An investigation of context clues, initial letter cues, configuration and work frequency as factors affecting reading comprehension of 11 and 15 year old secondary school children

Abstract

One hundred and twenty first year secondary school pupils and one hundred and twenty fourth year pupils of both sexes were tested in an attempt to evaluate the relative contributions made by context clues, initial letter cues plus context, configuration cues plus context and word frequency in reading comprehension. The tests were based upon a variation of the Cloze test of reading comprehension, and the reading material utilised was newspaper articles and adult literature of the type issued by official government agencies. It was found that the ability to fill in missing items in the Cloze test was assisted by configuration cues plus context, initial letter cues plus context and context alone, in that order. The ability to use context clues, initial letter cues and configuration cues was found to increase with age during the secondary stage of education. A positive correlation was found to exist between the frequency of occurrence of a word and its accuracy of prediction. When items of special difficulty arose pupils tended to concentrate upon cues within words to the detriment of clues within sentences. Three types of context became apparent, (1) convergent, i.e. directing the reader's attention to a narrow area of search, (2) obtuse, i.e. presenting the reader with a wide area of search, and (3) misleading, i.e. focusing the reader's attention upon an erroneous area of search.