Abstract

FONSECA, Liliana et al. Enhancing reading comprehension skills in children of schools of different socio-economic status. Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana [online]. 2014, vol.6, n.1, pp. 41-50. ISSN 2075-9479.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5579/rnl.2014.0151.

The first condition for reading comprehension is readers' precise and accurate word decoding. Reading comprehension is a mental process of meaning construction that demands strategies that link background knowledge with information from texts. Most readers need instruction on different strategies to improve their comprehension skills but it becomes indispensable and effective for students that are struggling most. Poor comprehenders may come from deprived environments with poor oral language, low emergent literacy skills, and limited prior knowledge. Instruction of explicit strategies could narrow the gap resulting of those social conditions. Our aim is to investigate the effects of an instructional program, LEEcomprensivamente, in schools of different socioeconomic status (SES). A hundred children, 47 controls (23 middle SES and 24 low SES) and 53 in the intervention group, (28 middle SES and 25 low SES), between 9 to 11 years old, participated in the study. Design consists on a pre-test, instruction period and a post-test. Pretest showed no statistical difference between control and intervention group in verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, verbal comprehension, word and pseudo-word reading and reading comprehension. This study shows a difference among groups in all the variables: vocabulary, reading comprehension, inferences, both connective and elaborative, and monitoring after the intervention. This intervention clearly results in a significant improvement in reading comprehension in different SES groups could indicate the axes of the program (vocabulary, inference making, understanding of text structure and monitoring) are probably causally implicated in reading comprehension.

Keywords : Intervention; Reading comprehension; Vocabulary; Inferences; Socioeconomic status.

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