikpeabu Central School, Ogbunka 36 20 Primary School Umunobe ,Ogbunka 26 21 Primary School, Onneh 14

317

S/N Name of Schools No of Pupils

22 Egbeagu Primary School ,Owerri-Ezukala 34 23 Ihie Primary School ,Owerri-Ezukala 12 24 Okegbe Primary School, Owerri-Ezukala 19 25 Aladinma Primary School, Umunze 24 26 Central School, Umunze 42 27 Community School, Umunze 37 28 Igwebuike Central School, Umunze 31 29 Ishingwu Central School, Umunze 30 30 Nsogwu School, Umunze 27 31 Nwikpa E/S/,Umunze 36 32 Oganiru Primary School, Umunze 25 33 Ozara Primary School, Umunze 30 34 Primary School, Umunze 55 35 Ugwunano Primary School, Umunze 33 36 Uragu Primary School, Umunze 11 37 Central School ,Umuomaku 16 38 Community School ,Umuomaku 13 39 Okwute Primary School ,Umuomaku 16 40 Masdon Memo Sp. Edu. Centre ,Isulo 8

318

Table 24: Schools in Aguata Local Government Area

1 Central school, Achina 169 141 310

2 Eke Achina Pri. Sch., Achina 151 110 261

3 Achina Obinikpa Pri.Sch., Achina 90 62 152

4 Progressive Pri. Sch., Achina 120 96 216

5 Aguluezechukwu C/S, Aguluezechukwu

126 100 226

6 Pri. School, Aguluezechukwu 108 107 215

7 Comm. Pri School, Aguluezechukwu. 58 60 118

8 Obiofia Pri Sch. ,Aguluezechukwu 19 19 38

9 Central school, Akpo 199 145 344

10 Egbuike Pri School ,Akpo. 60 50 120

11 Achina/Akpo combined P/S, Achina/Akpo

64 35 99

12 Udoka Pri. Sch., Akpo/Achina 64 49 113

13 Central School, Amesi 110 83 193

14 Community school, Amesi 106 81 187

15 Pri. Sch. Agba, Ekwulobia 121 89 250

16 Central school, Ekwulobia 256 244 500

17 Efosie Pri. Sch. ,Ekwulobia 136 165 301

18 Ekwulobia Comm. Sch., Ekwulobia 281 299 580

19 Eziagulu Pri. Sch., Ekwulobia 194 191 385

20 Nwannebo Pri. Sch. Ekwulobia 214 170 384

21 Umuezenneofo Pri Sch., Ekwulobia 120 140 260

22 Akpunoji Comm. Sch., Ezinifite 116 56 202

23 Annuli Comm. Sch., Ezinifite 106 180 286

24 Central Sch., Ezinifite 150 250 400

319

25 Pri. School Ezinifite 138 77 237

26 Nwehia Pri School, Ezinifite. 48 32 -

27 Ogbugbogu Comm. Central SchooL,Ezinifite

108 11 219

28 Town School, Ezinifite 95 72 167

29 Pri. Sch. Amakpu Ngo, Igboukwu 77 76 153

30 Central School ,Igboukwu 225 235 460

31 Comm. Pri. Sch., Igboukwu 65 48 113

32 Ezihu Pri. Sch., Igboukwu 67 83 155

33 Pri. Sch. Amakpu, Igboukwu 194 130 304

34 Obigbo Central School, Igboukwu 47 54 101

35 Ogugwuagu Comm. Ngo, Igboukwu 116 100 216

36 Ifite Primary School, Igboukwu 106 90 916

37 Obinuno Pri. School ,Igboukwu 65 48 113

38 Town Primary School, Igboukwu 121 114 234

39 Union Primary School, Igboukwu 95 10 105

40 Ikenga Comm Primary School, Ikenga 93 94 187

41 Amaji Primary School, Isuofia 174 135 309

42 Central School, Isuofia 166 156 322

43 Comm. School ,Isuofia 131 111 242

44 Ikemee Primary School, Isuofia 156 178 334

45 Primary School, Isuofia 85 18 103

46 Comm. Prim. School, Nkpologwu 96 97 193

47 Primary School ,Nkpologwu 54 78 132

48 Central School, Nkpologwu 65 71 136

320

49 Central School, Oraeri 121 108 229

50 Central School ,Uga 150 214 364

51 Comm. Primary School, Uga 103 99 202

52 Ezinkwo Primary School Uga 31 13 44

53 Mbalaoye Primary School, Uga 148 142 290

54 Nwagwazi Primary School, Uga 133 189 422

55 Uganiru Primary School, Uga 100 53 153

56 Oka Comm. Primary School ,Uga 178 184 362

57 Okwute Primary School, Uga 114 200 314

58 Otioghata Primary School, Uga 154 128 272

59 Umuchu Central School, Umuchu 162 143 305

60 Ibughubu Umuchu Pri. School,

Umuchu

61 65 126

61 Community Primary School, Umuchu 158 113 271

62 Primary School Achalla, Umuchu 115 100 215

63 Ibughubu Comm Primary School,

Umuchu

160 153 313

64 Mbarafor Pri. Sch. Akukwua, Umuchu 124 92 216

65 Ogbaringba Primary School ,Umuchu 116 93 209

321

66 Primary School, Umuchu 121 112 233

67 Primary School Igbughubu, Umuchu 61 65 126

68 Primary School, Umuona 106 130 236

69 Special Education Central, Umuchu 36 24 60

Total 8279 7394 15673

322

Table: 25 Private Schools in Aguata L. G. A.

S/N

M F Total

1 All Saints Primary School, Ekwulobia 295 268 663

2 Holy Child Primary School, Isuofia 216 197 413

3 St. Mary’s Prim. School, Aguluezechukwu

205 190 390

4 St. Paul’s Primary School, Akpo 98 59 157

5 St. James’ Primary School, Uga 280 201 481

6 Future Hope Primary School, Igboukwu

163 134 297

7 Future Hope Primary School, Igboukwu

65 80 145

8 Emmanuel Primary School, Ezinifite 59 61 120

9 St. Michael’s Pri. Sch., Nkpologwu 51 43 94

10 St. Joseph’s Primary School, Ekwulobia

210 217 427

11 Immanuel Heart Pri. School, Ekwulobia

154 144 298

12 Holy Child Primary School ,Ekwulobia 162 185 347

13 Mercy Primary School ,Achina 115 90 195

14 Madona Primary School, Ezinifite 262 232 494

15 St. Martins School, Igboukwu 91 83 174

16 Holy Name Primary School Umuchu 101 74 175

17 Good shepherd Primary School ,Igboukwu

84 99 183

18 St. Mary Primary School ,Oraeri 70 60 130

19 Christ the King Pri. School, Ekwulobia 181 185 366

20 Angel of Peace Primary School, Amesi

100 103 203

21 Model Primary School, Igboukwu 111 106 216

22 Goodness Primary School, Ekwulobia 29 47 76

323

23 Our Lady of Welder ,Uga 175 103 276

24 Holy Family Primary School, Igboukwu

150 80 230

25 Fatima Primary School, Igboukwu 162 140 302

26 St. Anthony Primary School, Ikenga 65 50 115

27 Emmanuel Primary School, Nkpologwu

66 52 123

Total 3720 3283 7003

Date post:	05-May-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	lycong
View:	225 times
Download:	6 times

- UD… · · 2015-09-16numbers in attendance register to constitute group A and group B. On ......

Documents