Abstract
An experiment was designed to test the interactive reading theory prediction that children's reading strategies vary with the availability of higher-level information. Third- and fourthgrade children (aged 8 and 9 years, respectively) were assigned to one of three context conditions and one of three experimental instructions conditions. Results supported the hypothesis the children adopt different oral reading speed strategies, depending on the amount of contextual information available, in order to maximize reading accuracy and, where appropriate, ongoing comprehension. When reading meaningful materials, children adopt a fluent, top-down reading strategy that is relatively resistant to modification. Although a slower, bottom-up strategy is preferred in the reading of words in isolation, children are able to modify this strategy in accordance with experimental instructions. These results are consistent with an interactive theory of reading.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allington, R. L. (1978). Effects of contextual constraints upon rate and accuracy.Perceptual and Motor Skills, 46, 1318.
Allington, R. L. (1979). Word identification abilities of severely disabled readers: A comparison in isolation and context.Journal of Reading Behavior, 10, 409–416.
Allington, R. L., & Fleming, J. T. (1978). The misreading of high frequency words.Journal of Special Education, 12, 417–421.
Beebe, M. J. (1980). The effect of different types of substitution miscues on reading.Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 324–336.
Biemiller, A. (1970). The development of the use of graphic and contextual information as children learn to read.Reading Research Quarterly, 6, 75–96.
Bowey, J. A. (1982a). Intrasentence contextual facilitation in children's oral reading.Reading Psychology, 3.
Bowey, J. A. (1982b). Memory limitations in the oral reading comprehension of fourth-grade children.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 34, 200–217.
Carroll, J. B. (1972). Defining language comprehension: Some speculations. In R. O. Freedle & J. B. Carroll (Eds.),Language comprehension and the acquisition of knowledge. Washington, D.C.: Winston.
Chihara, T., Oller, J., Weaver, K., & Chavez-Oller, M. A. (1977). Are cloze items sensitive to constraints across sentences?Language Learning, 27, 63–69.
Cochrane, R. G. (1974). The effect of context on word recognition.Slow Learning Child, 21, 38–43.
Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1975).Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Danks, J. H., & Hill, G. O. (1981). An interactive analysis of oral reading. In A. M. Lesgold & C. A. Perfetti (Eds.),Interactive processes in reading. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Doehring, D. G. (1976). Acquisition of rapid reading responses.Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development,41, (No. 2).
Ehri, L. C., & Wilce, L. S. (1980). Do beginners learn to read function words better in sentences or in lists?Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 451–476.
Frase, L. T. (1970). Influence of sentence order and amount of higher level text processing upon reproductive and productive memory.American Educational Research Journal, 7, 307–319.
Frase, L. T., & Washington, E. D. (1970). Children's ability to comprehend text.Proceedings of the 78th Convention of the American Psychological Association.
Golinkoff, R. M., & Rosinski, R. R. (1976). Decoding, semantic processing, and reading comprehension skill.Child Development, 47, 252–258.
Goodman, K. S. (1965). A linguistic study of cues and miscues in reading.Elementary English, 42, 639–643.
Goodman, K. S. (1967). Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game.Journal of the Reading Specialist, 6, 126–135.
Goodman, K. S. (1973). Miscues: Windows on the reading process. In K. S. Goodman (Ed.),Miscue analysis: Applications to reading instruction. Urbana, Illinois: ERIC.
Gough, P. B. (1972). One second of reading. In J. F. Kavanagh, & I. G. Mattingly (Eds.),Language by ear and by eye. Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press.
Gough, P. B. (1975). The structure of language. In D. D. Duance & M. B. Rawson (Eds.),Reading, perception and language. Baltimore: York Press.
Haber, R. N. (1978). Visual perception.Annual Review of Psychology, 29, 31–60.
Isakson, R. L., & Miller, J. W. (1976). Sensitivity to syntactic and semantic cues in good and poor comprehenders.Journal of Education Psychology, 68, 787–792.
Juel, C. (1980). Comparisons of word identification strategies with varying context, word type, and reader skill.Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 358–376.
Kieras, D. E. (1978). Good and bad structure in simple paragraphs: Effects on apparent theme, reading time, and recall.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17, 13–28.
Kim, J. O., & Kohout, I. J. (1975a). Special topics in linear models. In N. H. Nie, C. H. Hull, J. G. Jenkins, K. Steinbrenner, & D. H. Bent (Eds.),Statistical package for the social sciences (2nd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kim, J. O., & Kohout, I. J. (1975b). Analysis of variance and covariance: Subprograms ANOVA and ONEWAY. In N. H. Nie, C. H. Hull, J. G. Jenkins, K. Steinbrenner, & D. H. Bent (Eds.),Statistical package for the social sciences (2nd ed.), New York: McGraw-Hill.
Krulee, G. K., Fairweather, P. G. & Bergquist, S. R. (1979). Organizing factors in the comprehension and recall of connected discourse.Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 8, 141–163.
LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading.Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293–232.
Levitt, E. (1970). The effect of context on the reading of mentally retarded and normal children at first grade level.Journal of Special Education, 4, 425–429.
Markman, E. M. (1979). Realizing that you don't understand: Elementary school children's awareness of inconsistencies.Child Development, 50, 643–655.
Neale, M. D. (1966).Neale analysis of reading ability, (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan.
Neisser, N. (1967).Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Perfetti, C. A., & Hogaboam, T. (1975). Relationship between single word decoding and reading comprehension skill.Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 461–469.
Rode, S. S. (1974). Development of phrase and clause boundary reading in children.Reading Research Quarterly, 10, 124–142.
Rumelhart, D. E. (1977). Toward an interactive model of reading. In S. Dornic (Ed.),Attention and performance VI. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Schonell, F. J. (1955).Reading tests. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.
Schwantes, F. M. (1981). Locus of the context effect in children's word recognition.Child Development, 52, 895–903.
Schwantes, F. M., Boesl, S. L., & Ritz, E. G. (1980). Children's use of context in word recognition: A psycholinguistic guessing game.Child Development, 51, 730–736.
Shankweiler, D., & Liberman, I. Y. (1972). Misreading: A search for causes. In J. F. Kavanagh & I. G. Mattingly (Eds.),Language by ear and by eye. Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press.
Siler, E. R. (1974). The effects of syntactic and semantic constraints on the oral reading performance of second and fourth graders.Reading Research Quarterly, 9, 603–621.
Smith, F. (1971).Understanding reading. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency.Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 32–71.
Stanovich, K. E. (1981). Attentional and automatic context effects in reading. In A. M. Lesgold & C. A. Perfetti (Eds.)Interactive processes in reading. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F., & Feeman, D. J. (1981). A longitudinal study of sentence context effects in second-grade children: Tests of an interactive-compensatory model.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 32, 185–199.
Sticht, T. G. (1972). Learning by listening. In R. O. Freedle & J. B. Carroll (Eds.),Language comprehension and the acquisition of knowledge. Washington, D. C.: Winston.
Weber, R. M. (1970). A linguistic analysis of first grade reading errors.Reading Research Quarterly, 5, 427–451.
West, R. F., & Stanovich, K. E. (1978). Automatic contextual facilitation in readers of three ages.Child Development, 49, 717–727.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
I would like to thank Roger Wales and Jenni Langford for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bowey, J.A. The interaction of strategy and context in children's oral reading performance. J Psycholinguist Res 13, 99–117 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067695
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067695