Knowledge of Words Within Sentences: Exploring Elementary Students' Knowledge of Connectives and Anaphoric References

• In Event: Word Exposure and Vocabulary in Action: Exploring Frequency, Lexical Pragmatics, and Their Relationships

Abstract

Purpose
There is little research on how to support students’ understanding of the dense and challenging sentences that are characteristic of academic texts (MacKay et al., 2021; Truckenmiller et al., 2019). Here, we explore third and sixth graders’ knowledge of sentence-level features within academic texts and explore relationships with reading comprehension. Navigating academic sentences involves understanding how specific words and phrases connect and show relationships between ideas within and across sentences (e.g., cohesive devices, connectives, and anaphoric references). The current study explores these features to inform word- and sentence-level instruction, and considers: What knowledge do students have about connectives and anaphoric references, and how does that knowledge relate to their reading comprehension?
Conceptual Framework
The relationship between academic language proficiency and students’ success with academic texts is well-documented. In this study, we rely on the Core Academic Language Skills framework (Uccelli et al., 2015), which includes multiple sentence-level linguistic features. We also draw on Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (Alim & Paris, 2017) to situate academic language as one variety of language to be explored—no more rich or complex than other registers (Baker-Bell, 2020).
Methods
The first data source was performance on experimenter-designed modified MAZE measures that assessed readers’ knowledge of specific words and phrases that served as cohesive devices within and across sentences. Instead of removing every seventh word from a text, we removed words that served as cohesive devices to target knowledge of connective words (e.g. however, despite) and anaphoric references (e.g. pronouns that referred back to earlier ideas or people). The second data source was reading comprehension performance based on iReady and MAP reading comprehension scores. Analyses included correlational analyses between MAZE scores (sentence-level feature knowledge) and reading comprehension scores, as well as within group analyses of variance to explore differences between items that targeted different sentence-level features.
Findings
Descriptive statistics suggested that third grade students had robust knowledge of cohesive devices targeted in the MAZE measure (M=7.26, SD=1.16, max=8). The 6th grade sample demonstrated more variability in their knowledge of cohesive devices (M=10.19, SD=2.07, max=16). Preliminary analyses suggest that students did not differ in performance on connective items compared to anaphoric reference items and suggest a relationship between knowledge of sentence-level features and reading comprehension.
Significance
In light of recent calls to scaffold students' reading of challenging sentences (e.g. Truckenmiller et al., 2019), this study sought to better understand students’ knowledge of academic sentence features, specifically cohesive devices. This research supports the relationship between cohesive device knowledge and global reading comprehension (MacKay et al., 2021; Uccelli et al., 2015). It also relates to growing concerns around students’ infrequent exposure to texts that contain challenging sentences (Brenner et al., 2009; Conradi Smith & Hiebert, 2022). Pedagogically, students could benefit from explicit instruction in cohesive devices as well as opportunities to activate and build specific topic knowledge related to texts.

Authors

• Rachel Knecht, University of Nevada - Reno
  Presenting Author

• Dianna R. Townsend, University of Nevada - Reno
  Presenting Author

• Sarah M. Lupo, James Madison University
  Presenting Author

• Lisa Larson, DANN
  Presenting Author

• Vickie Smith Barrios, University of Nevada - Reno
  Presenting Author