ABSTRACT
Narratives skills are associated with long-term academic and social benefits. While students with disabilities often struggle to produce complete and complex narratives, it remains unclear which aspects of narrative language are most indicative of disability. In this study, we examined the association between a variety of narrative contents and form indices and disability. Methodology involved drawing 50 K-3 students with Individual Education Programs (IEP) and reported language concerns from a large diverse sample (n = 1074). Fifty typically developing (TD) students were matched to the former group using propensity score matching based on their age, gender, grade, mother's education, and ethnicity. Narrative retells and generated language samples were collected and scored for Narrative Discourse and Sentence Complexity using a narrative scoring rubric. In addition, the number of different words (NDW), subordination index (SI), and percentage of grammatical errors (%GE) were calculated using computer software. Results of the Mixed effect model revealed that only Narrative Discourse had a significant effect on disability, with no significant effect revealed for Sentence Complexity, %GE, SI, and NDW. Additionally, Narrative Discourse emerged as the sole significant predictor of disability. At each grade, there were performance gaps between groups in the Narrative Discourse, Language Complexity, and SI. Findings suggest that difficulty in Narrative Discourse is the most consistent predictor of disability.
ABSTRACT
Resumen Un cambio en la forma de evaluar la lectura en México en la educación primaria ha sido la intro ducción de la medición de la velocidad de lectura (palabras por minuto) del alumno como principal indicador de logro para la comprensión lectora. Esto tiene implicaciones directas en la enseñanza de la lectura. El objetivo de este estudio es examinar la relación entre velocidad lectora y comprensión lectora en una muestra de niños mexicanos entre 1° y 4° grados, para: a) identificar la forma en que la velocidad de lectura de textos y la velocidad de lectura de palabras inventadas se relacionan con la comprensión lectora y b) si estas relaciones difieren entre el ciclo 1 (1.° y 2.° grados) y el ciclo 2 (3.° y 4.° grados) de educación primaria. Se plantearon tres hipótesis y una pregunta de investigación. Las hipótesis fueron: 1) la relación entre la velocidad lectora en textos regulares tendrá una mayor asociación que la velocidad lectora de pseudopalabras con la comprensión lectora a lo largo de los cuatro grados; 2) la velocidad lectora de pseudopalabras tendrá una asociación mayor con compren sión lectora en el ciclo 1 que en el ciclo 2 y; 3) la velocidad lectora de textos regulares tendrá una asociación mayor con comprensión lectora en el ciclo 1 que en el ciclo 2. La pregunta de investiga ción exploratoria indagó si la velocidad sigue siendo predictiva de la comprensión lectora después de considerar la precisión. Los resultados aportan evidencia que apoyan las tres hipótesis y el análisis realizado para la pregunta de investigación mostró que la velocidad de lectura de textos sólo explica ba una varianza adicional del 6% después de controlar la precisión de lectura de pseudopalabras. Los resultados son interpretados en el contexto de la literatura existente.
Abstract: A change in the way Reading is evaluated in Mexico in primary education has been the introduction of measuring reading speed in students. This has direct implications in the teaching of reading. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between reading speed and reading compre hension in a cross-sectional sample of Mexican children between 1st and 4th grades, in order to: a) identify the way that text reading speed and pseudoword reading speed are related to reading comprehension; b) identify whether these relationships differ between 1st cycle (1st and 2nd grades) and 2nd cycle (3rd and 4th gra des). Three hypotheses and one research question were posited. The hypotheses were: 1) The relationship between text reading speed and reading comprehension will be stronger than that of word reading speed; 2) Pseudoword reading speed will have a stronger association with reading comprehension in the first cycle; 3) Text reading speed will have a stronger association with reading comprehension in the first cycle. An exploratory research question was formulated to evaluate whether speed is still predictive of reading comprehension beyond the contribution of accuracy. Results support the hypotheses while the analysis carried out for the research question showed that text reading speed added only 6% of variance after accounting for reading accuracy. Findings are interpreted in light of the existing literature.
