Children's Reading Comprehension

Text Processing at Different Reading Levels

According to Raney (2003), the relative difficulty of processing text at each level changes as children learn to read fluently. When initially learning to read, the child's attention will be focused primarily on word-level processes, leaving few mental resources available for higher-level processes. In essence, processing words is so difficult for beginning readers that they cannot put much effort into understanding the overall meaning. In contrast, processing words is so easy for skilled adult readers that they can devote most of their resources to comprehension processes.

Attention

Differences in attentional focus produce differences in how texts are represented in memory. Because beginning readers focus on word-level processing, their representations are primarily word based. Because skilled adult readers focus on situation-level processing, their representations are mostly meaning based. The format of the representation influences how readers use their knowledge. As an example, how a text is represented determines whether knowledge learned from the text will influence how a second text is read. Suppose a child and an adult read two texts, one about cows and one about kangaroos. Also assume that the texts share some meaning (e.g., both passages discuss what the animal eats), but they don't share any central content words (e.g., the words cow and hay are never used in the kangaroo passage). For adults, reading the cow passage will make the [Page 252]kangaroo passage easier to read because they share meaning. For children, reading the cow passage will not make the kangaroo passage much easier to read because the passages do not share words.

Now, suppose that the child and adult read two new texts, one about trees and one about houses. This time, the texts were written so that they share many words (e.g., the words wood and rain are used in both passages) but do not share meaning. For adults, reading the tree passage will not make the house passage easier to read. For children, reading the wood passage will make the house passage easier to read. Raney (2003) proposed that because skilled readers create meaning-based representations in memory, reading one passage will make another passage easier to comprehend only if the passages share meaning. Because beginning readers create word-based representations, reading one passage will make another passage easier to comprehend if the passages share words. This also explains why reading words in isolation helps children comprehend a text that contains those words: Because children form word-based representations, repeating the words makes the text easier to read and, consequently, easier to comprehend. As children become skilled readers, their memory for texts gradually shifts toward meaning-based representations.

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