From listening to reading: Phonological processes in comprehension

In this study, the role of phonological information in children's silent reading comprehension and listening comprehension was investigated. Phonologically confusing texts were presented in a listening comprehension task to kindergarten and second grade children and in a reading comprehension task to second grade children. Rhymes induced phonological confusion to a greater extent than did tongue-twisters in both the listening and reading formats, suggesting that phonological information is activated in similar ways when children listen and when they read silently. In addition to phonological effects in reading slowdowns and in degradation of perfect recall, phonological confusion was evidenced in gist recall, making children prone to certain kinds of recall errors in which proper names were forgotten or misrecalled. From these results, implications are drawn regarding the role of phonological information in the comprehension process. The interaction of reading skill and phonological activation during comprehension was also investigated. In the reading task, no interactions between reading skill and phonological activation were found. The conclusion is drawn that phonological activation is a more basic ability than the types of phonological skill commonly assessed with "phonological awareness" tasks. Finally, in the listening study, Kindergarten non-readers did not show the same pattern of phonological confusions in recall that Kindergarten and second-grade readers showed. Thus, non-readers may listen somewhat differently than readers during a listening comprehension task, although phonological activation still seems to play a role in their listening. This finding may have important implications for investigations into underlying causes of reading disabilities.