The effects of story grammar and story interestingness on children's recall and preference of narratives in standardized reading comprehension tests.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of revisions of story grammar (Johnson and Mandler's) and structural-affect theory on selected passages of two widely used standardized reading comprehension tests at the first and second grade levels. The study attempted to determine if there were differences in oral and written recalls based upon the revisions in structure. Secondly, it attempted to determine whether students preferred the revised stories which had been rewritten with attention to story grammar rules and increased story interestingness. Two stories were rewritten at each grade level to conform to ideal story structure and story interestingness. Subjects were 96 first and second graders who were seen individually and randomly assigned to one of four groups by grade. Presentation order of the structure was counterbalanced. Oral free recall, written recall using the test's questions, and two measures of preference were used to assess differences between the original and revised stories. The revised structure significantly impacted several measures of oral recall, which raises concerns that comprehension problems could be emanating from the material used. Because recall varied as a function of grade, revision, and story, it was concluded that structure is important to recall, but is not a good predictor of recall. Other factors such as reader experience, content, length, and complexity of content may affect recall. Written recall for original stories was not different from the written recall of revised stories. The test questions used may be problematic, or children may be able to do as well in recognition tasks regardless of the version read. Children showed a preference for revised stories in both grades (though not significant in first grade) on both a seven-point scale and a forced-choice preference. This was interpreted as evidence for children's knowledge of what constitutes a good story.