Profiles of Listening and Reading Comprehension

Reading researchers have suggested that listening comprehension might be a better method than IQ of measuring students' optimal level of functioning in reading. This proposal raises questions about whether tests of recall of ideas in text passages suggest that processing and strategies are the same for listening and reading. To answer these questions, the authors gave regular classes of fourth, sixth, and eighth graders sentence verification tests after listening to or reading passages. Performances on different types of test sentences were analyzed to determine whether comprehenders of different groups (good listener/readers, poor listeners, poor readers, and poor listener/readers) showed similar or different patterns of comprehension processing and strategies. Results showed significant differences between groups on the listening and on the reading subtests. The results suggest that using listening as a measure of optimal functioning in reading may present problems of validity and interpretation.