Good and Poor Readers' Comprehension of Story Structure across Different Input and Output Modalities

STORY COMPREHENSION patterns of good and poor sixth-grade readers were examined across four modality combinations for input and output: listening-oral recall, reading-oral recall, listening-written recall, reading-written recall. Twenty-one good readers and 21 poor readers were asked to summarize important information in a different short story presented for each condition. The subjects were tested individually in one 45-minute session. The results showed that good readers recalled more story propositions, but that the organization of the story schemata represented in the summaries was similar for the two groups. This included the pattern of story grammar categories for explicit propositions recalled, the number and types of additions, and the levels of importance of summary propositions in the hierarchical structures of the stories. Differences in the types of information emphasized as important were found for explicit information as compared to implicit information, suggesting variations in schema organization related to the nature of the text. There were no significant differences between the groups related to input or output modalities, though oral recall conditions produced longer summaries overall. Results and implications are discussed in terms of different types of internal cognitive schemata for stories and the effects of variations in the complexity of story texts.