Abstract
While prior knowledge of a passage topic is known to facilitate comprehension, little is known about how it affects word identification. We examined oral reading errors in good and poor readers when reading a passage where they either had prior knowledge of the passage topic or did not. Children who had prior knowledge of the topic were matched on decoding skill to children who did not know the topic so that the groups differed only on knowledge of the passage topic. Prior knowledge of the passage topic was found to significantly increase fluency and reduce reading errors, especially errors based on graphic information, in poor readers. Two possible mechanisms of how prior knowledge might operate to facilitate word identification were evaluated using the pattern of error types, as was the relationship of errors to comprehension. Implications of knowledge effects for assessment and educational policy are discussed.
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Notes
Exceptions to the above rules concern substitutions for 2-letter words. Because these words are so short, applying the same rules resulted in many substitutions being classified as graphically similar when they only shared one letter and did not really seem to be retaining much graphic similarity (e.g. the substitution of that for an). In the case of 2-letter words, only substitutions that share the initial letter of the target word were counted as graphically similar.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a grant from NIH HD27802 to the Colorado Learning Disabilities Center, for which J. Keenan is a co-PI. These data were presented at the 2008 and 2009 meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. We thank Richard K. Olson, Rebecca Betjemann, Laura Roth, Chelsea Meenan, and Anh Hua for discussions of the data, all the participants and their families, and all the testers and scorers.
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Priebe, S.J., Keenan, J.M. & Miller, A.C. How prior knowledge affects word identification and comprehension. Read Writ 25, 131–149 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-010-9260-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-010-9260-0