INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN STORY COMPREHENSION AND RECALL OF POOR READERS

This study sought to identify poor readers and characterise weaknesses in their knowledge and use of story structure in comprehension and re call. Eighty year 3 children, 20 good readers and 60 poor readers, wer e selected from an initial pool of children based on factor analysis o f scores from three measures of reading ability. The poor readers were then divided into relatively homogeneous subgroups, using eight addit ional measures of language-reading comprehension, according to a numer ical classification procedure. This procedure helped identify specific weaknesses in their language-reading comprehension. All children list ened to three stories and retold the stories under free and probe reca ll conditions. Story recalls were analysed using the Stein and Glenn s tory grammar. Comparison of recalls between the good readers and each of the subgroups of poor readers showed that poor readers in two subgr oups evidenced reduced sensitivity to story structure. The children in these subgroups recalled less of the stories overall, recalled less i nformation from story grammar categories to varying extents, and showe d patterns of category recall that differed from those of normal reade rs. Children in one of the subgroups also displayed poor perception of causal relations across story episode boundaries. These results provi de evidence of marked heterogeneity in poor readers' story comprehensi on and recall. Certain subgroups of poor readers may have qualitativel y different problems processing stories, relative to other poor reader s, which may require a more concerted approach to instruction in story structure.