The development of pupils’ reading comprehension skills
during the first six school years
Tuula Merisuo-Storm, PhD
University of Turku, Finland
Department of Teacher Education in Rauma
Address:
email:
Hämeenkatu 20 D 81
20500 Turku
FINLAND
tuula.merisuo-storm@utu.fi
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University
of Ghent, 19-21 September 2007
Abstract
The study observed the development of six classes in Southern Finland from the
beginning of first grade to the end of sixth grade. One purpose was to investigate how
pupils’ reading comprehension skills develop during this period. The second goal was to
determine if there are differences in the development of girls’ and boys’ reading
comprehension skills. Four measurements were conducted during this period, and four
tests were used as indicators.
The results showed that in first and second grade there were significant differences in
the pupils’ reading fluency, reading comprehension skills, and vocabulary. After six
school years several pupils still had great difficulties in comprehending different texts.
Deriving the meaning of an unknown word from written context and making a summary
of a text proved to be the most demanding tasks. The girls succeeded in all reading
comprehension tasks better than the boys.
1
Introduction
There is not an area in the school curriculum that does not demand an ability to read.
Reading skills are an important tool that pupils need to become academically successful.
Good readers are better students than poor readers in every subject area.
Even when a pupil is studying practical or mathematical subjects he or she has to read
instructions before starting to solve the task. When reading a text the goal is to
understand its content. It is a process that exceeds decoding, and includes
comprehension processes of the word, sentence, and text level. A child who does not
learn to read and comprehend in the early school years has severe difficulties also in
studying other school subjects. (Bowyer-Grane & Snowling 2005, 190; McGee &
Johnson 2003, 49.)
An important goal of literacy teaching is to awaken pupils’ interest in language
and literature and also give them a lasting positive attitude towards reading. The aim is
to support the development of pupils’ ability to read, interpret and use different texts.
Each pupil should adopt a habit of evaluating and observing himself or herself as a
reader. In addition, he or she should learn to select appropriate reading material for
different purposes and to find information in various sources. (Merisuo-Storm 2006.)
Attitudes towards reading and writing develop early. A child is likely to adopt a
positive attitude when the home provides a rich reading environment that includes
books and magazines, and when parents read to their children frequently. When a child
observes the members of his or her family reading and writing, it is possible that his or
her awareness of the various purposes of the written text increases. Furthermore, in
this kind of environment a child may already before going to school obtain a relatively
rich vocabulary and a sense of story structure. Consequently he or she often learns to
read without struggle and for him or her reading can become a pleasant pastime.
(Wallace 1992, 7.)
Reading comprehension
Reading comprehension is a complex process: the reader has to construct meaning by
interacting with text using his or her previous knowledge and experience and the
information that can be found in the text. The more background information related to
the text the reader possesses, the easier it is for him or her to understand the text.
Moreover, each text is unique in regard of the structure of the text, its genre,
vocabulary, and language. Several factors influence a reader’s interaction: how easy the
text is to read, how accurately it follows the conventions of its genre or structure, the
language it is written in, and even the type and the size of font. (Pardo 2004, 272–275.
Reading is thinking cued by written language. Effective readers locate the basic
information from the text. Literal comprehension is needed when reading fiction as well
as when reading nonfiction. In fiction, a reader has to identify the characters and follow
the events of the story. In nonfiction, a reader needs to comprehend the topic, learn new
facts related to it, and be able to find and remember important information. (Scharer,
Pinnell, Lyons & Fountas 2005, 25.)
Different types of texts are organised in different fashion. Most narrative texts
follow a general structural pattern, which is often called story grammar. Expository
texts include several patterns; for instance, description, sequence, compare–contrast,
cause–effect, and problem solution. Already before entering school children develop
sensitivity to narrative structure and use it to understand simple stories. They take note
of the setting (time, place, and characters), problems or conflicts (actions and reactions
2
of the characters), and the story resolution as they read. However, mature
comprehension includes generalisation beyond the characters and the events of the story
to the people and the events in real life. Expository texts are generally more demanding
to comprehend because they contain many different structures and they more often
involve unfamiliar content. In addition, most parents mainly read story books with
young children. (Williams 2005.)
Snow, Sweet, Alvermann, Kamil, and Stricland (2002) suggest that reading
comprehension is, in part, made up of nine cognitive components: fluency, vocabulary,
world knowledge, motivation, purposes and goals, cognitive and metacognitive
strategies, linguistic knowledge, discourse knowledge, and integrating nonprint
information with text. They are used when reading in order to create comprehension of
the text.
Skilled comprehenders are fluent readers. Non-fluent reading demands mental
capacity that would be needed for comprehension process. Fluency is effortless reading
with ease and expression. It involves accuracy and automatic word identification,
decoding with facility, and expressiveness in reading. It demands exact word
identification and decoding ability. In addition, good comprehenders need an extensive
vocabulary, for comprehension does not occur if the reader does not understand the
individual words. However, good readers’ comprehension processes include
comprehension above the word level. (Pressley 2002, 297; Snow et al 2002, 95, 98.)
There is evidence that vocabulary differences affect comprehension, and that
increasing vocabulary acquisition has a positive influence in reading comprehension.
Furthermore, increasing reading practice can increase vocabulary and comprehension.
Research has also shown that many children with reading disabilities have lower-thanaverage vocabularies. This is due to the effects of language problems as well as limited
exposure to print. It appears that vocabulary growth is largely dependent on parental
practices, especially before third school year. (Biemiller 2003.)
Children’s learning of word meanings through content can be slight compared
with the learning of word meanings through direct vocabulary instruction. However,
there is a difference between written and spoken language. Written language is lexically
richer than spoken language and it can, therefore, provide more learning opportunities
than a spoken context. Consequently, a pupil who is an eager reader encounters more
words than a pupil who reads less. In addition, regular reading is likely to lead to more
efficient access of word meanings. A pupil who reads also outside school has many
opportunities to acquire and improve vocabulary knowledge through inference from
context. (Cain, Oakhill & Lemmon 2004, 672.)
World knowledge comes from experience and from previously read texts. Skilful
comprehenders use discourse knowledge to connect text elements in a consistent fashion
and to connect the content to the messages of the writer. Discourse knowledge includes
for instance, the structure of different genres, the discrimination of old and new
information, the main messages the author intends to convey, and the topic structure.
Linguistic knowledge includes oral language capacities – production and comprehension
– and the ability to reflect one’s knowledge of language. Skilful reading requires
knowledge of all linguistic levels – phonology, morphology, syntax, and higher level
discourse structures. In addition, reading comprehension often involves integrating nonprint information, e.g. graphs and pictures, with text. Electronic texts often include
multimedia components and the reader has to integrate them with text to comprehend
the contents of the text. (Snow et al 2002, 95–98.)
Pupils who are skilful readers are purposeful. Their goals for reading are gaining
knowledge, enjoying literature, locating specific information, and learning from text.
3
Reading motivation consists of multiple aspects: The pupils with strong sense of
competence are likely to engage. In addition, when children are inherently motivated to
read, value reading highly, and are mastery-goal oriented, they are more likely to
engage in reading. (Snow et al 2002, 95.)
Good readers use comprehension strategies to support the construction of
meaning. These strategies can reflect conscious awareness or become automatic with
practice. The use of a meta-cognitive strategy is activated by the reader’s assessment of
his or her own cognitive state. For instance, the reader slows down when he or she is
reading a text on an unfamiliar topic. Good comprehenders often skim the text before
reading it and make predictions about it based on their previous knowledge. When
reading, they focus especially on the sections of the text that are particularly essential
for their purpose or particularly difficult. The rest of the text they read more quickly and
with less care. While reading they respond to the text, ask questions, create mental
images representing the meaning of the text, and interpret the text. After reading they
continue to reflect on the text, reviewing it and possibly rereading some parts of it that
seem especially important to their purpose or that they did not understand sufficiently
well during the first reading. (Pressley 2002, 297.)
Comprehension strategies are necessary for a reader because they can provide
access to knowledge that is beyond his or her personal experience. Pupils that use
cognitive strategies, such as previewing, activating prior knowledge, predicting, making
connections, monitoring, organising, summarising, questioning, and visualising, are
likely to comprehend and to be able to remember more of what they read. Researchers
suggest that using such strategies helps pupils to become metacognitive readers. To
become a skilful comprehender, a reader needs to decide which strategies to use
depending on the content of the text and its level of difficulty. The more difficult the
text, the more a reader needs to consciously direct the process of meaning construction.
Because there are a great variety of written materials available the act of comprehension
is very sophisticated. Introducing pupils to many different texts prepares them for
understanding more complex texts and complex issues in the future. (Barton & Sawyer
2003, 334–336; Bimmel & van Schooten 2004, 86; Dougherty Stahl 2004, 598;
McLaughlin 2006, 6.)
Good comprehenders read fiction and nonfiction texts and they are able to derive
the meaning of unfamiliar words. They use their knowledge of text structure to
effectively and strategically process the text. They have developed this knowledge from
reading texts of different genres. Reading different genres and text formats affords
opportunities for strategy use, enhances understanding of how words work, and
provides bases for discussion and meaning negotiation. Good readers construct and
revise meaning while reading and also monitor their comprehension. If they have
difficulties in understanding the text because of insufficient background information,
difficulty of words, or unfamiliar text structure, they know many strategies to use, and
are also able to select appropriate strategies. (McLaughlin 2006, 6–7.)
It is a demanding task for a pupil to derive the meaning of an unknown word from
the written context. The complexity of the word is a crucial factor. If the word is related
to a known concept it may be a simple synonym. However, the word can refer to
unfamiliar concepts. Additionally, the difficulty of deriving the meaning of a word from
the context is connected to the concreteness of the unfamiliar concept. Furthermore, the
complexity of deriving word meaning from context is also influenced by the nature of
the context. Contexts do not necessarily reveal the full meaning of a word, even when
explicit clues are present. Sometimes the context is even misleading. (Fukkink 2005,
24,)
4
A pupils’ ability to derive the meaning of a new word from context is also affected
by the distance between the word and its cue(s). In addition, in nonfiction texts, a reader
often has to integrate information from several idea units, which can be found in various
places throughout a passage. The longer the distance between the pieces of information
to be integrated the more difficult the process. If a pupil’s working memory is weak the
process is even more demanding. (Cain et al. 2004.)
Summarising is a very difficult comprehension strategy. However, good readers
summarise while reading and it helps them to remember and connect important ideas of
the text. Nevertheless, many pupils struggle with determining the main ideas and
themes of the text as well as combining similar ideas, and synthesising them into a
coherent whole. Often they repeat most of the text or give a very vague statement. Still a
good summary should give a whole picture of the story, and include only the important
parts in same order as the text as well as knowledge of how they are related. (Diehl
2005, 65.) The older the pupils get the more they need their comprehension skills to
acquire new information. They are, after reading a text, frequently expected to
remember main ideas and concepts from the assigned passage. In addition, they are
often asked to explain their decisions. A pupil can help the summarising process by
asking himself or herself for instance, following questions: What does the paragraph
seem to be about? Which sentence gives the main idea? Does this sentence tell anything
new or more important than the main idea? Does this sentence repeat what has already
been said? (Swanson & De La Paz 1998.)
Method
The study was initiated with two goals in mind. One purpose was to investigate how
pupils’ reading comprehension skills develop during the first six school years. The
second goal was to determine if there are differences in the development of girls’ and
boys’ reading comprehension skills.
The study observed the development of the pupils in six classes in Southern
Finland from the beginning of first grade, when the children were six or seven years old,
to the end of the sixth grade. In the beginning of first grade in these classes there were
132 pupils – 73 girls and 59 boys.
Four measurements were conducted during this period, and four tests were used as
indicators. The initial test (Poussu-Olli & Merisuo-Storm, 2000) was divided into five
sections; each of these sections consisted of several items. It was used to measure the
pupils’ general level of school readiness, auditory and visual perception, mathematical
skills and memory. The items in the general section were aimed at measuring the pupil’s
understanding of number, of sentences and of phoneme-grapheme correspondence, his
or her ability to continue phrases and lines of patterns, and his or her ability to find
synonyms and rhyming words.
Phonological awareness is essential for learning to read and write. It was measured
by, for instance, the following items of the initial test: finding rhyme words, in the
general section of the test, and building words out of sounds and segmenting words into
syllables, in the auditory section of the test. The success in tasks that require phonemic
awareness is considered the most important prerequisite for learning to read. In the
auditory section of the initial test such tasks were, for instance, the identification of the
first or last phoneme in a word, and the phoneme synthesis task. Cronbach’s alpha, a
measure of internal consistency, was for the initial test .88.
5
The pupils’ reading skills were measured at the end of the first, the second and the
sixth school year. The reading tests for first and second grade (Merisuo-Storm &
Poussu-Olli 2000; Merisuo-Storm & Poussu-Olli 2005a) included reading aloud,
soundlessly and reading comprehension tasks, and the reading test for sixth grade
(Merisuo-Storm & Poussu-Olli 2005b) measured pupils’ ability to comprehend fiction
and nonfiction texts.
Results
FIRST GRADE
After the first school year there proved to be great differences in pupils’ reading skills.
In the reading aloud test the time that the pupils needed for the reading task varied from
50 seconds to 350 seconds, and while reading they made 0–29 errors. In the reading
comprehension test the pupils’ scores varied from six to eighteen. The correlation
between the pupils’ speed of reading and reading comprehension was significant (r=
.55, p= .000). Those pupils who were fluent readers were also best comprehenders. As
was mentioned above, non-fluent reading demands mental capacity that would be
needed for comprehension process. Because the boys were significantly less fluent
readers than the girls (t= -3.23, p= .002) it was predictable that they also performed less
successfully in reading comprehension.
In the reading comprehension test the pupils read a short story soundlessly. After
that they did three tasks that measured their understanding of the text. Most pupils
succeeded well in finding six given words from a text. About 80 per cent of them located
all the words in the text. However, there were six pupils who found only half or less of
the words. The second task was to fill gaps in six sentences with a word keeping in
mind the events of the story. This was a more demanding task. Only 39 per cent of the
pupils – 43 per cent of the girls and 34 per cent of the boys – made no mistakes. In 23
per cent of the papers only half or less of the gaps were filled with suitable words. In the
third part of the test the pupils were asked to continue sentences. This was the most
difficult task. Five per cent of the pupils performed exceptionally poorly and could not
complete a single sentence. Almost half of the boys managed to complete only half or
less of the sentences. The girls succeeded slightly better in the task.
SECOND GRADE
After the second school year there were still great differences in the pupils’ reading
skills. In the reading aloud test the pupils spent time in reading the text from 62 seconds
to 290 seconds, and made 0–22 errors. The boys were still less fluent readers than the
girls but the difference between the two genders was not significant. In the reading
comprehension test finding words from the text was easier than in first grade, and 75 per
cent of the pupils found them all. In filling the gaps with words 64 per cent of the pupils
made no mistakes. As in first grade continuing sentences was more difficult. Only 40
per cent of the pupils completed the sentences correctly. In addition, in second grade the
pupils were asked six questions about the story. Half of the pupils answered all
questions correctly. However, there were three pupils who gave only one correct
answer.
In the second grade test there were also tasks that measured pupils’ vocabulary.
The pupils were asked to find from the story synonyms for six words and opposites for
six words. It was mentioned above that vocabulary differences affect comprehension,
and the results of this study support that. The correlation between the scores of reading
comprehension and the scores of finding synonyms and opposites correlate significantly
6
(r= .64, p= .000). Although the correlation between reading fluency and finding
synonyms and opposites was not as high (r= .46, p= .000), one has to keep in mind that
children who were not fluent readers may not have had energy enough to read the text
again and search synonyms and opposites.
Furthermore, the results of the study showed that the level of a school starter’s
school readiness had a strong effect on his or her reading comprehension skills still in
second grade. This was clearly apparent when the results of the second grade reading
comprehension test were compared with the results of the initial test. The initial test as a
whole was a good predictor of the development of pupils’ reading comprehension skills.
There was a strong correlation between the performance in the initial test and in the
second grade reading comprehension test (r= .65, p= .000, r2= .43). According to the
results of a stepwise regression analysis, the auditory section of the initial test was the
best predictor of the pupil’s reading comprehension skills at the end of second grade (r=
.56, p= .000). However, as the R Square (r2= .31) shows, in second grade it accounted
only for 31 per cent of the variance.
SIXTH GRADE
At the end of the sixth school year the pupils’ reading comprehension skills were
measured with a test that consisted of three different texts. At that time there were 132
pupils (64 boys and 68 girls) who took part in the study. About 60 per cent of them were
the same pupils who took part in the initial test six years earlier. The first text was a
story, the second text was a newspaper article, and the third text a non-fiction text.
Cronbach’s alpha, a measure of internal consistency was for the test .85.
The first text was a two pages (A4) long story written by H.C. Andersen. The title
of the story was “What the old man does is always right”. It is a story about a man who
goes to the market place to sell his horse. On the way to town he met several people and
did many exchanges with them. Firstly he gave his horse to a farmer who in exchange
gave him his cow. After that he changes the cow to a sheep, the sheep to a goose, and
the goose to a hen. When he arrived to an inn he did his last exchange and changed the
hen to a sack full of rotten apples. In the inn he met three rich Englishmen. When they
heard about the silly exchanges that the man had done they were certain that his wife
will be angry when he comes home with a bag of rotten apples. However, the man said
that he knows that his wife will be happy and will reward him with a kiss. The
Englishmen said that if this happens they will give the man a basket full of gold coins.
At the happy end of the story the man gets the kiss and the golden coins.
After reading the story the pupils answered 20 questions. To some questions it was
easy to find answers in the text. For instance, “How did the story end?” and “To whom
did the man tell his story?” However, for instance 35 per cent of the boys could not
answer the question, “Why did they want to change the horse to some other animal?”
correctly. It is possible that after reading the story several pupils had already forgotten
the reason because it was mentioned at the beginning of the story. Especially many boys
did not want to reread the story and invented an incorrect explanation. Nevertheless 85
per cent of the girls had found the right answer. Another question to what the boys
significantly more often than the girls (t= -2.67, p= .000) gave an incorrect answer was
“What happened to the apples in the inn?” It was a small detail in the story, and only
nine per cent of the boys gave the correct answer “they were near the fire and started to
cook”. It seemed that the girls were more often than the boys willing to read the story
again in order to find the correct answers.
There were questions that proved to be rather difficult, such as “What were the
main characters like?” and “What is your opinion: why was the wife not angry?” Also
7
to these questions the girls gave significantly more often than the boys correct answers
(t= -3.20, p= .000; t= -3.25, p= .000). It appears that the girls were more sensitive and
understood the characters’ personalities and feelings more easily than the boys. This
was apparent also two years earlier when the same pupils took part in another study by
the author. Then the focus of the study was on the pupils’ creative writing skills. The
girls described more often the characters and their personality in their stories than the
boys. In addition they also paid attention to the surrounding in which the characters
lived. Similarly, in sixth grade the girls could more easily answer the question “What
kind of place did the couple live in?” The boys seemed to focus their attention more to
the events of the story.
The most difficult questions to answer were those in which the pupils had to put
together more than one peace of information from the text. A very demanding question
proved to be the question about the title (“What the old man does is always right”). The
pupils were asked: “What is the title based on?” Although most pupils understood that
the man did very foolish exchanges, many of them accepted the title as a fact. Only 30
per cent of them mentioned that it was only an expression that his wife used or that it
was her opinion about the matter. They understood that the wife loved her husband and
did not want to criticise his actions. They wrote that she did not like to argue with him
or that she was a positive, sweet person who was always able to find something good in
her husband’s actions. Explanations of this kind were more common in the girls’ (38 %)
than in the boys’ (22 %) papers.
In addition, the girls proved to have heard or read more Andersen’s stories than the
boys. They could significantly more often produce a title of another story by Andersen.
The difference between the two genders was significant (t= -2.65, p= .009). The
aggregated scores of the fiction section of the test varied from 6–20. The girls’ scores
were significantly higher than the boys’ scores (t= -4.15, p= .000), and the four pupils
who managed to answer all the questions correctly were all girls. In fourth grade also
the pupils’ reading attitudes were measured (Merisuo-Storm 2006). Then the girls
proved to be significantly more motivated to read books (t= -2.77, p= .006) and to visit
a library (t= -2.80, p= .006) than the boys. At that time most of the boys were especially
reluctant to read poems but also stories and fairytales were unpopular amongst them.
Consequently, one can assume that in sixth grade the boys were not as motivated as the
girls to read texts like this story by Andersen and in addition caused by the lack of
experience they had more difficulties in understanding it beyond the story events.
The second text was a newspaper article about H.C. Andersen. The title of the
article was “In the large footsteps of H.C. Andersen”. The article described the H.C.
Andersen route in Copenhagen where people could see and hear in several places
something connected to Andersen’s life or work. The route was a part of the H.C.
Andersen’s bicentenary celebrations. After reading the article the pupils’ task was to
answer ten questions and explain the meaning of ten words picked from the text. There
were no significant difference in the aggregated scores of the boys and the girls in this
section of the test although 40 per cent of the girls’ marks were excellent and only 23
per cent of the boys succeeded equally well. However, ten per cent of the girls and only
three per cent of the boys had poor marks.
The answers to most of the ten questions could be found in the article. For instance
the pupils were asked “What name has been given to H.C. Andersen?” and “What was
Danish money called when Andersen lived?”. It proved to be more difficult for the
boys than for the girls to find small details in the article. It was apparent that the girls
put more effort in searching them. One example was the question: “How many stops
there are along the route?” The number 62 was remarkably more often found in the
8
girls’ papers. Nevertheless, the easiest questions were those, which could be answered
with a single word. However, to be able to answer some questions the pupils had to put
together several different peaces of information from the text, which was a more
demanding task. For instance, the correct answer to the question: “What kinds of texts
one can hear on the route?” included four different kinds of texts.
The last question, “Which two things does the expression ‘in the large footsteps’ in
the title of the article refer to?” was even more demanding. It was mentioned in the text
that Andersen’s shoe size was 47. In addition, the pupils had to understand that the
phrase in question could also refer to the fact that Andersen was a great author, who is
famous all over the world. Consequently, that question proved to be the most difficult
one in the test. Only 28 per cent of the pupils (32 per cent of the boys and 25 per cent of
the girls) produced the right answer. This was the only question to which the boys
managed to give the correct answer more often than the girls.
The words that the pupils had to explain could be found in the article. The pupils
were asked to write what the words meant in this particular text. Only three pupils, one
boy and two girls, could explain all the words correctly. In this section of the test 22 per
cent of the girls’ marks and only three per cent of the boys’ marks were excellent.
However, eleven per cent of the girls and eight per cent of the boys had poor marks.
Some words proved to be especially difficult. As was mentioned above, deriving
the meaning of an unknown word from the written context is a demanding task. It was
also obvious that some pupils could not take the advantage of the clues in the text. They
gave an explanation that the word has in some other context. The most difficult word
appeared to be ‘välähdys’. In this text it means ‘a glimpse of something’ but in a
different context the same word means ‘a flash’ or ‘a gleam’. Although the word refers
to the previous sentence, several pupils (30 per cent of the boys and 35 per cent of the
girls) did not pay attention to the context and gave a false explanation. It seems that the
concrete meaning of the word was so strong in the pupils’ minds that they ignored the
clues in the text.
Another word that has a concrete and an abstract meaning is the verb ‘valaista’. It
can be translated to English ‘light up’ and ‘enlighten’ or ‘illustrate’. The word was used
in a sentence: ‘... their purpose was to illustrate the history of Copenhagen.” Again
many pupils produced the concrete meaning of the word although in this context the
word was used in its abstract meaning.
The word ‘kohde’ can be translated to English as ‘a target’ but in this text it meant
a place where people could see or hear something connected to Andersen’s life or work.
As was mentioned above, the pupils were asked how many such places there were along
the route. In addition, the word appeared twice in the text. However, about 50 per cent
of the pupils did not connect the word to the text and the question and gave another
explanation. The word ‘kortteeri’ is an old expression that one does not often hear
nowadays. It means the rooms that someone lives in. Although the text provided explicit
clues, only 35 % of the pupils could derive the meaning of this word from the text. It
seems that although the instructions stressed that the pupils should write what the words
meant in this particular text many of them did not want to look for the words from the
text and gave the explanation that was familiar to them.
As was suggested above, good comprehenders need an extensive vocabulary.
There was a strong correlation between the results of the explaining the words section of
the test and the results in the fiction text section (r= 51, p= .000). In addition, the
correlation was significant also between the success in explaining the words and
answering the questions connected to the newspaper article (r= .54, p= .000). Although
it seemed that the boys’ performance in the newspaper article section was slightly better
9
than in the story section, the correlation (r= .51, p= .000) between the two sections
shows that the same pupils had good scores in both sections.
Furthermore, the results of the second grade reading comprehension test correlated
significantly with the newspaper article section (r= .59. p= .000) of the sixth grade
comprehension test. It may suggest that several pupils who had difficulties in reading
comprehension in the end of second grade were still struggling comprehenders in sixth
grade.
The third text was an one-page-long (A4) non-fiction text about orang-outans and
their living conditions in today’s world. Pupils were asked to read the text and then
write a five-sentence summary of it. In the instructions it was stressed that the summary
should include the most essential ideas of the text. This part of the test proved to be the
most difficult. Although the difference in the boys’ and the girls’ results was not
significant the girls performed better than boys also in summarising. As eleven per cent
of the girls and only three per cent of the boys had excellent marks, ten per cent of the
boys and only two per cent of the girls had poor marks.
Many pupils could not determine what were the main ideas in the text. Some of
them repeated all the facts, although how trivial, from the text. Consequently, the
sentences were very long and included many ideas – or there were more than five
sentences in their papers. Some pupils concentrated in the first two passages of the text
and described in several sentences what orang-outans look like and what they eat. They
had not been able to combine similar ideas in one sentence. In some papers there were
same ideas repeated in several sentences. Although, the most important ideas in the text
were that the orang-outans are an endangered species and that we should protect their
environment, some pupils did not mention them in their summary.
It seemed that the pupils had not had practice enough in summarising and therefore
many of them failed in doing it. Several pupils who had performed considerable well in
previous sections of the test had succeeded poorly in summarising the text.
Consequently, while the correlation between the results of the story text comprehension
and the newspaper text comprehension section was strong, the correlations between
them and the results of the summarising section (r= . 34, p= .000; r= .39, p= . 000) were
not as high. It was obvious that the pupils had more experience in answering questions
than in finding main ideas in a text.
The pupils scores in sixth grade were also compared with the scores they had in
the initial test. Although at the end of the sixth school year only 60 per cent of the pupils
were the same pupils as at the beginning of the first school year, the results suggest that
the level of a school starter’s school readiness still in many cases had a notable effect on
his or her reading comprehension skills in sixth grade. There was a considerable
correlation between the performance in the initial test and in the second grade reading
comprehension test (r= .55, p= .000, r2= .30). According to the results of a stepwise
regression analysis, the general and the auditory section of the initial test were the best
predictors of the pupil’s reading comprehension skills at the end of sixth grade (r= .51,
p= .000). However, as the R Square (r2= .26) shows, in sixth grade they accounted only
for 26 per cent of the variance.
Conclusion
The results of the study show that during the first two school years there were great
differences in the pupils’ reading fluency, reading comprehension skills, and
vocabulary. Furthermore, it seemed that the level of a school starter’s school readiness
had a strong effect on his or her reading skills still after two school years. After six
10
years in school some pupils still had great difficulties in comprehending different texts.
The results also suggest that several pupils who had poor reading comprehension skills
in second grade were still struggling comprehenders at the end of sixth grade. However,
next autumn they moved to secondary school and there they need good reading
comprehension skills to be able to acquire new information independently.
In sixth grade the girls succeeded in every reading comprehension task better than
the boys. Their aggregated scores of the fiction section were significantly higher than
the boys’ scores, and the four pupils who managed to answer all the questions correctly
were all girls. In the newspaper article section 40 per cent of the girls’ marks were
excellent and only 23 per cent of the boys succeeded equally well. In addition, the girls’
scores in the explaining the meaning of the words task were higher than the boys’
scores.
The results of the fourth grade reading attitude test had shown that the girls read
more than the boys. As was mentioned above, increasing reading practice can increase
vocabulary. A pupil who is an eager reader encounters more words than a pupil who
reads less. In addition, regular reading is likely to lead to more efficient access of word
meanings. Furthermore, the texts the girls liked to read represented wider range of
genres than the texts that the boys were interested in. Consequently they were in sixth
grade more experienced in reading different texts than the boys.
It was also very interesting to notice how different readers the boys and the girls
were. It appeared that when reading a story the girls were more sensitive and understood
the characters’ personalities and feelings more easily than the boys. In addition, they
also paid attention to the surrounding in which the characters lived. The boys seemed to
focus their attention more to the events of the story.
Although the girls, as a group, succeeded better than the boys in all the tests there
were also girls whose marks were poor. Especially these girls and several boys need
support in learning reading comprehension strategies. In first and second grade a lot of
time is spent in teaching children to read and write. It would be very important also to
start teaching them reading comprehension strategies as early as possible. A
considerable time should also be spent in teaching them vocabulary. Moreover, the
pupils need to be taught how text context helps to understand the meaning of an
unfamiliar word. They should learn what kind of clues a text can provide and how to
notice them. The results of the study showed that deriving the meaning of an unknown
word from the written context was very difficult. It seems that the pupils had not had
enough practice in it because they often produced a meaning for a word that it has in
some other context.
In addition, more time should be spent in summarising texts. Summarising is a
demanding task and needs a lot of practice. Many pupils could not discriminate the
main ideas and the trivial ideas in the text. Several pupils who had performed
considerable well in other sections of the test had succeeded poorly in summarising the
text. However, in school the pupils are, after reading a text, frequently expected to
remember main ideas and concepts from it. Also comprehending is easier if a pupil is
able to find the main ideas from the text.
References
Barton, J. & Sawyer, D.M. (2003). Our students are ready for this: Comprehension
instruction in the elementary school. The Reading Teacher 57 (4), 334–347.
Biemiller, A. (2003). Vocabulary: Needed if more children are to read well. Reading
Psychology 24 (3/4), 323–335.
11
Bimmel, P. & van Schooten, E. (2004). The relationship between strategic reading
activities and reading comprehension. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and
Literature 4 (1), 85–102.
Bowyer-Grane, C. & Snowling, M.J. (2005). Assessing children’s inference generation:
What do tests of reading comprehension measure? British Journal of Educational
Psychology 75 (2), 189–201.
Cain, K., Oakhill, J. & Lemmon, K. (2004). Individual Differences in the Inference of
Word Meanings From Context: The Influence of Reading Comprehension,
Vocabulary Knowledge, and Memory Capacity. Journal of Educational
Psychology 96 (4), 671–681.
Diehl, H.L. (2005). Snapshots of our journey to thoughtful literacy. The Reading
Teacher 59 (1), 56–69.
Dougherty Stahl, K.A. (2004). Proof, practice, and promise: Comprehension
strategy instruction in the primary grades. The Reading Teacher 57 (7), 598–
609.
Fukkink, R.G. (2005). Deriving word meaning from written context: a process
analysis. Learning and Instruction 44 (1), 23–43.
McGee, A. & Johnson, H. (2003). The Effect of Inference Training on Skilled and Less
Skilled Comprehenders. Educational Psychology 23 (1), 49–59.
McLaughlin, M. (2006). Guided Comprehension in the Primary Grades. Newark, DE:
International Reading Association.
Merisuo-Storm, T. (2006). Girls and Boys Like to Read and Write Different Texts.
Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 50 (2), 111–125.
Merisuo-Storm, T. & Poussu-Olli, H-S. (2005a). Oskarin torimatka. Toisen luokan
lukemistesti. [Oscar goes to market. Second grade reading test]. Naantali: Scribeo.
Merisuo-Storm, T. & Poussu-Olli, H-P. (2005b). Kuudennen luokan ymmärtävän
lukemisen ja kirjoittamisen testi [Sixth grade reading comprehension and writing
test]. Naantali: Scribeo.
Merisuo-Storm, T. & Poussu-Olli, H-S. (2000). Peruskoulun ensimmäisen luokan
lukemistesti Siiliperhe. [First grade reading test The Hedgehog Family]. Naantali:
Scribeo.
Pardo, L.S. 2004. What every teacher needs to know about comprehension. The
Reading Teacher 58 (3), 272–280.
Poussu-Olli, H-S. & Merisuo-Storm, T. (2000). Koulutulokkaan alkutesti [Initial Test for
School Starters]. Naantali: Scribeo.
Pressley. M. (2002). Metacognition and Self-Regulated Comprehension. In A.E.
Farstrup & S.J. Samuels (Eds.) What Research Has to Say About Reading
Instruction. Third Edition (pp. 291–309). Newark: International Reading
Association.
Scharer, P.L., Pinnell, G.S., Lyons, C. & Fountas, I. (2005). Becoming an Engaged
Reader. Educational Leadership 63 (2), 24–26.
Snow,C. , Sweet, A.P., Alvermann, D.E., Kamil, M.L., & Stricland, D.S. (2002).
Formulating a Research Agenda About Reading for Understanding. In A.M. Roller
(Ed.) Comprehensive Reading Instruction Across the Grade Levels. A collection of
papers from the Reading Research 2001 Conference (pp. 88–110). Newark, DE:
International Reading Association.
Swanson, P.N. & De La Paz, S. (1998). Teaching effective comprehension strategies to
students with learning and reading disabilities. Intervention in School & Clinic 33
(4), 209–218.
Wallace, C. (1992). Reading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12
Williams, J.P. (2005). Instruction in Reading Comprehension for Primary-Grade
Students: A Focus on Text Structure. The Journal of Special Education 39 (1), 6–
18.
13