An Exploration of Factors Related to Reading Comprehension : A Study of Third Grade English Language Learners (ELLs)

Access restricted to the OSU CommunityLearning to read consists of processes that allow the reader to recognize print, understand words and comprehend text. Thus, vocabulary is one of the most fundamental elements for reading comprehension. Learners can acquire new words from text upon the first encounter with a new word on the basis of fast mapping. Teachers also contribute to students' vocabulary growth by teaching them words and strategies such as word analysis, to help them become independent vocabulary learners. For English language learners (ELLs), the task of learning English words may be increasingly difficult as they may not have had the same oral exposure to vocabulary as their native English speaking peers. Thus, ELLs who have less experience with the English language, but who use the strategy of word analysis to decipher the meaning of unknown morphologically complex words, may experience errors of fast mapping. Hence, the purpose of this study was to determine whether ELL third-grade students make errors of fast mapping when using the strategy of word analysis to decipher the meaning of unknown words. Four-eight year old third grade ELL students completed the 4-Stage Method for Prefixed and Suffixed Words and the 3-Stage Method for Compound Words to learn word analysis to decipher the meaning of prefixed, suffixed and compound words. Students were administered the Prefix Assessment, a measure of knowledge about prefixes, the Suffix Assessment, a measure of knowledge about suffixes, and the Compound Words Assessments, a measure of knowledge about compound words, to identify errors of fast mapping of identification and definition of words. Data were analyzed using Chi-Square, One Sample Binomial test and percent of errors of fast mapping were calculated. Findings suggest that participants presented more errors of fast mapping with prefixed and suffixed words than with non-prefixed and non-suffixed words. Participants identified more new prefixes and suffixes in words, and transparent compound words than defined new prefixed, suffixed and transparent compound words. However, participants were able to identify and define transparent compound words to a greater extent than prefixed and suffixed words. Findings have important implications for policy, publishers, and teachers and speech-language pathologists