Premium
Sentential and discourse context effects: adults who are learning to read compared with skilled readers
Author(s) -
Binder Katherine S.,
Chace Kathryn H.,
Manning Mary Claire
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of research in reading
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.077
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9817
pISSN - 0141-0423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2007.00349.x
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , sentence , disadvantaged , context effect , cognitive psychology , reading (process) , incidental learning , word (group theory) , linguistics , developmental psychology , paleontology , philosophy , political science , law , biology
In a series of three experiments, we examined how sentential and discourse contexts were used by adults who are learning to read compared with skilled adult readers. In Experiment 1, participants read sentence contexts that were either congruent, incongruent or neutral with respect to a target word they had to name. Both skilled and less skilled adults benefited from a congruent context, and were not disadvantaged by an incongruent context. Contrary to research conducted on children learning to read, skill level of the adult reader did not interact with context. Experiments 2 and 3 tested readers' ability to make predictive inferences. Again, all readers, regardless of skill level, provided evidence that they were making predictive inferences. This finding is inconsistent with research that has examined individual differences in college readers.