Assessing connective understanding with visual and verbal tasks

Abstract

The role of temporal and causal connectives is relevant in reading comprehension. Children with comprehension difficulties have problems in interpreting these connectives (e.g. Amidon, 1976; Feagans, 1980; Pyykkônen, Niemi and Järvikivi, 2003; Trosborg, 1982). The Adaptive Learning System (ALS) TERENCE aims to develop children's comprehension through the use of adaptive visual and verbal games. Within this framework, the purpose of this study was to assess connective comprehension with three visual and verbal tasks. Two hundred and eight English and Italian children participated in this study. The main results show that the use of pictures does not always support comprehension. Moreover, less skilled children perform better at simultaneous connective "while" compared to the temporal sequential connectives (before, after) and causal (because) ones. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.