effect of chunking material as an aid to esl students reading co

8/18/2019 Effect of Chunking Material as an Aid to ESL Students Reading Co

1/69

Iowa State University

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University

R#-#!2# ## a+ D#a+

1985

Eect of chunking material as an aid to ESLstudents' reading comprehension

Meichin Yeh Tzeng Iowa State University

F3 & a+ a+a 3 a: &-://..aa#.#/

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# %& $ $## a+ -#+ a!!# D%a R#- @ I3a Sa# U+2#. I &a ##+ a!!#-# $ +!+ + R#-#!2#

## a+ D#a+ a+ a&# a*+a $ D%a R#- @ I3a Sa# U+2#. F *# +$*a+, -#a# !+a!

&+#$@aa#.#.

R#!**#+# Ca+T#+%, M#!&+ Y#&, "E6#! $ !&++% *a#a a a+ a ESL #+' #a+% !*-#++ " (1985). Retrospective Teses and Dissertations. Pa-# 7904.

http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttp://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttp://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttp://network.bepress.com/hgg/discipline/455?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPagesmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://network.bepress.com/hgg/discipline/455?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttp://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttp://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttp://lib.dr.iastate.edu/?utm_source=lib.dr.iastate.edu%2Frtd%2F7904&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages


2/69

Approved:

E f f e c t o f chunk ing mate r i a l

a s an a i d t o ESL students'

read ing

comprehension

by

Meich in Yeh

Tzeng

A

Th e s i s Subm i t t e d to

t h e

Graduate Facul ty

in

Pa r t i a l Ful f i l lmen t

of

the

Requi rements

fo r th e

Degree

of

MASTER

OF ARTS

na jo r ; Engl i sh

In

Charge o f

Major V7ork

For th e

Majo r

Depa r tmen t

For

th e

Gradua te Col l ege

Iowa S t a t e Unive r s i t y

Ames ,

I owa

1 9 8 5


3/69

11

TABLE

O F CONTENTS

P ag e

INTRODUCTION 1

LITERATURE

REVIEl^ 4

Chunking

by

Good and Poor F i r s t Language

Reader s

4

E f f e c t i v e ne s s

o f

Chunking fo r

F i r s t Language 6

Readers

Chun king and

ESL Readin g P ro blems 15

METHOD

1 9

Sub j e c t s

19

Materials 1 9

Design 21

Procedure 2 2

RESULTS 2 4

DISCUSS ION

3 4

IMPL ICAT IONS AND CONCLUSIONS 39

REFERENCES 43

ACKN0V7LEDGMENTS

47

APPENDIX

A : SAMPLE TEST 48

APPE>]DIX B : EIGHT

COMBINATIONS

65


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5/69

through

the s tru ctu re s th at carry meaning

(Lefevre ,

1964,

p .

23 ) .

The ques t ion r a i sed fo r

ESL t eacher s by

such

obs e rv a t i on s i s whe the r s t uden t s can be t augh t

t o

read by

phrases ra ther

than by s ingle

words.

As a

f i r s t s tep

toward

an answer,

t h i s

s tudy inves t iga tes th e q uestio n

of

whether

pre-organiz ing

the

input of reading mater ia l

oy

chunking

th e v/ords

into

meaningful

l i ngu i s t i c un i t s

helps

ESL

s t uden t s comprehend ove r a l l

meaning.

Chunking i s th e p ro cess of o rg an iz in g or c lu s t e r ing

informat ion in to

... compact thought

un i t s ,

such as

phrases

o r c l a u s e s (Va l en t i ne and

Franks ,

1979 ,

p .

48 ) ,

In

speaking,

phras ing

i s

usua l ly provided by

th e

i n t e r locu to r s

th rough

supra segmen ta l cues

—

s t r e s s ,

i n t ona t i on ,

and

pauses ;

hov;ever,

read ing

a

paragraph

s i l e n t l y

r equ i r e s

readers themselves to

phrase

words menta l ly , t h a t

i s ,

to pu t

words

i n t o

mean ing fu l l i n g u i s t i c

un i t s

(Graf

and

Tor ry ,

1966 ; S t even s , 1983 ) .

Though punc tua t i on

somet imes shov/s

hov/ th e

i n fo rma t ion

should be chunked in wr i t t en pas sages , many

sen tences

in a

wr i t t e n

passage

con t a i n

few

punc tua t ion

c l u e s .

Cons ide r

t h i s

sen tence :

I remember creep ing

up

downwind of a male

t h a t must have weighed more

than

5,000 pounds

to

take a

se r i e s

o f p ho to grap hs showing the square l i p s

t h a t

a re

so

well

adapted

to plucking

a

few blades of grass a t

a

t ime (in


6/69


7/69

LITERATURE REVIEW

There have been s ev er al s tu d ie s of f i r s t language

readers which show

di f ferences in

the v/ay

good

and poor

readers

chunk

mate r i a l . There

i s

also a body

of

research

indicat ing

the effect iveness of chunking reading materials

for f i r s t

language

readers . F in ally th ere have been s tudies

of second language l earner s which provide

some

evidence

t h a t

chunking words into meaningful phrases may

increase

reading

comprehens ion .

A

reviev; o f t he se

s t ud i e s

fo l lov ;s .

Chunking

by Good

and Poor

F i r s t

Language

Readers

By

the

analysis

of

three

l inguis t ic

variables—juncture

or pause,

pitch,

and

s tre ss—in o ra l reading in children.

Clay

and

Imlach (1971)

found

t ha t

the bes t

readers

seemed to

read

on

the average

7 words between pauses,

complete

a

sentence with

a fal l

in pitch,

and

read 4,7

words

per

stress, . whereas poor readers were more

likely

to read 1.3

words between

pauses,

use a

rising

or

sustained

pitch

implying uncertainty

in

reading a

sentence,

and read

1,1

v/ords per stress. These behavioral differences suggest that

the best readers are processing the message in syntactic

chunks, while poor readers are

more

controlled by word and


8/69

p a r t i a l

word cue s .

S tud ie s of

eye-vo ice

span (HVS),

th e

number of words

t h a t

th e

eye i s

ahead o f

the

voice

in

reading

a loud ,

(as

determined in

exper iments

in which

th e t e x t

i s made

unava i l ab le by t u rn ing th e

l i g h t o f f ,

but th e reader

cont inues to

read as

many words

as

poss ib le ) give fur ther

ind ica t ion

th at sk il le d

readers process more words

a t a t ime

than un sk il le d re ad ers .

Schles inger

{1968)

car r ied

out

s e v e r a l s t u d i e s t o de t e rm in e whe the r

th e

EVS

ex tended

t o

phr as e boundar ie s. He

found

t ha t

h is subjec ts ,

pro f i c i en t

adu l t r eader s of Hebrew, tended to

end

t h e i r

EVSs

a t

th e

end

of

uni ts or phrases which

are semantic

and syntactic

wholes.

In l ight of th ese f indings,

Schlesinger

fur ther suggested

that the

reading

process may,

conceivably,

be faci l i ta ted

by arranging

the printed

words in groups

corresponding

to

the units

of

decoding (p. 43). .Schlesinger's

findings

have

been

confirmed

by

others

(Levin and Kaplan, 1968; Rode,

1974-1975). Levin and Addis (1979) found

evidence

in

thei r

EVS studies suggesting that skilled readers processed the

text

in sys tematic or meaning units (p.

38).


9/69

Ef f e c t i vene s s

o f

Chunking

fo r

F i r s t Language Reade rs

In

th e

1960s ,

Amble and

h is co l l eagues succes s fu l l y

developed

and

used phrase

read ing

t r a in ing programs

exper imenta l ly wi th ch i ld ren in th e

f i f t h and

s ix th grades

and

wi th r emed i a l

r e ade r s

(Amble, 1966; Amble and

I lueh l ,

1956a;

Amble

and

Muehl , 1966b) . They deve loped a s e r i e s o f

p i c tu r e

f i lms

to

prov ide

t a ch i s t o scop i c - t ype

presen ta t ion

V7ith

a

16 -mi l l ime te r

p ro jec to r ; two

se t s o f p hr as e-r ea din g

f i lms v/ere des igned

to '

provide

sys tema t i c

ej :posure of

many

ph r a s e s

(Amble and

Muehl, 1966a)

.

The

p r a c t i c e

ph r a s e s v/sre

f l a shed on

th e

sc reen fo r 1 /8 o f a second , enough t ime fo r

th e

pup i l t o make a s i ng l e

r e ad ing

f i x a t i on .

At th e

beginning

th e phrases

v/ere

tv7o, t h r e e

and

four

v/ords

in

l e ng t h ;

t hey were g r adua l l y

inc reased dur ing

th e t r a i n i ng

sequence

on each f i lm . The

purpose

was to prov ide

p r a c t i c e

in r ap id r e ad ing o f mean ing fu l ph r a s e s and to

i nc r e a se

read ing

r a t e and

comprehens ion.

The f i nd ings o f th e phrase read ing t r a i n i ng

s t ud i e s

r evea l

t h a t

s tu d en ts in th e

t r a i n ing

programs

a t

all

l e v e l s

of

reading

made

g r e a t e r progress

than d id

c on tro l s ub je cts

in

percep tua l span ,

reading ra te

and

reading

comprehension.

The exper iments

a lso show t h a t p hra se rea din g can

be

improved

v/ith

t r a in ing ,

t ha t

it

i s independent

of read ing


10/69

vocabu la ry , and t h a t improvement in phrase

reading

i s

du r ab l e (Amble,

1967 ) , Amble

conc luded t h a t t h e phrase

r e ad ing s t ud i e s ev idenced

a

need

fo r

f u r t h e r con s i d e r a t i on

o f

th e

phenomena o f

r e ad ing

by

phra se s (Amble

1967 , p .

122) .

Another s tudy done v/i th f ou r t h grade s t uden t s by

Amble

and

Kel ly

(1970)

r evea led

t h a t ch i ld r en

who

had

problems

in

l ea rn ing to read

a t

th e

expec ted

r a t e and who l i v ed in

a

community o f l im i t ed s o c i a l - c u l t u r a l oppor t un i t y a l so

appea red

to b en ef i t sub s t a n t i a l l y from th e phrase r e ad ing

programs .

Thus ,

th e v/ork

o f

Amble and h i s

co l l e ague s

s ugge s t s t h a t d iv id i ng t e x t i n to mean ing fu l ph r a s e s

may

f a c i l i t a t e

reading comprehension.

Dur ing th e same

pe r i od ,

Graf and Torry (1966) were

inves t iga t ing

the hypothes is

t h a t grouping

v;ords or phrases

i s

necessary fo r

th e u nd erstan din g o f read in g

passages .

Using

undergraduate col l ege s tudent

vo lun tee rs ,

they t r i ed

to f ind out whether subjec t s would comprehend

be t t e r

i f

re ad ing pas sage s were broken

a t

syntac t ic phr as e boundarie s

or in the

middle

of such

phrases . They found t h a t

comprehension

scores fo r

reading

passages

v/hich

were

broken

a t syntact ic

phrase boundaries

were higher than

those for

passages

broken

in

the middle

of-

such groups.

The

resu l t s

showed

tha t , ju s t

as

acoustic

pauses help to bring about

s t ruc tura l organizat ion

in

speech percept ion, divis ion of


11/69

v/r i t ten t e x t

in to n atu ra l

l i ngu i s t i c

un i t s

enab les th e

r eade r to

see th e grammat ica l o rgan iza t i on

of

a

passage .

Wiener and

Cromer (1967)

sugges t four

d i f f e r e n t

assumptions or explanat ions v/hich account fo r

reading

d i f f i c u l t y : de f ec t , de f i c i ency , d i s rup t ion , and

d i f f e r ence .

The assumpt ion of de fec t i s

t h a t

reading

d i f f i cu l t y

i s

a t t r ibu tab le

to some

nonfunct ion

such

as sensory impairment;

an

i n d i v i d u a l

c a n n o t

l e a r n

to

r e a d u n l e s s t h e

d e f e c t

is

co r r ec t ed .

The

assumpt ion

o f d ef ic ie nc y

i s

t h a t

read ing

d i f f i c u l t y is

a s c r i b ab l e

to an absence o f some f a c t o r s such

as

phonet ic sk i l l s or vocabulary knov; ledge v /h ich must be

s tr en g th en ed b ef ore

a de qu ate r ea din g

can occur . The

assumption of dis rupt ion regards the d i f f i cu l ty as the

r esu l t of some in te r fe rence , such as anxie ty , which

must

be

overcome

before

one

can

learn

adequately.

Fina l ly ,

the

assumption of difference assumes

tha t

reading

di f f icu l ty

occu r s v;here

t h e r e i s a

d i f f e r en ce o r mismatc h b etw ee n th e

re ad er 's ty pic al pat terns of

s t ruc tura l

organization and the

syntact ic patterns re quired fo r the comprehension of

the

V7ri t t en m a t e r i a l.

Using

these

four

models,

Cromer (1970)

described

tv;o

types

of poor readers : one

assumed

to

f i t

the

model of the

difference group — readers who have adequate intelligence,

language

skills,

vocabulary

skills,

etc., but who organize

reading

input in a v/ord—by-word fashion

rather

than in


12/69

meaningful

un i t s (phrases ) ,

and

th e

o the r assumed to fit

th e

model

of

th e

de f i c i t group

—

readers

who

have

adequate

in te l l igence

and language

sk i l l s

but who are r e la t ive ly

def ic ient

in vocabulary as

shovm on a standardized

reading

t e s t . He

compared

reading

comprehension

of

the two

groups

of

poor

readers and then

compared

the comprehension of good

readers

with

t h a t

of

each group

of poor

readers .

Mater ia l s chosen to t e s t reading comprehension of these

four

groups

were p re sen te d in

four

d i f f e r en t

modes:

sentences

typed in

regular

prose

form,

s ing le v/ords typed on

separate l ines on a ro l l of pap er, p hra se s (v/ords in groups

determined

by the c r i t e r ion

of mean ingfulness ), and

fragmented word groups (words in groups

t ha t

were not

mean i ng fu l ) .

Cromer

predicted

that

the

difference

group

of

poor

readers

would

perform

more

like

good

readers in the phrase

mode, and

that the

good readers under

the single

word mode

V7ould perform more like poor readers, Kis

prediction

held.

The

difference group answered significantly more questions

in the

phrase-grouping condition than

in

the other three

conditions,

actually

performing as well as

good

readers.

Kov/ever, no

such

effect was

found with the deficit

group

of

poor readers, probably because of their inadequate

vocabulary. Thus, these findings show

that

one source of

comprehension difficulties is due to the

way

some poor


13/69

1 0

readers organize t he i r reading input .

I f

the

reading

passages

were chu nked

or

presented

in

phrases ,

be t t e r

comprehens ion migh t r e s u l t .

I t i s

of course possible tha t reading

comprehension

d if f ic ul ty a t

a l l

l eve l s might r esu l t from lack

of

vocabulary or word-ident i f icat ion sk i l l . To inves t igate

the

re la t ive

importance

of vocabulary and s t ructural orga

n iz atio n fo r

reading comprehension,

Oakan, T'Jiener, and

Cromer (1971) compared the comprehension

of

good and poor

readers in the f i f t h grade.

Poor readers

were tra in ed to recogn ize vocabu la ry which

occurs

in

s to r ies

before actual ly reading the s to r ies . The

resul ts showed

tha t

such training did

not bring about

a

distinctive increase in comprehension

for poor readers.

These

findings

suggest

that

lack of

comprehension

has

another

source;

perhaps

poor readers

do not

organize

their

input into

certain

effective syntactic patterns, even though

they know every v;ord of a passage, when Oakan et al. asked

good readers to read the typed

transcripts

of tapes which

recorded

several

poor

fifth

grade

readers

reading four

passages aloud

(the

transcripts

contained

all

the

poor

readers pauses, false starts, errors, mispronunciations,

omissions,

etc,), the good readers comprehension

dropped

orf significantly.

However,

with transcripts of tapes

v;hich

recorded

several

good

readers in the fifth grade reading


14/69

1 1

four passages with pauses

a t

appropriate places, both

good

and poor readers

performed

equally V7ell. These

f indings

indicate th at s tr uc tu ra l

organization

sk i l l s

are important

fo r read ing comprehension

and

t h a t

r eader s who a re sk i l l ed

in word ident i f ica t ion

or

who have adequate vocabulary

sk i l l s may

s t i l l

exhib i t

d i f f i cu l t i e s

in comprehension i f

they do

not impose

order

on the reading

input

or organize

thei r reading input into certain meaningful

pat terns

or

units.

VJeaver

(1979-80) tested the

possib i l i ty of

improving

reading comprehension

of

third graders

by

training the

chi ldren

to

poin t out

hov; the v/ords of a

sentence

are

related

and then to encode information

in meaningful

chunks

larger than

the single

word. Sixteen subjects individually

received,

t raining

in

a

sentence

const ruct ion task

and

in

word

grouping

for

ten to fifteen

minutes

three times

a v/eek.

The

.sentence construction task involved arranging a

set

of

words into phrases and then arranging the phrases into

sentences by using a word-grouping strategy. in this

project, students were taught to form word groups

by

first

Identifying the action

word,

or

verb,

and

then

asking

a

series of questions to group the remaining words and to

determine how the word

groups

are related to the verb

(pp. 135-136). At the

beginning

of the training, five-word

sentences were

formed;

the length was gradually increased to


15/69

1 2

fifteen w o r d s .

Weaver compared f i f t e en con t ro l sub j ec t s who

rece ived

no t ra in ing

with

th ese s ix te en

experimental

subjec ts ,

Reading comprehension was measured by scores on

four types

of

t e s t s :

1)

t imed

sentence recognit ion which tes ted

speed, knov/ledge and

use of syntax, re cogn ition o f the

difference

between

meaningful and nonsense

or false

sentences, and comprehension of single sentences

(as

opposed

to

connected

discourse) ;

2)

cloze

comprehension which

tested sentence construction {completion in

the case of

the

cloze), knowledge and use of syntax, comprehension of

single

sentences ,

and knov/ledge of

the d i s t inc t ion

between

meaningful and nonsense sentences or

false

sentences ; 3)

prompted sentence recall which

tested eff ic iency

and

organization

in

short-term

memory,

and comprehension of

single sentences ; and 4) comprehension questions over

passages which tested comprehension of some single

sentences,

and

a presupposed

knowledge

of

syntax {po,

131-132) .

Results of

Weaver s

study

showed

that the experimental

subjects

V7ere

significantly

more

accurate

and

faster

on

the

sentence construction test than the control group and,

.oreover, that training

improved sentence

construction

performance, transfering most to the prompted sentence

recall

and

cloze test, less to the

timed

sentence


16/69

1 3

r ecogn i t i on t e s t , and

l e a s t

to th e passage -ques t ion

t e s t .

Thus ,

t h e s e

r e s u l t s

a re c on sis te nt with th e con t en t i on

t h a t

syn t a c t i c s k i l l s a re impor t an t in read ing comprehens ion .

Another s i gn i f i c an t s tudy was

done

by

Stevens

(1983) .

Using

high

schoo l

sophomore

boys as sub j e c t s , she sough t to

di scove r if chunking or o rg an iz ing read ing mate r i a l

i n t o

phrase

un i t s fo r

s tuden t s

migh t he lp them comprehend th e

ma te r i a l . Two comparable forms of

th e

Gates -MacGin i t i e

Reading

Tes t s ,

Leve l

F

(1978)

were

used .

The

read ings

fo r

t h e comprehens ion sub t e s t

o f Form

1

were

p r e s en t ed

in

t h e i r

pub l i shed form

v/hereas

th o se o f Form 2 o f

th e

same

test

were

chunked

by

drawing s l a s h

l i n e s

be tween mean ing fu l phra se

un i t s based on th e punc tua t i on , s t r u c t u r e , an d meaning o f

t h e

written material.

Each

sub j e c t

was

g iven bo th

forms

o f th e

Gates -

MacGini t ie

Reading Tes ts

Level

F.

The order

of presen ta t ion

was

r andomly

a s s i gned . Before

each

t e s t - ,

th e te ac he r

p r e s e n t e d

a

s h o r t l e s s o n o f abou t t e n

to

fifteen minu t e s on

the importance of reading in p hra ses, using v/rongly

phrased

examples to show the importa nce o f proper phras ing .

S tuden t s

were

shown

th e

fu n c t io n o f

th e

s l a s h

l i n e s

i n

t h e s e

examples and to ld tha t i f

they were

able to read along

by

using

the l ines

to organize

the i r

thoughts,

the i r under

s tand ing v/ould improve.

The resul t s indicated tha t

chunking the

mater ial into


17/69

1 4

meaningful l inguis t ic units

improved

the subjects '

reading

comprehension. Dividing subjects into abi l i ty groups by

t he i r scores

on

the vocabulary sub tes t

on

the Gates-

MacGinitie Reading Tes t , Level

F,

Stevens

found t ha t

chunking

aided low,

middle,

and high

ab i l i ty readers

e qu a l l y .

However,

two

s tud ie s , one by Radebaugh (1983) and one

by Carver

(1970),

did not find chunking

to be

so effect ive,

Radebaugh,

working with fourth- and f if th-grade children,

t r ied to

determine i f differences in

reading

were related

to

grapho-syntact ic

organiza t ion .

Three cloze t es t s v/ere

constructed

by dele t ing every

f i f th

word from th ree

330-

to

350-word

narrat ive passages. Each cloze t e s t conformed

to

one

of

the following

grapho-syntactic

organizations; (a)

regular

paragraph format, with

the

passage typed as

i t

would

normally appear in

print;

(b) meaningful

units

format, with

sentences pre-organized into units

which

corresponded to the

sense boundaries identified

by

a

group

of

good compre-

henders;

(c)

sentence fragments

format, with

sentence

pre-

organized into units which did not correspond to the sense

boundaries

identified

by

good

comprehenders (p.

22).

Radebaugh

found

that students comprehended better

on

both

the meaningful

units

format

and

the sentence fragments

format

than

on

the regular

paragraph format. Thus, she

concluded that while some form

of

preorganization

may be


18/69

1 5

b en e f i c i a l , th e

ba s i s

on which the pr eo rgan i z a t i on is done

is n ot im p or ta nt .

C arv er (1970),

in

a s tudy

o f c o lle g e

s t uden t s ,

used

th e

chunking device

o f

plac ing each chunk in a passage on a

sepa r a t e l i n e . He found

t h a t th e

te ch niq ue d id

no t

improve

th e

r e ad ing e f f i c i e n cy o f

mature

r e ade r s when

t hey v/ere

read ing a t th e i r normal r a t e . In reviev/ing t h i s r e s ea r ch ,

S tevens

(1983) commented t h a t Carve r ' s s ub j e c t s

may

have

been to o mature

t o

bene f i t from any dev ice as

an

a id

to

improve

t h e i r r ead ing a b i l i t y .

The body o f re se a rch

repor ted

in t h i s s e c t i on prov ides

evidence t h a t

chunking

i s an a id to immature r eade r s o r

reade r s who

a re

de f i c i en t

in

s t r u c t u r a l

o rgan i z a t i on . The

obvious

ques t ion in

our f ie ld i s whe th er c hunk in g

can

a l so

help

ESL

readers

who

are

not

mature

readers

in

English

(though

they might be in t h e i r

f i r s t

languages) ,

Chunking

and

ESL Reading

Problems

Hatch, Polin and

Par t

(1974) asked fore ign s tudents and

Anglo

co l l ege

s tuden ts

to

mark

out

l e t t e r s such

as

a*s

or

s 's in a text as

they

read i t for comprehension. They found

that Anglos marked out

letters

only in content words (e.g.,

nouns, verbs, adjectives)

but

not in

function words (e .g. ,

art icles,

conjunctions,

prepositions)

whereas foreign


19/69

16

s tudent s

marked

them

everywhere .

The

f in din gs s ug ge st , a t

l eas t in d ir ec tly , th at

foreign

students are

processing

one

word a t

a

t ime and t h a t t h e i r eyes do not take in chunks o r

focus on the

meaning-rbearing

v^ords as Anglo col lege

students'

d o .

In

o rde r

to

obta in more

i n forma t ion . Hatch

e t

a l .

d id

another experiment in

v/hich

native and non-native subjects

were

told

to mark

out

l e t t e r s in s t ressed sy l lab les . They

found

that

Anglos

tended

to cross

out

only l e t te rs appearing

in syllables v/hich

would

be

strongly

stressed in

speech, but

that

fo re ign s tudent s showed no

patterns

with respect to

s t ressed

or

unst ressed sy l l ab les .

Here,

the di f fe rence in

performance betv/een

foreign

students and Anglos may indicate

that Anglos read s i lent ly with the

phrasing

they would use

in

speaking, while

foreign students

tend

to

ignore phrasing

in

silent reading because i t is not provided by supraseg-

mental

cues —

intonation, s t ress , and pauses

— as i t

is

in

speaking, but

must be provided by

the readers themselves.

Looking at.scores on comprehension tests following

each of

the

crossing-out studies. Hatch e t

a l .

found

that

foreign students

comprehended

significantly less

than

Anglos

did. While one cannot

be

sure

that this

lower comprehen

sion of foreign students resulted

from

patterns of phrasing

discussed above,

i t is at

least possible

that this V7as

the

case, and that some form of training in chunking might help


20/69

1 7

th es e s tu de nts

improve

t he i r reading

comprehension.

In

another

study

of

ESL

students,

Pla i s te r (1958)

experimented with pract ice in

phrasa l reading .

He rewrote

passages

with

tv;o

columns on

a page,

each column being

one

phrase wide. The purpose was

to

show

s tuden ts what

words

should

be

grouped together as meaningful

uni ts and

to t r a in

them

to

p roces s t e x t in

chunks r a the r t han

one v/ord a t a

t ime.

Though

he did not carry out any

research to t e s t

reading

comprehension af te r phrasal reading,

Pla i s t e r

informally found

that

i t was common

to

get 125-v/ord-per-

minute readers up to 400 v/ords

per

minute

in

one

semester on

simple material. One would

at

leas t hope that , in

addition

to moving fas ter through passages, Pla is te r ' s students were

also

learning

to process more accurately and efficiently.

The research cited

in

this section suggests

that

there

is a

relationship

between phrase grouping and comprehension

in

ESL

reading;

hov/ever, I

knov;

of no

re searche rs in

second

language reading

who

have tested the

effect

of chunking as

an aid

to comprehension

in

the

way that Stevens and others

have

done

in

first

language reading. Therefore, in this

study, I

have

attempted to find out

whether

pre-organizing

reading

material

into syntactic

chunks facilitates

ESL

students'

reading comprehension.

My

hypothesis

was

that

passages which are chunked would

be

better comprehended by

ESL readers than passages

which

are unchunked.

The basis


21/69

18

fo r

my

s tudy was Stevens* r e sea rch

w ith E ng lish

speak ing

high school s tuden t s ; mate r i a l s

and p re sen t a t i on

were

modi f ied

somewhat

in adap t ing th e method to an

ESL

audience


22/69

19

METHOD

Sub j e c t s

Fo r t y male and t e n f emale f o r e i gn s t uden t s in r e ad ing

c l a s s e s

in th e In te n s iv e

Eng l i sh

and

Or ien t a t i on

Program

(lEOP) from

l eve l s

3

to

6 a t

Iowa S ta t e

Univers i ty se rved as

sub je c ts in t h i s s tudy . They were

from d i f f e r e n t

coun t r ie s

with var ious

cu l t u r a l

and

educa t iona l backgrounds . Host

of

them were

prepar ing

to

study a t

a univers i ty ,

but t h e i r

Engl i sh prof ic iency was not ye t a t an acceptable l eve l ,

t h a t

i s , t he i r TOEFL (Test

of

English as a Foreign

Language)

scores

we r e

b e l ow 5 0 0 ,

Materials

Six reading passages were used in

th is study.

They

were

adopted from

th ree

reading inventor ies

which conta in

paral le l passages for use

as

pre- tes ts or post- tes ts for

American elementary and

high schoo l stu de nts: th e

Classroom

Invgntocy

(S i lva ro l i ,

1982)

,

th e A n aly tic al

Reading

(Woods

and Moe,

1981),

and

the

Inventory of

—SKllls

(Brigance,

1981), The six passages were

chosen from a

larger

number

of possible selections

on the

basis

of

several pilot

studies

with

students

in

the same


23/69

2 0

kind o f

cou r s e s

as

th ose ta kin g

pa r t in

th e

ac tua l

s tudy .

In th e

f i r s t p i l o t

s tudy with 15

s tu d en ts , s ix te en

passages ,

a long with

sho r t ,

open-ended

comprehension

ques t ion s , were used in order

to

discover which ones

were

most

ap pro pr ia te fo r the se s tu den ts . Af te r th e

p i l o t

s tudy ,

passages

which even

th e

h ig h -l ev e l s tu d en ts

could

no t

u nd ersta nd w e ll were thrown ou t .

Eight

passages ou t o f

th e

s ix t een were kep t and pa i red

—

tv/o easy

pa i r s ,

one

i n t e rmed i a t e and one d i f f i c u l t

—

acco rd ing to

how

v/e l l

s t uden t s had done on t hem. In o rde r to prov ide a

check on

whe the r members

o f a

p a i r

were

a t th e same

l e v e l o f

d i f f i c u l t y , they v/ere judged and

modi f ied

by

t h r ee

exper ienced ESL

t eache r s .

Four

mul t i p l e - cho i ce

ques t ions

fo r each

pas sage

were t hen

cons t r uc t ed

from th e ansv/ers

obta ined

to

th e open-ended

ques t ions . This

second s e t o f

passages

and

ques t i ons

was

p i l o t t e s t ed with 11 s t uden t s

enrol led

in

lEOP

reading

classes , and

an

i tem

analys i s

was

run on the data

co l lec ted .

Items which proved to

be non

functional

on the

basis of the response

frequency

distribution

were discarded

or rewritten.

A

third

pilot

study was then run with 12 students to discover the

average

time needed to read

a

passage and answer four

mul t ip le-choice

ques t ions about it.

On

the basis of these times

and

of

an

item analysis of

answers

provided

in this

pilot ,

a

single

pair of

easy


24/69

21

pa s s age s was form ed and q ue st io ns fo r all pa s s age s

v;ere

modi f i ed . The r e su l t i n g t e s t th us in clu ded : 1) two

r e l a t i v e l y

ea sy

pas sages (lA

and IB) , 2)

two i n t e r r aed ia t e

pas sages

(2A and 2B)

,

3)

tv70

d i f f i c u l t

pas sages C3A

and

3B) .

Out o f each pa i r , one

passage

was

chunked

and one was

left unchunked , (The cho i c e o f v/hich member v/as chun l ;ed is

discussed in the

next

sec t ion . ) Chunking

was

shov/n

by means

of t h r e e blank spaces

r a t h e r than s l a sh

marks ,

as in

S tevens ' s tudy ,

because discuss ion

v/i th s ev e r a l

adu l t

na t i ve

s p e a k e r s

i n d i c a t e d that s l a s h e s t ended t o distract r a t h e r

than

he lp .

The

pa i r s of

passages

were p re se nte d in

ascending order of di f f i cu l ty .

A

sample t e s t

is

shown in

Appendix A.

Design

I f

I

could

have been certain that the tv7o passages a t

each level were

exactly

equivalent, I

could

have presented

all

the

A passages in chunked form and all

the

B passages

in

unchunked form. However, I knew of no way

to

ascertain the

equivalence of

the

passages (and

their

accompanying compre

hension questions) for students from a

variety

of cultural

and language learning backgrounds

who

participated in this

study.

Therefore, I decided to control for this variable in

the statistical

model.

I presented each passage in both


25/69

2 2

chunked and unchunked form, us ing a comple te ly randomized

blocked

model .

With two forms o f each passage

and

t h r ee

pa i r s o f pa s sage s , t h e r e were e igh t d i f f e r e n t combina t ions

o f

chunked

and

unchunked passages

be ing p res en t ed . These

v;ere numbered

1-8

as shov/n

in Appendix B.

In o rd e r

to

randomly ass ign

th e

t e s t s to sub jec t s , s ub j ec t s ' names in

each l e v e l

were

a lphabe t i z ed

and then numbered — one to

e leven i n

l e v e l

3 - 4 , one

to f ou r t e e n

in

l e v e l 4A-5A,

one

to

te n in

l e v e l 4B-5B,

and one

to s even t e en

i n

l e v e l

5 -6 .

Using

a

t a b l e o f random numbers

from

S t a t i s t i c a l

' i e thods fo r th e

Soc i a l

Sc iences {Agre s t i

and

Agre s t i

,

1979 ) ,

I

r e a r r a nged

and

renumbered- th e s u b j e c t s in each

l e v e l

fo r

a c t u a l

a s s ignmen t . Sub j ec t s 1-8

(and s ub j e c t s

9-16 in

l eve l

5-6) received t e s t s

1 -8 ,

r e spec t ive ly . The

en t i r e

group

of

lef tover

s tudents

was

then

ass igned

t e s t s

sequen t i a l l y , beginn ing

a t th e

lowes t l e v e l .

Tv7o s co re s

were

obta ined

fo r each sub j e c t — one

fo r

the number of correct answers on the chunked passages and

one for the number of correct

answers

on

unchunked passages.

A

p e r f e c t

s co r e

v/as 12

fo r

each s e t .

Procedure •

Each subject v;as

given

a

test during his/her regular

reading

class period.

One

student in

level

4B—5B and

one

in


26/69

23

5-6

did not

shov/

up

on

the day of t e s t ing . Therefore , the

s ub j e c t s

wi th

numbers a f t e r th e s tu den ts who v/ere ab s en t

were

moved

one test c omb i n a t i o n number

fo rw ard . B e fo re

v /o rkin g on

th e

t e s t , s t uden t s were asked

to fill ou t an

information

sheet

noting thei r f i r s t language, age, sex,

and count ry o f o r i g i n .

Then, a

sho r t s e t o f

d i r ec t i ons

on

the

f i r s t

page was

read together

v/ith

them, i t s

purpose was

to

ind ica te

t ha t th ree

passages

out of

the

s ix

were

presented

in

regular

form,

while

the

others

were

in phrase

form with extra spaces to

shov7 phrase

boundaries. Every

e f for t

was

made to ensure

tha t

subjects

understood the

procedure before doing th e

t e s t .

A digital

watch

was used

to t e l l

students when

to

begin

and when to stop. Students v/ere

told

to

read

each

passage

as

quickly

as they

could

and

then

choose

the

best

answer

to

each of i ts questions. They were permitted to v/ork on that

passage unt i l they were told to

stop. I f

they

f inished

before the specified time, they

were

asked to

sit quietly

and not

to

v/ork on other passages.

After

the

t e s t

I

interviewed

27 students

in

level

3-4

and

5-6

in

order

to get

feedback

on

the

t e s t .


27/69

2 4

RESULTS

Comprehens ion per formance on th e chunked

mode

o f

presenta t ion was compared

with

t h a t on

the

regu la r

or

unchunked

mode

of

presen t a t i on , using

a pa i red

i - t e s t .

Re s u l t s are shown

in T a b l e

1.

Table 1 . Comparison

o f mean s co re s fo r

th e

chunked

and

unchunked

passages

Mean

S t a n d a r d Mean

T

Var i ab l e N Sco re s D ev ia t io n

Di f f Value Prob>T

Chunked 49 5.92 2.39 - .43 -1 .34 ,19

Unchunked

49 6 .35 2 ,62

Although there v/ere f i f ty subjects in th is study,

one

of the male students did not ansv/er any of the questions in

passages tV70

o r

t h r e e . Therefore , he was omit ted in the

analysis. The

results of this

comparison indicate

that ,

overal l , chunking did not help

these

ESL s tudents to

comprehend

b e t t e r .

The

s ta t i s t ica l

techniques of

analysis of variance

and

regression were employed

to

find out v/hether chunking

produced

differences in

comprehension

v;hen subjects are

compared

v/ith respect to se::, region

of

origin, f i r s t


28/69

l anguage , l eve l of

in s t ruc t ion , age, and ESL

reading

prof ic iency as determined by

the

Michigan English Placement

Te s t

(MEPT), The results

a r e

summar ized i n

Tab l e s 2 to 11 ,

Tables 2 and 3 shov/ a

compar ison

of th e

d i f f e r ence s in

performance

on

th e

two types of presenta t ion by sex. The

Table

2. Comparison

of di f ference by

sex

Sex

N

Mean

Sc o r e s

Mean

S t a n d a r d

Chunked

Unchunked

D i f f

Dev i a t i o n

n

39

5 .79

6 .38 - 0 , 59 2 .38

F 10 6 .4 0 6 .20 0 .20

1 . 55

T a b l e

3 ,

ANOVA Source

table for

sex

Source

DF

Sum of

Squ a r e s

r i e a n

Squa r e

F

Value

P r o b > F

B e t w e e n

1

4.96

4.95

.98

.33

W i th i n

47

2 3 7 , 0 4

5 . 0 4

Total

4 8

2 4 2 . 0 0

female

subjects

performed slightly better on the chunked

passages

while

the

males

performed slightly

better

on the

unchunked

passages.

However, the difference in difference

scores,

for

men and

v/omen

is not

statistically significant.


29/69

2 6

In o rd e r

to f i nd ou t wh eth er c hu nk in g

p r e f e r e n t i a l l y

he lped s t uden t s

from

ce r t a i n r eg ions o f

th e

v/or ld ,

s tuden t s

were c l a s s i f i ed by country o f o r ig in and then

grouped

as

f o l l ow s ; 1)

s t u d en t s f rom

s o u t h e a s t

and

e a s t - c e n t r a l

As i a

( Indones ia ,

Japan ,

Korea,

Malays i a , and

Tha i l and ) ;

2)

s t uden t s from South

America (

Argen t ina , Colombia , Ecuador ,

Honduras , Mexico, Panama, Pe ru , Puer to

Rico ,

and Br a z i l ) ; 3)

students f rom the

Midd l e

E a s t and northeastern A f r i c a

(Egypt , Jordan , Kuw ait, S audi

Arabia , Sudan, and Syr i a ) ;

and

4) Studen t s

from

sou the rn

and s o ut hv /e st er n A s ia ( I nd i a ,

Pak is tan , and I r an ) . The r e su l t s

of

t h i s

comparison a re

shown i n Ta b l e s

4 an d 5 .

Table 4. Comparison

of

difference by region of origin

Region^

N

M e a n

Chu n k e d

Scores

Un c h u n k e d

M e a n

Diff

Standard

Deviation

1

1 8

6 , 0 5

5 . 8 3

0.22

2 . 0 4

2

1 5

6 . 6 7

7.00

-0.33

2 . 5 0

3

10

4.00

5.20

-1.20

2.57

4

6

6 . 8 3

8 . 1 6

-1.33

1.03

^1:

students from southeast

and

east-central

Asia;

2:

students from

South

America; 3:

students

from

the

Middle

East and

northeastern Africa;

4: students

from

southern and

s ou t hwe s t e r n

A s i a .


30/69

Table 5. ANOVA

source table

27

fo r

r eg ion

o f o r ig in

Sura

of

M e a n F

Source

D F

Squa r e s Squa r e

Va l u e

P r o b >F

B e tw e e n • 3

18.62 6.21 1.25

.30

within 4 5 2 2 3 , 3 8

4 . 9 6

Total

4 8

2 4 2 . 0 0

w h i l e

d a t a in

Tab l e

4

show that

As i a n students s c o r e d

be t t e r

on

th e

chunked

p assag es , th e

d i f f e r ence s among t hese

four

groups

with

r e spec t to di f f e rence

scores a re not

s i gn i f i c an t .

To f ind

out

whether chunking prefe ren t i a l ly

helps

ce r t a in language

groups , sub jec t s

were r e c l a s s i f i ed in to

seven f i r s t - language groups:

1)

Sino-Tibetan (Chinese and

Thai);

2)Romance

(Spanish and

Portuguese);

3)

Semitic

(Arabic); 4)

Indo-Iranian

(Urdu,

Persian, and

Assamese); 5)

Malayo-Polynesian

(Indonesian);

6)

Korean; and

7) Japanese.

(Classification follows that shov/n in Voegelin and Voegelin,

1977.)

The

resul ts of th i s comparison

are

shown

in Tables

6

an d

7 .


31/69

28

Table 6, Comparison o f d i f f e r ence by l anguage group

Languages^

N

M e a n

c h u n k e d

Scores

Un c h u n k e d

M e a n

Diff

Standard

Deviation

1

3 6 . 3 3

5 . 3 3

1.00

3.46

2

1 5

6.67

7 . 0 0

-0.33

2 . 5 0

3

1 0

4.00

5.20 -1.20

2 . 5 7

4

6 6 . 8 3

8 . 1 6 -1.33 1.03

5

6

6 . 5 0 5.16 1.33 1.75

6

4

. 5.75

6.75

-1.00

1.15

/

5

5.60

6 . 2 0 -0.60 1.52

^l:Sino-Tibetan; 2:RomanGe; 3)

Semitic;

4) Indo-

I ran ian ;

5) Malayo-Polynesian 6)

Korean;

7) Japanese.

Table 7« ANOVA

source

tab le

fo r

language g roup

Source

DF

Sum

of

S q u a r e s

M e a n

Squa r e

F

V a l u e

P r o b >F

Be t v v e en

6

37.20

6 . 2 0

1.27

.29

W i th i n

42

2 0 4 . 8 0

4 . 8 8

Total

4 8

2 4 2 . 0 0

Although group 1 speakers (Chinese and Thai) and group

5

(Indonesian) speakers

show

higher scores in

the chunked


32/69

2 9

mode, th e

d i f f e r en ce s

among la ng ua ge g ro up s

wi th r e s p ec t to

d i f f e r e n c e

s co r e s

a re

no t s i g n i f i c a n t .

To

d i s cove r

whe the r

chunking

p r e f e r e n t i a l l y

he l p s

s tuden t s

of

d i f f e r e n t

Engl i sh

p ro fic ie nc y, a n aly s is

of

va r i ance

was

employed

once again

wi th

s t uden t s grouped by

level in

l EOP . The results are s h own in T a b l e s 8 a n d 9 .

Tab l e 8 . Comparison

o f

d i f f e r en ce

s co r e s

by l e v e l

M e a n

Scores

M e a n Standard

Levels N

Chu n k e d

Un c h u n k e d

Diff

Deviation

1

1 1

5.09 4 . 5 4

0 . 5 5 2.42

2

1 3

5.23

5.77 -0.54 2 . 1 0

3

9

6 . 0 0

—

—

•

-1.11 2 . 4 7

4

1 6

7.00

7 . 6 2

-0.62 2 . 0 9

^1: level 3-4; 2: level

4A-5A;

3; level 4B-5B;

4 : level

5-6.

Tab l e S .

ANOVA

s ou r c e

t a b l e

f o r

l e v e l

Sum o f

Mean

F

Source DF

Squares

Square

Value

Prob>F

Between 3 15 .40 5.13 1 .02 .39

With in 45

226 .60 5 .03

T o t a l 48 242 . 00


33/69

3 0

The

results

indicate

that

s t u d e n t s

i n

t h e l o v / e s t l e v e l

performed s l i gh t l y be t t e r with chunking. However, once

aga in

th e

d i f f e r ences among groups with respec t

to

di f ference

scores

a re

not s ign i f i c an t .

In

order to determine whether there was a relat ionship

betv7een

age

and

the

e f f ec t s

of chunking (as measured by

di f fe rence

scores ) , a regress ion

analysis

was

car r ied

out .

(Since age i s a continuous variable, regress ion i s a more

appropr ia te

te ch niq ue th an analysis o f v aria nc e, which

would

require subjects to be

divided

into

age groups.)

The

results a r e shovm

i n

Tab le 10 .

Table 10. Regression

of difference scores on age

Sum of

riean

F

Source

D F

Squ a r e s

Squa r e

V a l u e

P r o b > F

Age

1

2 7 . 6 2

2 7 . 6 2

6 .OS

0 . 0 1 7 6

0 . 1 1

Error

4 7

2 1 4 . 3 8

4 . 5 6

Total

4 8

242 . 0 0

Parameter

Estimate

I n t e r c ep t

2 . 9 4 3 5

Age

-0.1352


34/69

3 1

The

d a ta in Tab l e 10

shov/

a

s i g n i f i c a n t (p


35/69

32

To

determine

v;hether

the

e f f ec t s

of chunking v/ere

re la ted to p ro fic ie nc y in

ESL

reading,

a

second regress ion

was ca r r i ed

ou t .

Here, th e independent

var i ab l e

was

sub jec t s '

reading

scores on th e MEPT,

taken

a v/eek a f t e r

t h i s s t udy . The

r e s u l t s

a re

shown

in

Tab le 11 .

Table

11 , R egress ion

o f

d i f f e r ence s co re s on

MEPT

Reading Scores

Source

Sum of

DP Squa r e s

Read ing

Scores

1

14.47

2 2 7 . 5 3

242 . 0 0

Error

Total

4 7

4 8

M e a n F

Squa r e Va l u e Prob>F R

14 . 4 7

2 .99

0 . 0 904 0 . 0 6

4 . 8 4

P a r a m e t e r E s t i m a t e

I n t e r c e p t 2 .9779

Read ing Sco res -0 .0454

The

relationship

here

is

not strong

(p


36/69

4 . 00

T -T

5. 00 6. 00 7. 00

REflDING SCORE

3 3

SIng l e

Po

j

n ts

D

oub1e

P

o [ n t s

1 r

0. 00 9. 00

(xlO^ )

A

Z

10 .

00

Di f f e r ence = Chunked-Unchunked

Score s

Figure 2.

Regression of Difference

on MEPT Reading Scores


37/69

3 4

D I SCUSS ION

Gene r a l l y , t h i s s tudy

prov ides

little evidence t h a t

pr eo rgan i z i ng

r e ad ing ma t e r i a l in to mean ing fu l chunks

improves

th e

r ead ing comprehens ion of

ESL

r eade r s .

These

r e s u l t s

a re app a r e n t l y i n

c o n f l i c t wi th

t ho s e o f S tevens

(1983) ,

who

found

chunked

read ing m a te ria ls h e lp fu l fo r high

schoo l r eade r s . One

poss ib l e explana t ion

fo r t h i s l i e s in

th e

t ype

o f

d i r e c t i on s g iven t o

s t uden t s

be fo r e

th e

test.

In

S te ve ns ' s tu dy ,

th e

r egu la r classroom t e ache r

gave

examples o f chunked and

nonchunked ma t e r i a l s

on th e

board

and discussed th e

importance

of reading in ph rases;

moreover , s tuden ts read

some

wrongly phrased examples to

show th e importance of proper

phrasing.

Students

were to ld

t ha t

s lash

l ines

in

the mater i a l

they

would

read

divided

the

m a te ria l in to thought

un i t s and tha t if

they

could

use these

to organize t h e i r thought , t h e i r comprehension

would

improve. Then a sample paragraph with

s lash

l ines v/as

discussed. The v7hole lesson

before

doing the real t e s t took

t e n

t o

fifteen minu t e s .

In

t h i s

s tudy,

ho.v/ever, subjec t s

were

no t

to ld

the

funct ion of

extra

spaces between phrases

and

were not .

encouraged to use them to organize

the i r

thoughts in

order

to enhance comprehension. They v/ere only given a short

paragraph

with

three

sentences as an

example

of the

chunked


38/69

3 5

mode to compare with

th e

regu la r

mode.

These d iffe re nce s in

presen t ing

d i r ec t i ons in th e two s tud ie s

may have

been

pa r t i a l l y r e spons ib l e

fo r th e r e s u l t s . Since su bje c ts in

S tev en s' s tu dy

were

t o ld

t h a t th e s la sh e s

v/ould enab l e

them

to perform be t t e r , they may

wel l have

t r i e d harder on th e

s l a s h ed

p a s s a g e s .

Another

poss ib l e

reason

fo r the

f a i l u r e o f

chunking to

improve

comprehens ion in

th e p re sen t

s tudy

could be

due

to

too

many s h o r t

ph r a s e s

in th e

chunked

pas s age s .

For

example ,

Ci ty

f i r e f i g h t e r s

wi l l

be

conduct ing

a survey

o f

house

numbers in th e

c i t y

nex t

week

( ph r a s ing

used

in sample t e s t ,

passage

I I ) could be phrased

as

Ci ty f i r e f i gh t e r s wi l l be

conduct ing

a survey

o f house numbers in

th e

c i t y nex t week. Syn t a c t i c a l l y ,

th e

chunks

in

the

f i r s t

vers ion

are

wel l

grouped,

but

semant ica l ly s eve r a l of

them can be read

toge ther .

Thus,

some subjec ts

who v;ere able to read two

or th ree

phrases

together

may have been

disturbed

by

the th ree ex tra

spaces

which

had

been inserted to

show

them the phrase boundaries

and to t e l l them where

to

stop

in order

to

organize t he i r

reading

in

thought

uni ts ,

(This problem

was

confirmed

in

interviews

with some

of the

subjects

af ter the

test . )

Goodman (1970) provides a

theory which

may help to

explain why

the extra spaces apparently decreased

some

subjects'

comprehension. He notes

that

reading

is

a


39/69

3 6

se lec t ive p ro ce ss i nvolvi ng pa r t i a l

use

of avai lab le

language

cues

(graphic ,

semantic

and

syntac t i c )

which are

se lec ted from percep tua l

i npu t

on the bas i s

o f

readers*

expecta t ions . As readers

process

the

pa r t i a l

information,

th ey hypoth es iz e about what i s to

fol low.

These hypotheses

a re

conf i rmed ,

r e j ec t ed o r r e f ined

as read ing

p rog re s s e s .

There fore , e f f i c i e n t read ing

does no t r eq u ir e a cc ur ate

percept ion and i d en t i f i c a t i on of a l l

elements

but requires

s k i l l

in

s e l e c t i n g

th e

f ewes t , most produc t ive cues

necessa ry

to

produce guesses which a re r i g h t th e first t ime '

(p . 108) • The r e fo r e , in t h i s s tudy , too many s h o r t ph r a s e s

in

chunked

pas sages which

can

be s eman t i c a l l y

read

t oge the r

may have

h inde r ed

e f f i c i e n t

ESL

r e ade r s

in

making

p r ed i c t i o n s , sampling

th e mate r i a l , and

conf i rming

t h e i r

guesses.

Although

t h i s

s tudy

does no t show t h a t chunking

improves comprehens ion

fo r

ESL readers in g ene ra l , it does

s ugge s t t h a t

younger s tu de nts b e ne f i t more from

chunking

t han o ld e r s t ud en t s .

( In

f a c t , o l d e r

s t uden t s ,

on th e

ave r age , per form

w orse v /ith

chunking t han

wi thou t . )

One

reason

fo r

t h i s

may

be

t h a t

younger

s tuden t s

a re

r e l a t i v e l y

open-minded in

accep t ing

a novel way

o f

presen t ing passages

and

l e s s r e s i s t a n t to

us ing

chunking as an a id

t han

o lde r

sub j e c t s , who

may be

more c lose -minded

and

le ss to le ra n t o f

th e un t r ad i t i ona l . Hov/ever, it should

be

remembered t h a t


40/69

37

even

though th e

po r t i on

o f th e v ar ia tio n in th e d if fe re nc e

s co r e s

which

i s

expla ined

by th e f ac to r o f age i s

statistically

s i gn i f i c an t , it

i s

r e l a t i v e l y

sma l l

(11 ) .

Obvious ly , o t h e r

f a c t o r s

such as s tu de nts* f ee l i ngs about

th e t e s t and

mot iva t ion

in t ry in g th e

new format

a re

i n v o l v e d .

The

ev idence in Table 11 sugges t s t h a t

t h e r e

i s a v;eak

r e l a t i on sh ip

between p ro fic ie nc y in ESL

read ing

and th e

e f f e c t s

of

chunking,

readers with

lov/er

prof ic i ency

appear ing

to

bene f i t

from

chunking.

This

f ind ing

cor robora tes work by Carver who showed t h a t preorgan iz ing

mater ia l

into

meaningful chunks

does

not

improve the

comprehens ion o f mature

r eade r s .

However,

t h i s t r end must

be i n t e r p r e t e d with ca re because o f th e na tu re o f

th e

MEPT.

This

t e s t

has

three

sect ions,

the

l a s t

of

which

is

reading.

The

se ct io ns a re not t imed separa te ly ; as a r e su l t , s tuden ts

who

do not

complete th e

t e s t

usual ly

leave answers

blank

(or

guess)

in

the reading sect ion and thus f a i l to provide

an

accura te

measure

of t h e i r reading

ab i l i t y .

While we can

assume tha t students who

got

high MEPT

reading

scores are

good

.

readers ,

we do

not

know

whether

students

who

got

lov/er

reading scores are

poor readers

or

good readers who

merely

ran out of

t ime

before

f in ishing tha t sect ion . Therefore,

the re la t ionship

suggested

here requires

further

investigation with

better methods

of

testing reading


41/69

3 8

p ro fic ie n cy b efo re a

de f i n i t i v e s t a t ement

abou t it can be

mad e .


42/69

39

IMP L ICAT IONS AND CONCLUSIONS

In summary, t h i s

s tudy

shows t h a t

th e

e f f e c t o f

chunking

on

comprehens ion

was l im i t ed .

O ve ra l l , fo r th e s e

sub j e c t s , chunking d id no t inc rease comprehens ion .

Hov;ever,

when age o f sub j ec t s was

cons ide red ,

a sma l l bu t s i gn i f i c an t

e f f e c t was

no ted , t h a t

is,

young

subjec t s bene f i t e d more

from

chunk ing t han o l d e r

s u b j e c t s ,

A second t r end shov/n

he re was

a r e l a t i o n sh i p between

l e v e l o f

r ead ing p r o f i c i e n cy

and th e e f f e c t o f chunk ing .

Hov/ever,

fo r r e a sons

no t ed

in

th e prev ious s e c t i on ,

t h i s

t r e nd re qu ir e s

f u r t h e r

s t udy .

Desp i t e

th e

f a c t

t h a t fev7 po s i t i v e r e s u l t s

v/ere

obta ined

in

t h i s

s tudy , t h e re

a re seve r a l i n t e re s t ing

ques t i on s

r e l a t e d to

it t h a t

me r i t f u r t h e r

a t t e n t i o n :

1 .

The

sub jec t s

here

V7ere

no t

given

any

prac t i ce

in how to

use chunked

pa s sage s . Perhaps if they had rece ived more

i n s t ruc t ion

in u sin g p hra se s

to organize t h e i r

thoughts

and

more

t ime

to t r y

the

new method

of

reading,

t h e i r

comprehension

would h av e impr ov ed .

2. This s tudy showed

chunking

to be more benef i c i a l to the

younger

subjec t s t e s t ed ;

however,

it

only

dea l t

with

adu l t s from 17 to 43 yea r s . F ur th er re se arc h

i s needed

to

discover whether th is ef fec t extends

to elementary

and h igh schoo l s t uden t s ,

3. In th is study, subjects

were provided

with

pre-chunked


43/69

40

m ate r ia l in o rde r

to

help them d iv ide t e x t i n to

meaningfu l ph ras e s .

Although

t h i s

t e chn ique

d id no t

produce marked su cc ess , o th er methods o f accompl ish ing

t h i s goa l should

be

inves t iga ted .

One p lace to provide some answers to th ese ques t ions

igh t be within

t r ad i t iona l reading

programs in which other

reading sk i l l s

such

as

deve lop ing vocabulary s t r a teg ies ,

scanning to lo ca te s p ec if ic information, and skimming fo r

main idea

are

being

taught. In to such a program, a class

room t eacher can in t roduce

ac t iv i t i e s

which are designed to

help s tud en ts to read

in

la rger

meaningful

un i t s . Given

the

findings of th i s study, i t

seems tha t

th is approach

v/ould be

more helpfu l for young low level students — elementary

or

high s choo l .

Poss ible

ac t i v i t i e s

include

the follov7ing:

1. For teaching new v7ords, a classroom teacher may present

new words, not

in

i sola t ion,

but

in phrases

or

sentences.

For

example,

in

teaching

beginners or low

leve l s tudent s the t a rge t word ta lk , teachers can

use

phrases

such

as talk

business,

ta lk to me,

or

talk s e n s e .

2, Comprehension

questions

can be

used

to turn

at tent ion

to phrases, and oral questions during a group reading

lesson can emphasize

phrase

answers (from Harris and

Sipay,

1980).

Comprehension

questions

in written form

m


44/69

4 1

can a ls o re qu ir e answers in

mean ing fu l

ph r a s e form

r a t h e r t han as s i ng l e

key

v7ords.

3 . T eache rs can r e ad

a

sen tence o r a l l y wi th somev/hat

exaggera t ed

phras ing

and then ask ch i ld ren to im i ta te

t h e i r r e ad ing

o f

th e se n ten ce . S tuden ts can read a loud

p r i n t ed mate r i a l

where

th e phrases have been marked by

th e te a che r by means o f ve r t i c a l l i n e s , unde r l i n ing ,

pa r en theses , blank

spaces , o r plac ing one thought un i t

p e r l i n e .

4. Teachers can he lp

s tuden t s

t r an s f e r

t h e i r

o r a l l anguage

t o

r e ad ing .

They may po in t

ou t t h a t

sup ra segmen ta l

cues

provided

by th e

speaker

a id th e l i s t e n s e r , bu t t h a t

readers must phrase fo r

themselves .

Recordings o f rad io

or TV newsca s t s may be

played

to i l l u s t r a t e pauses

betv/een s e t s of

v /o rd s v /h ich

provide meaning fo r the

l i s t e ne r . Students can read

shor t passages

which are

marked fo r phrase boundar ies

while l i s t en i ng

to a

recording

o f

nat ive speakers reading

th e passages .

5. Differen t methods of

chunking

a g iv en passage can

be

p re se nte d fo r

c l a s s

d i s cu s s i on i n which s t uden t s

comment

on

how meaning may be l o s t

or

twis ted by

improper

phr a s i ng .

6.

The

classroom teacher may ask s tuden ts to

mark o ff

t h e i r

ov7n

phrase

un i t s

in pr in ted m ater ia l in order to

indicate

whether they understand

hov; to

group v/ords for


45/69

4 2

themse lves

in

read ing .

Recorded passages

may be played

and

s t uden t s asked to

mark

phrase

boundar ies on

typed

t r an s c r ip t s

o f

what they

hear . This may a lso in dic ate

whether

s tu de nts a re

obta in ing

th e

meaning

through

sup ra segmen ta l cue s .

The

effectiveness o f

s u c h activities n e e d s

to b e

f u r t he r

eva lua ted . Although

t h i s

s tudy has f a i l ed to

confirm

t h a t

th e

s imple

device

o f pre-chunked

reading

mate r i a l he lps ESL

s t uden t s

comprehend be t t e r , it may

be

t h a t o the r methods wi l l prove

to be

more

h e lp fu l fo r

s t uden t s

who need to do a major i ty of t h e i r r ead ing in

Eng l i s h .


46/69


47/69

4 4

PsvcholoQV, 54 , (1970) ,

288-296 .

Clay , M.

M., and R.

H.

Imlach. Junc tu re , P i t ch , and

St r es s

as

Reading

Behavior

Var i ab l e s .

Jou rna l

of

Verba l

Learning and Verb al B eh av io r, 10

(1 97 1), 1 33 -1 39 ,

Cromer, W. The

Dif fe rence

Model: A New

Explana t ion fo r

Some Read ing Di f f i c u l t i e s . Jou rna l o f E du ca tio na l

PsvcholoQV. 61

(1970) ,

471-483 .

Dechant, E. V. and H.

P.

Smith.

Psychology

in

Teaching

Reading, 2nd ed . Englev/ood Cl i f f s ,

N .J . : P re nt ic e-

Ha l l ,

1977 .

Goodman, K.

S.

Reading: A

Psychologuist ic

Guessing Game,

In

Language and Reading: An In te rd i sc ip l ina ry Approach.

D. V.

Gunderson,

ed ,

Washington, D.C. :

Cente r fo r

Applied Lingu i s t i c s , 1970,

Graf, R,,

and

J , W. Torry, Perception of Phrase Structure

in Writ ten Language, Proceedings of th e 74th Annual

Convention of the American Psychological

Association.

1 (1966) , 83 -84 ,

Harris, A J . / and E, R,

Sipay,

Hov;

to Increase

Reading

Abili ty; A Guide to

Developmental

and Remedial

Metho(^g.

7th ed. New

York: Longman,

1980,

Hatch, E. Research on reading a Second Language, ucLA.

Workpaper

in

test , .

7 (1973),

1-10.

Hatch,

E,,

p. Polin, and S. Part. Acoustic Scanning or

Syntactic

Processing: Three Reading Experiments —


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F i r s t , and

S ec ond L angu ag e

Lea rne r s , Jou rna l o f

Read ing

Behav i o r ,

6 ,

No,

3 (1 97 4), 2 75 -2 85 .

Ka ln i t z , J., and R. J udd . An

Approach to Teach ing

E .S ,L ,

Read ing to L i t e r a t e Adul t s ,

TBSQL

News l e t t e r ,

Oct .

1981 ,

pp .

12 - 19 .

Le f ev r e , C, A, L i ngu i s t i c s and th e Teach ing o f Read ing .

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Lev in , H . ,

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B,

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Within Act ive and Pass ive

Sen t ence s .

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251-253 .

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Geographic Magaz ine , 165 ,

No. 3

(1984) , 405-422 .

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R ., M.

Wiener . , and

W. Cromer. Iden t i f i c a t i on ,

Organ iza t ion and Readin g Comprehension fo r Good and

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No, 1

(1971)

, 71-78 .

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Instruction

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College

Level

Foreign

Students .

TESOL

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(1968),

164-168.

Radebaugh, M. R. The Effects of Pre-Qrganized Reading

P^ater ial

on

the

Comprehension

of

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and

Fi f th

Grade

Readers . Reading

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(1983),

20-28.

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S. Development of Phrase and Clause Boundary Reading

in

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No.

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(1 97 4-7 5) , 1 24 -1 42 ,


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Proce s s ,

The Hag ue: M outon, 1968 .

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N. J .

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Organizing

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185 -189 .

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and

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R. Franks . To Teach

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Nor t h -Ho l l a nd , 1977 .

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50/69


51/69

43

APPEMDIX A: SAMPLE TEST


52/69


53/69

5 0

Directions

In th e

f ollo v;in g r ea din g p rac t i c e

you

wi l l

f ind

s ix

pa s sage s .

Three

o f

them

a re

p r e s en t ed

in re g u la r

pa rag raph

form.

The o the r

t h r ee

a re presen ted in phrases ; t h a t i s , one

to

f i ve

words a re pu t t oge the r to exp res s a s ing le t hough t .

Ex t r a

spaces

a re pu t

betv/een

phr a se s

to

show

p h ra se b o un d ar ie s. For example ;

The

exp l o s i on v;as ho r r i b l e

th a t t r a g i c

day

in

Cleve land , Ohio,

in 1916.

Thi r ty - two

men

v/ere t r apped

in

a t unne l 250 f e e t below Lake Er i e .

No o n e

could

enter

the smoked-filled tunnel

to rescue

survivors.

There a re four mul t ip l e- choi c e que st ion s a f t e r

each

passage .

You must read each pas sage and answer its q ues tio ns in th e t ime

allowed. I

wil l

t e l l you hov/ much time you

have for each

passage

before you begin working on it.

When I

t e l l

you- to

begin

a

passage,

read

it

as

quickly

as

you can

and

then choose the bes t answer to each of i t s ques t ion.

You may

work

on

t ha t passage un t i l

I

t e l l

you to

s top . I f

you

f inish before I say stop, s i t quie t ly . DO

NOT TORK

OK OTHER

PASSAGES .


54/69

Passage I

Reading

Comprehension

Time

- -

2 i

minutes

5 1

Cool i t ems have become popula r , and th e mercury i s

expected

to c l imb above th e

100

d eg re es ' F ah re nh ei t

mark

fo r th e

seven th s t r a i g h t day. Merchants a re re po rt in g a s teady r i s e in

th e s a l e

o f

i c e ,

s o f t d r i nk s , and a i r

cond i t i on e r s .

Ic e

p l a n t

ovmers who have

been

in th e

bus i n e s s

fo r ove r thirty

y e a r s

say

t hey have never seen any th ing l i k e

it.

A major cha in s t o r e

manager s a id

sh e

h as cu sto mers

fo r all

th e a i r

cond i t i one r s

she

can mangage

to

a cqu ir e . S of t -d r in k vend ing machine

owners

have

t h e i r

employees

working

ove r t ime .

No r e l i e f from th e u nu su ally h ot weathe r i s f o r e c a s t

be fore

the

we e k e n d ,

GO ON TO THE

QUESTIONS


55/69

5 2

C irc le th e

letter o f

th e b e s t answer t o

each

que s t i on .

You may

l ook back

at th e

pa s s age if n e c e s s a r y .

1 .

Sof t -d r ink . vend ing

mach in e empl oy ee s

a. think i t is t o o h o t to

v / o rk .

b . a re v/orking a f t e r th e usua l

hour s .

c . have

been w orking fo r

over

t h i r t y

yea r s .

d .

a re re po rt in g a s t e ady r i s e

in

s a l e s .

2. When i s th e ho t

weathe r

l i k e l y

to

end?

a . dur ing th e v;eek

b. before the we e k e n d

c. not before

the

v / e e k en d

d . on th e

s even th

day o f

100

d eg re e w ea th er

3. The cool i t ems in the s to ry

do

no t r e f e r to

a. ice

b .

vending

mach ines

c.

air

conditioners

d. Coc a cola

4 . The

main i d e a

o f this article

is:

a.

The hot weather

wil l

continue

for

seven days.

b .

Rain

i s

expected

to end

th e hea t .

c .

Cool

items

are

se l l ing

v;ell during the

hot weather,

d .

Merchants

a re

suf fer ing from the hot

weather.

ST P

Do not work on

any

other

passage of the t es t


56/69

Passage I I

Reading

Comprehension

Time - - 24 minu tes

5 3

Ci ty

f i r e f i g h t e r s

v/ i l l

be conduc t ing a

survey

of house

numbers in th e c i t y nex t

v/eek.

The placement

of house numbers should

be uniform

to help f i r e and po l ice personnel

lo ca te th e co r r ec t house

quick ly

when

responding

t o

emergency

calls.

A ll even

numbe r s shou ld

be

on

th e

same

s i d e

of

th e s t r e e t ,

and

a l l odd numbers should be on

th e oppos i t e

s ide .

Making addresses eas ie r to

read

i s

pa r t

of the c i t y ' s

nev/ c r ime p reven t ion

program.

The c i t y v/ i l l

prov ide

numbers fo r unmarked houses

a t th e

owners*

r eques t . I f an ov/ner i s no t ab le

to i n s t a l l

the

numbers,

th e

f i r e f ig

effect of chunking material as an aid to esl students reading co

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