| In the intermediate grades, schools expect learners to have mastered skills of reading and listening sufficiently to use these skills as primary tools for acquiring knowledge in content area subjects like science, history, and social studies. Classrooms in urban, inner city schools have students with many multicultural and linguistic differences who demonstrate a wide range of literacy skill development. This study examined the listening comprehension of eighty fifth graders in three urban classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area who receive all their instruction in English. The sample included Asian, African American, Filipino, Hispanic, Pacific Islanders, and Caucasian students of low socioeconomic status as measured by percentage of AFDC families. Twenty percent of the sample included bilingual students certified English fluent or Limited English and three special education students.;The purpose of this repeated measures experimental study was to examine the effects of two instructional practices, an advance organizer and modeled notetaking, on two aspects of listening comprehension, literal recall and inferencing, using orally delivered, 8-10 minute lecture-type content area instruction delivered under classroom conditions. The study also examined the relationship of working memory as an intervening variable between instructional treatment and listening comprehension by analysis of six subtests of the Cognitive Processing Test developed by H. L. Swanson. The strength of the relationship between students' working memory, reading comprehension and listening comprehension was examined by correlational analysis.;Both the advance organizer and the notetaking treatments had strong effects on literal recall but neither had educationally significant effects for inferencing in the full sample. However, both treatments had strong effects on low achievers. There was a 3/4 sigma increase in the use of inferences by the low achievers in the notetaking treatment. The study also found a significant positive relationship between working memory and literal recall, and a statistically significant but weaker association for inferencing. There was also a strong positive relationship demonstrated between working memory, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension. Both treatments were effective instructional techniques for improving listening comprehension of expository discourse with an urban diverse learner population. |
