Children's Problems in Text Comprehension
An Experimental Investigation

A 1991 examination of children's comprehension abilities by Yuill and Oakhill.

Nicola Yuill (Author), Jane Oakhill (Author)

9780521125796, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 January 2010

256 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

Although some young children can read aloud with apparent fluency, they fail to understand fully or remember connected discourse. Much research on reading has focused on problems at the word recognition level and less attention has been given to comprehension difficulties. The authors of this 1991 work observed that teachers usually monitored reading ability by listening to children read aloud, or by using reading tests that concentrate on word recognition skills. Thus, comprehension problems could go unnoticed. The authors provide an introduction and an overview of adult and child text comprehension. They then describe their own research on children who have a specific comprehension deficit. Such children have difficulties in making inferences from text, in using working memory to integrate information into a coherent mental model and in reflecting on their own comprehension. The authors relate these findings to educational practice and make suggestions for comprehension improvement. Psychologists and educators will welcome this presentation of fresh, thorough research on an important topic.

Preface
1. The nature of poor comprehension
2. Background: reading, remembering and understanding
3. Processing words and sentences
4. Inferences and the integration of text
5. Allocating resources during reading
6. Metacognition and reading
7. Using cohesive devices in narrative discourse
8. Methods of improving poor comprehension
9. Conclusions
Notes
References
List of related publications
Works cited
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Educational psychology [JNC]