Written comprehension of culturally appropriate reading passages by non-native speakers of English

This study attempted to determine factors influencing the reading comprehension of normative speakers of English at the college level, especially factors relevant to college composition courses.;Previous research performed on selected populations of English as a Second Language (ESL) students revealed that the appropriate schemata, including cultural, must be in place and activated in order for comprehension to take place. This study focused on the impact of cultural familiarity. The hypothesis tested was that subjects would better understand a culturally familiar passage than one which was not.;The passages chosen were personal narratives dealing with the theme of grandparents. Both were judged to be on the seventh to eighth-grade reading level according to Edward Fry's readability formula and were unadapted texts. Dana Wall's "Remembering Grandpa," developing the theme of childhood memories of bonding with a grandparent, was used as the culturally familiar text. Patricia Neal's "My Grandmother, the Bag Lady," was considered unfamiliar passage because it dealt with the topic of a grandparent in a nursing home and symbolically developed the "bag lady" motif, both culturally unfamiliar concepts. Subjects tested were enrolled in ESL classes at three institutions of higher learning in Sioux City, Iowa, and were ready to enter college level English classes within one or two semesters. Subjects were asked to read the passages and respond by writing what they remembered.;Results were then scored by independent raters trained in the application of the Mitchell-Irwin scale to determine richness of retelling. An additional component was added by having the protocols also rated by ESL instructors at Western Iowa Tech Community College.;Contrary to predicted results, data indicated that subjects appeared to comprehend the "unfamiliar" passage better than the one judged culturally more familiar by the researcher. A descriptive analysis of individual retellings helped reveal processes undergone by subjects in an attempt to make meaning from the text. Close examination of their discourse revealed that while subjects drew inferences from "Grandpa" and appeared to get the gist of the narration, the majority responded to "Bag Lady" with literal word-by-word reproductions from the original. This tendency may have caused raters to assign higher scores to the "Bag Lady" retellings. The study revealed considerations relevant to instructors with ESL students in their classrooms.