Comparing Strategies of Good and Poor Comprehenders

Comparing Strategies of Good and Poor ComprehendersAuthor(s): Joanna SullivanSource: Journal of Reading, Vol. 21, No. 8 (May, 1978), pp. 710-715Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40031530 .

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Comparing Strategies of Good and Poor Comprehenders

JOANNA SULLIVAN

Sullivan is a consultant in reading for the Ministry of

Education in Caracas, Venezuela.

Within the last two decades the emphasis in comprehension research has shifted from what pupils comprehend to how they comprehend. In the past, experts were concerned with identifying comprehension skills (Gray 1946, Davis 1941), while current researchers, influenced by lin- guistic and psycholinguistic theory, focus upon identifying strategies used in comprehending. This shift is an important step toward improving comprehension strategies.

Investigators consistently find that good comprehenders are more flex- ible in interpreting and transposing information. Indeed, for over a dec- ade linguists have stressed the flex- ible use of syntactical elements to extract meaning. As Kolers (1975) said, the reader does not try to respond to the structure of words, but uses language structure to anticipate the text's meaning. Gibson and Levin (1975) as well as Golinkoff (1975-76) point out that good readers can ignore information that has no utility in the task at hand; they are selective in the words they emphasize. As Pearson (1974-75) explains, "Seman- tic chunks within sentences, such as

710 Journal of Reading May 1978



'tall man' 'short girl,' constitute the verbal data which are processed in the mind rather than deep structural components."

There are indications that pupils of different ages and abilities use similar comprehension strategies. In discus- sing the distinction between begin- ning and mature readers, Ryan and Semmel (1969) noted that the same basic strategies are used at all levels, since reading comprehension involves the use of effective strategies based upon the readers' knowledge and the reading content. Similarly, Sullivan (1973), in analyzing comprehension errors of 526 good and poor readers in sixth and eighth grades, found that good and poor readers made similar types of errors in processing factual and conclusive statements. Thus, pupils of different reading abilities appear to use the same strategies in sifting out, organizing and matching information. Such findings tend to support Thorndike's (1973-74) conclusion that different comprehension skills overlap and are part of a larger factor called "reasoning in reading."

Strategies Analyzed According to Rickards (1975-76),

who studied the effects of "advanced organizers" upon comprehension, few studies have focused upon a pupil's ability to discern relationships among various sentences. Similarly, Pearson (1974-75) hypothesized that the reader must go through some sort of synthesizing process to cement structural components together. These comments, in addition to this author's findings, prompted a further analysis of the strategies used by good and poor readers in judging factual and conclusive information,

specifically the ability to match sentence content and transform sentences so as to detect relationship. For this, a further study was made of the responses of good and poor readers on the test Reading Compre- hension (Maw 1959) used by Sullivan (1973) and in other studies of prob- lem-solving ability (Tate and Straub 1964, Erginel 1969).

This test consists of seven brief passages and 42 statements on social studies topics. Pupils are to judge whether factual or conclusive statements are "true," "false," "probably true," "probably false," or "not enough facts" based upon the information in the passages. To judge factual statements, for example, "Some storms do great damage," the reader matches the statement with facts embedded in the following passage:

There are many kinds of storms. Some storms are destructive but most storms are very useful. They help to circulate the air. They bring rain. They clear the air of dirt, soot and smoke.

In addition to using this matching process, the reader must be aware of qualifying terms such as "some," "probably," "more likely," "almost" and "never." Judging conclusive statements appears to require matching strategies in addition to identifying examples that support the conclusive statement and transposing or simplifying the passage. For example, in evaluating the statement "Patient work brings reward," the reader must find supportive examples in the passage below as well as extract the underlined key phrases or word clusters:

Susan wanted to do well on the spelling test she would have on Friday. She had not done well in the past. Her mother

SULLIVAN: Comparing Strategies 711



said, "Why not study each evening instead of waiting to do all of your studying on Thursday evening?" Each evening Susan studied spelling. On Friday she made a perfect score on the spelling test.

Since evaluating conclusive statements appears to require a greater number of strategies, it is not surpris- ing to find that both good and poor readers alike made their majority of errors on them.

In this study using sixth and eighth graders, one of the primary differences between the strategies used by good and poor readers in processing factual and conclusive statements

appeared to lie in the kinds of

matching procedures they followed. In evaluating factual statements, good readers looked for consistency by continually matching words in statements with words of similar

meaning in the passages. The majority of poor readers appeared to be more literal, focusing upon nouns and verbs in isolation rather than word clusters that included qualita- tive terms such as "some storms," "most storms" and "great damage."

Stated another way, poor readers had difficulty transposing information or modifying literal statements into more meaningful thought pat- terns. The following passage pro- vides another example.

A number of years ago, it was discovered that bread made from white flour did not contain the vitamins, minerals and proteins that were in whole wheat bread. Nowadays, some of the minerals and vitamins are added to white flour so people can have white bread if they want it and still get many of the same food values they would get from whole wheat bread.

When good readers matched the statement "White flour now contains

all the food value of whole wheat bread" with the above passage, they tended to modify the passage to read

"Nowadays some of (the food value) is added to white flour... so people ...can still get... same food value ... as from whole wheat bread." Com-

paring the transposition to the original passage, we note that the process involves 1) substituting synonyms for

longer phrases- "food value" for "minerals" and "vitamins," 2) sifting out key word clusters, and 3) reorder-

ing the sequence of ideas. When poor readers tried to trans-

pose the passage, they simply focused on nouns and verbs: ". . . minerals and vitamins . . . added . . . white bread . . . people . . . can have white bread (etc.)." Poor readers were not as selective in their sifting process as were good readers and appeared to be unable to encapsulate the conclusive idea.

Poor readers also had difficulty in

relating past knowledge to the read-

ing material. For example, more than 70% of the poor readers made errors on the statement "Cement was discovered by an American scientist," after reading this passage.

Cement has been used for building for thousands of years. Romans of long ago used it for making roads and walls of buildings. Many of the walls are still standing and some of the roads made by Romans 2000 years ago are still used today.

It should be apparent to both good and poor readers that American scientists did not exist 2000 years ago. It

appears that poor readers skip the "if/then" clause in making deductions (if American scientists did not exist 2000 years ago, then they could not have discovered cement). Good readers apply this important second-




ary step to their reading. Looking at the poor readers' performance in terms of Goodman's (1969) "active search process," one would conclude that poor readers might make tenta- tive choices but neglect to use various clues to confirm their predic- tions.

When making judgments about conclusive statements, good readers, unlike poor readers, showed little difficulty in identifying supportive examples and using matching procedures. For example, in judging the statement "Old habits are hard to break," good readers, in most in- stances, matched the term "old habits" with the word cluster in the passage "become used to" (many people still used white bread because they had become used to the taste of it). Most poor readers, on the other hand, tended to rely on their own judgment in evaluating conclusive statements. For example, they gave personal reasons why old habits were hard to break without searching for supportive examples.

Why the Differences? It is difficult to determine just why

poor readers have difficulty transposing information and searching for evidence to support conclusive statements. As Ausubel (1968) points out, clarity of content is not the only factor that precludes meaningful learning. That content must be available within the cognitive structure of the learner. Specifically, the reader must be able to hold information in abeyance and bring his/her experience to it in order to successfully sift out and simplify information. However, the explana- tion is not that simple. Simons (1971), in his study of the process of comprehending, states that a lack of descrip-

tion of the mental processes involved in comprehension leads to more speculation.

Some theorists believe that learning is not simply a cognitive trait but a factor of personality. Frankel-Bruns- wick (1949), who studied differences in the way individuals perceive and interpret pictures, identified persons whose intolerance to ambiguity af- fected their learning performance. She explained that some individuals seem unable to modify original per- cepts and reconstruct ideas. Klein (1951) refers to this behavior as a "perceptual attitude," stating that some individuals hold tight to pre- conceived judgments while others see fine nuances and slight differences. One might conjecture that poor readers, in addition to having a poor sense of restructuring, are intol- erant of ambiguity and lack of closure. They are quick, therefore, to draw conclusions in order to com- plete a task.

Whatever the causes for differences in comprehension performance, such an analysis leads to a number of implications. First, it raises questions concerning the current practice of "key word reading." The readers observed in this study did not sift out key words, but word clusters and phrases.

Second, these observations support the need to examine techniques that would further enable the reader to become, in Witkins' words, "a field independent" learner, one who is able to manipulate reading material as though it were independent of the text. Those who have developed teaching techniques that provide an organizational framework for facili- tating reading comprehension have found, in general, that readers are




responsive to training. Peters' (1975- 76) study has shown how the Fryer model - a process in which relevant attributes of different social studies

concepts are taught- facilitates com-

prehension. Other techniques, such as the use of advanced organizers, have proved effective in clarifying text information. However, Rickards

(1975-76) found that good readers

responded more favorably than poor readers to such techniques.

If, indeed, readers in the middle and upper grades do respond to a structured approach to comprehension, there is a need to explore the

development of techniques that facilitate certain comprehension strate-

gies, including the following. 1. Paraphrasing passages. Too of-

ten, elementary teachers overem-

phasize literal recall at the expense of helping readers adopt strategies for restating information to better fit their own cognitive schemas. The research tends to support the need for instruction in paraphrasing. As Goodman (1969) has stated, the entire reading process should be

geared to reconstructing the mes-

sage encoded by the writer. Since better readers have greater facility in

paraphrasing, it is important to guide the poor reader through citing ex-

amples of paraphrased ideas, begin- ning with limited content.

2. Sifting out word clusters. The

process of sifting out meaningful word clusters involves recombining elements of a sentence. This is not

merely the process of extracting meaning from the page, according to Anisfeld (1968), but rather a process of using information to decide among alternatives. The element of decision seems to distinguish the good from the poor readers.

This process of sifting out words that best fit the core of meaning may well be an integral step in the task of

paraphrasing. However, the former

process requires the direct manip- ulation of a sentence or group of sentences while the latter is a sub-

stituting procedure that allows more freedom from the text.

3. Searching for supportive ex-

amples. Since this analysis has shown that most pupils rely heavily upon subjective judgment in drawing conclusions, it appears that teachers

neglect the procedure of having readers support their conclusions. This is perhaps the simplest strategy to develop.

4. Making deductions. Piaget de-

veloped techniques to facilitate deductive thinking. He found that simple deductions are grasped through com-

bining things according to equivalent attributes. Pupils might begin by noting likenesses and differences between things before making as-

sumptions. Three steps can be used to guide deductive thinking: 1) ques- tioning the veracity of a statement, 2) drawing upon past knowledge to

clarify and extend the written mes-

sage, and 3) applying the "if/then" clause in formulating deductions. While most good readers appear to

acquire this procedure, others need

help in systematizing this process. Further research on comprehen-

sion strategies might focus on de-

lineating those comprehension tasks that are best suited for structure. However, in the final analysis, the task of identifying a framework for

developing comprehension strate-

gies is indeed complex. As Simons

(1971) points out, "a lack of descrip- tion of the mental processes involved in comprehension leads to more




speculation." Such behaviors as attitude, rigidity and other factors that contribute to the process of comprehending have not yet been isolated.

References Amsfeld, M. Language and Cognition in the Young

Child." The Psycholinguistic Nature of the Reading Process, Kenneth Goodman, Ed. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1968.

Ausubel, David. Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. New York, N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.

Davis, F. B. Fundamental Factors of Comprehension in Reading. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1941.

Erginel, Adnan. The Relationship of Cognitive Style and Intelligence to Achievement and Errors in Thinking. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Lehigh Univer- sity, 1969.

Frankel-Brunswick, Else. "Intolerance of Ambiguity as an Emotional and Perceptual Personality Variable." Journal of Personality, vol. 18 (1949), pp. 108-43.

Gibson, Eleanor and Harry Levin. The Psychology of Reading. Cambridge, Mass.: THe M.I.T. Press, 1975.

Golmkoff, Roberta M. "A Comparison of Reading Com- prehension Processes in Good and Poor Compre- henders." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 4 (1975-1976), pp. 623-59.

Goodman, Kenneth S. "Analysis of Oral Reading Misr cues: Applied Psycholinguistics." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1 (1969), pp. 9-30.

Gray, William S. "The Measurement of Understanding in the Language Arts: The Receptive Language Arts." The Measurement of Understanding, Nelson B. Henry, Ed., pp. 189-200. Forty-fifth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, part I. Chicago, III.: University of Chicago Press, 1946.

Klein, George. "The Personal World Through Percep- tion." Perception: An Approach to Personality, R.R. Blakes and Ramsey, Eds. New York, N.Y.: The Ronald Press Co., 1951.

Kolers, Paul. "Pattern-analyzing Disability in Poor Readers." Developmental Psychology, vol. 11, no. 3 (May 1975), pp. 282-90.

Maw, Ethel. An Experiment on Teaching Critical Think- ing in the Intermediate Grades. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1959.

Pearson, P. David. "The Effects of Grammatical Com- plexity on Children's Comprehension, Recall and Conception of Certain Semantic Relations." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 2 (1974-1975), pp. 155-92.

Peters, Charles W. "The Effect of Systematic Restruc- turing of Material upon the Comprehension Pro- cess." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 1 (1975-1976), pp. 87-111.

Rickards, John. "Processing Effects of Advanced Or- ganizers Interspersed in Text." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 4 (1975-1976), pp. 599-622.

Ryan, Ellen B. and M.L. Semmel. "Reading as a Con- structive Language Process." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 5 (Fall 1969), pp. 59-84.

Simons, Herbert. "Reading Comprehension: The Need for a New Perspective." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 3 (Spring 1971), pp. 338-63.

Sullivan, Joanna. "The Relationship between Guilford's Intellectual Abilities and Two Levels of Reading Comprehension." Journal of Educational Research, (April 1973).

Tate, Merle and Jean Straub. "Thinking Abilities of Ninth Grade Students from Catholic and Public Elemen- tary Schools." The School Review, vol. 22, (1964), pp. 74-88.

Thorndike, Robert L. "Reading as Reasoning." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 2 (1973-1974), pp. 135-47.

Witkins, H. A. and others. Personality through Percep- tion. New York, N.Y.: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1954.

And You Think You've Got Problems! A survey taken in all government schools in the state of Victoria, Australia (primarily in the metropolitan area of the city of Melbourne) indicated that in 1974 nearly 30,000 schoolchildren (roughly 6%) were migrants from non- English speaking countries who had been resident in Australia Jess than six years. An additional 20,000 had lived in Australia six or more years but showed a limited competence in English that called forspecial instruction. The children entered Australian classrooms speaking the following as native languages: Greek, Italian, Yugoslav, German, Maltese, Turkish, French, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, other European languages, and a variety of Asian languages, fn 1970 five thousand new migrant pupils entered Victorian schools. By 1975 the rate had dropped to a bit over half that. The Victorian Department of Education is attempting to heip schools provide appropriate instruction for these children.

The Child Migrant Education Survey is reported by Irene Elliott and Ivan Margttta in Research Report 5/74 of the Curriculum and Research Branch, Education Department of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 1975.




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Comparing Strategies of Good and Poor Comprehenders

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