Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics) by Author "Klop, Daleen"

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    The relationship between narrative skills and reading comprehension : when mainstream learners show signs of specific language impairment
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2011-03) Klop, Daleen; Anthonissen, Christine; Tuomi, S. K.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The attainment of literacy is crucial for survival in a modern industrialised, knowledge-driven society. Children with poor language skills are at risk for academic failure because of the differences between oral language used in daily interactions and the language skills needed to succeed in a formal school environment. The impact of poorly developed oral language skills on the successful acquisition of reading skills, particularly reading comprehension, is often underestimated in the education of young learners in South Africa. Narrative skills form the bridge between oral language and literacy by providing experience in using the extended and decontextualized discourse units that children will encounter in written language. This study investigated the relationship between narrative skills and reading comprehension skills in young learners who are developing literacy. Specific linguistic markers of literacy in the narratives of a group of Grade 3 learners from communities with low socio-economic status were examined. The main research questions this study attempted to answer were: “How do linguistic deficits of learners with poor reading comprehension and specific reading comprehension deficits manifest in their oral narratives?” and “Are there linguistic markers that decisively distinguish between learners with specific reading comprehension deficits and learners with general poor reading skills as compared to learners with normal reading comprehension?” In a quasi-experimental research design, the Grade 3 participants in this study were assigned to three groups: Readers who are competent at word level and comprehension (good reading comprehension group), readers who are competent at word level but poor at comprehension (specific comprehension disorder group) and readers who are poor at both word level and comprehension (poor reading comprehension group). Measurement protocols were used to assess the linguistic variables of interest, namely vocabulary, narrative micro- and macrostructure structure, cohesion, coherence and other aspects of oral language. The results of this study confirmed the relationships between language skills and reading comprehension. It was found that readers with general poor reading skills performed significantly poorer on a variety of linguistic measures than readers with good reading comprehension. The group identified as readers with specific reading comprehension disorders were, in general, not significantly different from the other two groups. This study therefore did not provide clear evidence that readers with specific reading comprehension disorders presented with linguistic markers that could differentiate them from the other groups. The clinical implications for speech-language therapists and educators with regards to assessment and intervention were highlighted.