Individual differences in children's knowledge of expository text ...

Individual differences in children’s knowledge / Ray & Meyersentences fit with the stimulus sentences provided. The researchers found that children hadbetter judgments with the collection structure than the comparison, with performancelowest for comparison and description structures. This difference was present on targets(sentences that fit the structure) but not distractors (sentences that did not fit the structure)(Englert & Hiebert, 1984). Similarly, in their study of 4th -, 6th-, and 8th-graders’ recalls, Smithand Hahn (1989) found that comparison was used less frequently to organize recall thanenumeration and description. In both of these cases, levels of structural awareness wererelated to the age of the readers; older readers demonstrated greater knowledge of thecomparison structure, than younger readers. This relationship will be further discussed in alater section.Other researchers have shown patterns of children’s awareness that are somewhat similarto the patterns found with adults. Richgels, McGee, Lomax, & Sheard (1987) found that 6thgradereaders were more sensitive to the comparison structure than the other structuresexamined (collection, causation, problem-and-solution). They found that causation textsposed the greatest challenge to 6th-grade readers; performances on a matching task as wellas organizational ratings of recalls and compositions were lowest for causation (Richgels etal., 1987). Similarly, Yochum (1991) found that 5th graders recalled more ideas when readingcomparison texts than when reading attribution (collection) texts. However, this effect fortext structure was not found on a comprehension test. These findings suggest that likeadults, children may benefit from more organized text structures. However, unlike adults,children’s knowledge of text structure may still be developing, and those structures that aremost structured like the causation structure, may pose a challenge.In addition to the overall rhetorical structure, textual signaling devices that explicitlyindicate the structure of the text may also influence readers’ abilities to recognize and usethe text structure. Numerous studies which have examined the influence of text signaling onadult comprehension have demonstrated that signaling is associated with a greater numberof ideas recalled and more organized recalls (Kardash & Noel, 2000; Lorch & Lorch, 1985;Lorch, Lorch, & Inman, 1993; Ritchey, Schuster, & Allen, 2008; for an extensive review of textsignaling see Lorch, 1989). Research on younger readers’ sensitivity to signaling revealssimilar effects. Ohlhausen and Roller (1988) in their examination of younger readers’sensitivity to structural and content schemas found that texts which contained elementshighlighting both the structural and content organization were associated with a greaternumber of correct main ideas identified in comparison to those texts which emphasizedeither the structure or the content. Moreover readers exposed to a text which emphasizedthe text structure were better able to identify the structural organization (Ohlhausen &Roller, 1988). Similarly, Rossi (1990) found that structural schemas which highlightedmacrosentences and/or the overall rhetorical structure were associated with higherperformance on a test of comprehension and a larger number of text propositions producedin 5 th -grade readers’ summaries. The effectiveness of signals has been found to vary inrelation to the overall comprehension skill of the reader (Meyer et al., 1980). Nevertheless,previous research suggests that providing indices of the top-level structure of texts canfacilitate readers’ structural awareness by making the structure more explicit.The Relationship between Reader and Text CharacteristicsIn this section, we will examine previous research which has investigated sources ofindividual differences (reading ability, age, prior knowledge) in structural awareness andtheir relationship to text characteristics. Although we will address these sources individually,many studies consider multiple reader and text influences simultaneously. Table 1 contains a71