Abstracts - Earli

teaching reading in Hungary. The experiment involved 4th grade students from 5 schools, 9classes. We held a meeting for the teachers of the classes before the research, and kept in touchduring the 8 weeks. Regular classroom lessons were restructured with the aim of developingstudents’ reading strategies. The experiment and control classes solved the same pre- and posttestsand a questionaire which was the shortened version of Jacobs and Paris’ IRA test. The groupshad similar results in pre-test phase, but we found significant differences in post-test. Pupils whowere in the experiment classes solved the test better. Cohen’s experimental effect coefficient (f)proved to be 5.6%.Working memory influences on reading comprehension assessed with different measuresRune Andreassen, Ostfold University College, NorwayIvar Bråten, University of Oslo, NorwayThe study addressed the influence of middle grade pupils’ gender, word recognition, strategy use,reading motivation, and working memory on reading comprehension assessed five months laterusing three different reading comprehension measures. In particular, working memory demandswere supposed to depend largely on how reading comprehension was measured. A battery of testswas administered at two different times to 216 Norwegian fifth grade children to measurepredictor variables and reading comprehension performance, respectively. Hierarchical regressionswere performed using the three different reading comprehension measures as dependent variables.The results supported the notion that reading comprehension seems to require different amounts ofworking memory resources depending on how reading comprehension is operationalized andtested. Specifically, this research demonstrated that there may be substantial differences inworking memory demands between multiple choice tests with text not available while answeringcomprehension questions and tests where text or pictures are available while answering questions.Testing reading comprehension by using multiple questions with the text available could be seenas testing readers’ competence in searching for the right answer in a present text. Answeringquestions without the text available, however, could be seen as largely dependent of the reader’smemory skills. This finding has theoretical as well as educational implications.Which discriminants characterize effective/ineffective grade three classes in reading and what canbe learnt about effective instruction from those descriptions?Ulla Damber, Mid Sweden University, SwedenThe purpose of this study was to gain insights into how teachers can assist low performingstudents to bridge the achievement gap. Between 1997 and 1999 all Stockholm schoolsparticipated in studies examining grade three students’ literacy acquisition. Traditional readingtests measured reading ability. Student and teacher questionnaires gathered data on teacher,classroom and student characteristics. 999 classes and their teachers participated, the class used asunit for analysis of student results. By controlling for socioeconomic background factors threegroups for statistical analysis of variance were formed; one of underachieving classes, one ofoverachieving and of classes performing as expected, in order to put focus on the impact ofteachers’ work. Socioeconomic background factors proved hard to overcome though, even ifindications of overachieving classes reading more authentic literature were found. A more pleasantclassroom climate was indicated in analysis of several variables. In order to highlight questionsdemanding answers from a practitioner’s point of view partly diverging theoretical views wereused in the analysis of results. A follow-up study is being developed focusing on overachievingethnically diverse classes in low-SES areas where a literature based programme was implemented.A literature review of this programme has been made, as well as descriptive statistics focusing on– 105 –