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Are poor Chinese text comprehenders also poor in written composition?

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Abstract

We studied the performance in three genres of Chinese written composition (narration, exposition, and argumentation) of 158 grade 4, 5, and 6 poor Chinese text comprehenders compared with 156 good Chinese text comprehenders. We examined text comprehension and written composition relationship. Verbal working memory (verbal span working memory and operation span working memory) and different levels of linguistic tasks—morphological sensitivity (morphological compounding and morphological chain), sentence processing (syntax construction and syntax integrity), and text comprehension (narrative and expository texts)—were used to predict separately narrative, expository, and argumentation written compositions in these students. Grade for grade, the good text comprehenders outperformed the poor text comprehenders in all tasks, except for morphological chain. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed differential contribution of the tasks to different genres of writing. In particular, text comprehension made unique contribution to argumentation writing in the poor text comprehenders. Future studies should ask students to read and write parallel passages in the same genre for better comparison and incorporate both instructional and motivational variables.

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Acknowledgment

This study was assisted with a National Office for Education Sciences Planning Grant (DBA120179) awarded to Dr. Connie Qun Guan and Engineering Research Institute Foundations of USTB Grant (YJ2012-019) to Dr. Guan, sponsored by National Institute of Education Science (NIES) grant no. GY2012013 to Prof. Wanjin Meng.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Connie Qun Guan

  2. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Connie Qun Guan

  3. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Feifei Ye

  4. Department of Psychology and Special Education, China National Institute of Education Sciences, Beijing, 100088, People’s Republic of China

    Wanjin Meng

  5. Department of Educational Psychology & Special Education, University of Saskatchewan, 28 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, S7N 0X1

    Che Kan Leong

  6. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Che Kan Leong

Authors
  1. Connie Qun Guan
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  2. Feifei Ye
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  3. Wanjin Meng
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  4. Che Kan Leong
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wanjin Meng or Che Kan Leong.

Appendix

Appendix

  1. (a)

    Sample argumentation composition from a grade 6 poor text comprehender with verbatim English translation.

    我对小学生看电视的看法

    看电视已是我们身边形影不离的习惯。可电视有好也有坏,我们该如果辨认好的和坏的。我提出以下几点小建议:

    1. 1.

      电视中有好也有坏。

      我们要看新闻。

    2. 2.

      不能过多的时间看

      电视,这样会导致 视力下降。

    3. 3.

      看电视不能躺着看,

      也不能离电视太近。

    以上这几点小建议是我从个人生活中精选出来的。

    有些家长看电视坏习惯都被小学生学会了。大人的视网膜已经稳定不变,可我们小学生的研究还在成长。希望大家保护眼睛少看电视。

    My views of elementary school students watching television

    Watching television is like a shadow following us as a matter of habit. There are good and bad points about watching TV. We should differentiate between these good and bad points. I make the following small suggestions.

    1. 1.

      There are good and bad things in TV. We should watch the news.

    2. 2.

      We should not spend too much time watching TV. This will lead to the worsening of our eyesight.

    3. 3.

      We should not watch TV lying down. And we should not sit too close to the TV [set].

    The above suggestions are carefully selected from my experience in daily life.

    Some parents have bad habits in watching TV and these are copied by elementary school students. Vision in adults is stable and not changed; but we elementary students are found to be still developing. We all should protect our eyes and watch less TV.

    1. (b)

      Sample argumentation essay from a grade 5 good text comprehender with verbatim English translation.

      我对小学生看电视的看法

      电视已经成了我们生活中不可缺失的一件器物。看电视更是我们生活中重要的内容之一。下面,就请大家看看我对小学生看电视的看法。

      看电视有好也有坏。

      好处是在看电视的时候,电视中的那五颜六色的图片常常吸引着我们的眼球。有着各种各样奇异动物的动物世界,让我清晰地看到各种动物的样子,还能知道动物的生活习性。使我们未出家门,就知道了各种动物。新闻联播又使我们简单而又快速的了解世界各地的新鲜儿事。坏处又是我们在盯着电视机看的时候,眼睛一动不动的盯着电视。常常这样,我们的眼睛可吃不消。并且,在看电视的时候,小学生常常因为精彩的电视节目,而望了自己的作业和该完成的任务。让小学生耽误了自己的学习。

      所以,看电视有好也有坏。我们要把看电视的时间尽量控制好,并且在作业做完的前提下才能适当地看电视,不能让眼睛上架一副小眼镜儿哦!

      My views of elementary school students watching television

      Television has become our lives’ necessary material things. Watching TV is an important part of our activities. Below, please see my views of elementary students’ watching TV.

      Watching TV is both good and bad.

      The good point is that in watching TV the multi-colored pictures appeal to our eyes. There are all kinds of wonderful animals in their own world. We can see clearly how they look, and also learn about their habits and lives. Without having to leave home, we learn something about different animals. Newscasts enable us to know quickly and simply the up-to-date events [happening] in the world. The bad thing [about watching TV] is that when we glue [fixate] our eyes on [the] TV [set] our eyes may not be able to take it [to withstand the fatigue]. Moreover, watching TV, especially interesting programs, may detract from one’s homework and other duties. Elementary students affect their learning adversely.

      Therefore, there are both good and bad points about watching TV. We should control the amount of time watching TV and do so after the completion of homework, which is a priority. We do not want our eyes to be covered with a pair of eye-glasses, eh!

    2. (c)

      Sample text comprehension passage and open-ended inferencing questions

      阅读理解B2　亡羊补牢

      从前有个人,养了几只羊。一天早上,他去放羊,发现少了一只。原来羊圈破了个窟窿,夜里狼从窟窿钻进去,把那只羊叼走了。

      街坊劝他说:“赶快把羊圈修一修,堵上那个窟窿吧。”

      他说:“羊已经丢了,还修羊圈干什么呢?”

      第二天早上,他去放羊,发现羊又少了一只。原来狼又从窟窿钻进去,把羊叼走了。

      Shutting the Gate after the Sheep Having Been Snatched

      Long ago someone kept several sheep. One morning he went to let them out of the pen. He found one sheep missing. The reason was that there was a hole in the fence and a fox came through the hole at night to snatch the sheep away.

      His neighbor told him to mend the fence without delay, to patch up the hole. He said, “The sheep had already bolted, what is the use of mending the fence?”

      The next morning when he went to let the sheep out of the pen he found another sheep missing. The fox came through the same hole in the pen to snatch away the second sheep.

    请用自己的文字简单解答下列各题:

    1. 1.

      “亡羊补牢”中的“亡”是什么意思?

    What does the word “亡”in the title mean?

    1. 2.

      请根据标题和短文内容,续写一段话,说明这个人会如何行动。

    From the title and the text, write a short paragraph to show how this man might act.

    1. 3.

      亡羊补牢这个故事有何含义?

    What is the moral of this story?

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Guan, C.Q., Ye, F., Meng, W. et al. Are poor Chinese text comprehenders also poor in written composition?. Ann. of Dyslexia 63, 217–238 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-013-0081-0

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