Word Knowledge in a Theory of Reading Comprehension

Abstract

We reintroduce a wide-angle view of reading comprehension, the Reading Systems Framework, which places word knowledge in the center of the picture, taking into account the progress made in comprehension research and theory. Within this framework, word-to-text integration processes can serve as a model for the study of local comprehension processes, that is, those that make sense out of short stretches of text. These processes require linkage between the word identification system and the comprehension system, with the lexicon in the linking role. Studies of these processes examine the influence of one sentence on the reading of a single word in a second sentence, which enables the integration of the word meaning into the reader's mental model of the text. Skilled comprehenders, more than less skilled, show immediate use of word meanings in the integration process. Other evidence is also consistent with the assumption that word meaning processes are causal components in comprehension skill.

Notes

¹Our discussion relies on relatively simple narrative texts, which contain clear event structures to expose examples of integration processes. However, our theoretical framework and the word-to-text integration processes we examine apply to texts of all types.

²The description as lexically based integration helps preserve bridging inferences for the more effortful and nonlexically based bridge building demonstrated by the early studies of Haviland and Clark (1974). In their example of “The beer was warm,” a bridge is made from “beer” back to “the picnic supplies” of the preceding sentence. This bridge does not rest on a lexical process in which “beer” is understood to refer to “picnic supplies.”