STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF READING TIME AND RECALL FOR SENTENCES IN NARRATIVES - EXPLORING CHANGES WITH AGE AND READING-ABILITY

Multiple regression techniques were used to examine whether indexes of cognitive processes known to affect adults are also related to sentence reading times and recall of children. In a self-paced task, good and poor readers in Grades 5 and 7 read narratives presented one sentence at a time. For all readers, longer reading times were associated with indexes of microstructure processes (e.g., words, propositions). Poor readers in both grades differed from good readers in that shorter reading times were associated with macrostructure processes (e.g., causal relations), providing correlational evidence for a compensatory role in reading. Independent of reading skill, younger children differed from older children in that greater numbers of causal relations were associated with better sentence recall. The role that knowledge of causal relations may play in developmental change and individual differences in reading speed and recall is discussed.