Semantic Constructivity in Children's Comprehension

EXAMINED COMPREHENSION of sets of related sentences from which inferences could be drawn. The study used 120 school age children and 30 adults as subjects who were asked to read short paragraphs suggesting spatial relationships. After reading, they were given a recognition test containing items not previously read but which were congruent with the semantic content of the text. The primary result was the strong tendency for all subjects to recognize the semantically congruent inferences as having been present in the original reading situation. The results are discussed in light of the implications they provide for developing models of comprehension and for readability analysis.