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Adult Readers (adult + readers)
Selected AbstractsBottom-up processing and reading comprehension in experienced adult readersJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN READING, Issue 3 2009Virginia M. Holmes Previous research has indicated a weak to moderate role for word recognition skill in contributing to reading comprehension efficiency in highly experienced adult readers. The goal of this study was to re-evaluate the strength of this association, including assessment of the contribution of skill in discriminating unfamiliar shapes and identifying letters. Unexpectedly, the results revealed a very strong association between efficiency in reading connected text and word recognition skill, as measured by efficiency of access to the orthographic lexicon. Ability to identify letters rapidly and accurately also contributed to orthographic access skill. These associations were only minimally reduced by controlling for skill in discriminating unfamiliar shapes. The results were interpreted in terms of the verbal-efficiency theory, according to which rapid and accurate lower-level processing liberates resources for equally crucial higher-level comprehension processing, ultimately resulting in more efficient text comprehension. [source] Sentential and discourse context effects: adults who are learning to read compared with skilled readersJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN READING, Issue 4 2007Katherine S. Binder In a series of three experiments, we examined how sentential and discourse contexts were used by adults who are learning to read compared with skilled adult readers. In Experiment 1, participants read sentence contexts that were either congruent, incongruent or neutral with respect to a target word they had to name. Both skilled and less skilled adults benefited from a congruent context, and were not disadvantaged by an incongruent context. Contrary to research conducted on children learning to read, skill level of the adult reader did not interact with context. Experiments 2 and 3 tested readers' ability to make predictive inferences. Again, all readers, regardless of skill level, provided evidence that they were making predictive inferences. This finding is inconsistent with research that has examined individual differences in college readers. [source] Playing and resisting: rethinking young people's reading culturesLITERACY, Issue 3 2008Alex Kendall In this paper I will argue that while young adult readers may often be represented through ,othering' discourses that see them as ,passive', ,uncritical' consumers of ,low-brow', ,throw-away' texts, the realities of their reading lives are in fact more subtle, complex and dynamic. The paper explores the discourses about reading, identity and gender that emerged through discussions with groups of young adults, aged between 16 and 19, about their reading habits and practices. These discussions took place as part of a PhD research study of reading and reader identity in the context of further education in the Black Country in the West Midlands. Through these discussions the young adults offered insights into their reading cultures and the ,functionality' of their reading practices that contest the kinds of ,distinction[s]' that tend to situate them as the defining other to more ,worthy' or ,valuable' reading cultures and practices. While I will resist the urge to claim that this paper represents the cultures of young adult readers in any real or totalising sense I challenge the kinds of dominant, reductive representations that serve to fix and demonise this group and begin to draw a space within which playfulness and resistance are alternatively offered as ways of being for these readers. [source] Comprehension skill and word-to-text integration processesAPPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2008Charles Perfetti We examine comprehension skill differences in the processes of word-to-text integration, the connection of the meaning of a word, as it is read, to a representation of the text. We review two ,on-line' integration studies using event related potentials (ERPs) to provide fine-grain temporal data on the word-to-text processes of adult readers. The studies demonstrate indicators for word-to-text integration and show differences in these indicators as a function of adult reading comprehension skill. For skilled comprehenders, integration processes were reflected in N400 indicators when a critical word had an explicit link to a word in the prior text and by both N400 and P300 indicators when its meaning was a paraphrase of a prior word. When forward inferences were required for subsequent word-to-text integration, effects for skilled comprehenders were not reliable. Less skilled comprehenders showed delayed and less robust ERP effects, especially when meaning paraphrase was the basis of the integration. We discuss the significance of skill differences in integration processes with a focus on the use of context-dependent word meaning as a possible source of these differences. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||