Coding Strategies and Reading Comprehension

Abstract

An enquiry was conducted into the constraints upon the comprehension of printed verbal material by underachieving readers. The results suggested that such readers tend to prefer single-modality mediational encoding, resulting in impaired comprehension. The phenomenon appeared to be independent of spatial and verbal ability in the children studied. A further investigation was made of the comparative effectiveness of alternative induced coding strategies for the comprehension and recognition of predictably “impossible” Words by underachieving readers. The results suggested the significant superiority of a visual-to-semantic over a visual-to-acoustic-to-semantic coding path for the underachieving readers. The implications of the findings for the remediation of reading and written language difficulties in children of otherwise adequate intelligence, and also for language pedagogy in general, are discussed.