Reading strategies and comprehension of average second-grade readers reading a basal text with or without illustrations.

Abstract

In was concluded that miscues reflect responses to the surrounding text to a greater extent than they reflect responses to alternative cues, such as illustrations. It appears that illustrations have less immediate influence upon recognition responses as that of graphic stimuli. Apparently the partial contribution to subjective redundancy made by illustrations is too slight to be measured by miscue analysis. It was further concluded that the results of this study do not support the "contextual hypothesis" forwarded by Goodman, nor do they indicate that illustrations either contribute to or detract from reading comprehension as reflected in retelling scores.

Although the non-significant results as p > .05 in this study can be interpreted as an indication that illustrations have no effect upon this kind of reading behavior, the fact that results for correction of miscues were significant at p > .10 should warrant further consideration.

An independent measures t-test analysis of the data indicated no significant differences across any of the eleven variables as measured by the Reading Miscue Inventory. There was no indication in the results of this study that pictures as cues have a discernible effect upon reading performance, either as a source of assistance or as a source of distraction.

Two general questions were posed from which eleven hypotheses were developed to guide the investigation: (1) Are there significant differences in the oral reading strategies of average-ability second-grade students who read a basal text with illustrations and the oral reading strategies of average-ability second-grade students who read a basal text without illustrations as measured across ten miscue variables: graphic similarity, sound similarity, grammatical function, nonwords, corrections, grammatical acceptability, semantic acceptability, meaning changes, repeated and multiple miscues, and correction of repeated and multiple miscues? (2) Are there significant differences in students' ability to retell a story read for average-ability second-grade students who read a basal text with illustrations and for average-ability second-grade students who read a basal text without illustrations? Text "without illustrations" was an identical basal reader with illustrations covered with construction paper. Since the study was designed to search for possible influences of illustrations on reading performance, a two-tailed test was used with a p > .05.

The purpose of this study was to explore the possible effects of illustrations in basal readers upon the reading performance of average-ability second-grade readers through an analysis of oral reading errors and retelling scores. The Reading Miscue Inventory (Goodman, 1972) was selected as the instrument to analyze the subjects' oral reading errors and as the basis for determining retelling scores. Selections from the Houghton-Mifflin basal reader series were chosen for the oral reading activity. Subjects for the study included 21 boys and 19 girls chosen randomly from an average-ability population of 130 second-grade children attending three elementary schools in Andover, Rose Hill, and Augusta, Kansas. The sample of 40 children was randomly divided into control and experimental groups.