Strategies for supporting comprehension of a contrastive-structure story
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35305/revistairice.vi50.2116Keywords:
reading comprehension, dialogic reading, strategies, discourse connectors and markers, multimodalityAbstract
Text comprehension is considered one of the most complex human cognitive activities, as it entails the interplay of various levels and components. That is, it depends on the execution and integration of multiple cognitive processes. Prior research has emphasized the importance of dialogic storybook reading in the development of language and text comprehension skills. In line with this body of work, the present study reports on an investigation into the strategies used by adults in the home to scaffold the comprehension of a contrastively structured story for children aged 4 to 6 years. The interactions analyzed took place in an induced reading situation, were video-recorded, and subsequently transcribed. Through the application of the constant comparative method, two types of strategies used by adults to support children’s understanding of the contrastive structure of the text were identified: (a) multimodal ostensive strategies and (b) distancing strategies from one of the opposing perspectives. The results highlight the role of integrating multimodal resources as a strategy to enhance comprehension in dialogic reading performances. Furthermore, adults’ questions and comments served to differentiate the conflicting perspectives in the story and assisted children in reformulating the situation model of the narrative. Overall, the study underscores the educational value of shared storybook reading in fostering children’s understanding of the deeper meaning of the adversative connector but.
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