7.1 General description
7.2 The English reading passage
7.3 Findings of individual English reading investigation
7.4 The local languages reading passage
7.5 Findings of individual Malawian reading sessions
7.6 Findings of individual Zambian reading sessions
This was the second part of the individual reading investigation. Twenty four pupils were selected from each country, 12 high scoring and 12 low scoring (see 6.2 for details). Each pupil was asked to read two texts, one in English, and one in the local language. Each text was followed by oral questions on the text, and any difficulties were discussed. The text for English appears in section 7.2 below, and for Chichewa/Nyanja in Appendix I. The whole session was audio-recorded.
This passage had been specially constructed so that the topic (waiting at a bus stop) would be familiar, together with most, but not all, of the language. Five words judged unlikely to be familiar were deliberately introduced, namely: elapsed, trundling, vermilion, snapdragons, grenadine. The exact meaning of these words is not crucial to an understanding of the text as a whole, and the main features of their meaning are recoverable from context. The purpose of the questions (asked and answered in either English or Nyanja) was:
(i) to investigate the pupil's inferential ability in reading
(ii) to ascertain difficulties that pupils identified in reading
(iii) to investigate the children's ability to attribute meaning to unknown words from context.
The principal questions and prompts suggested are provided below. However this investigation was intended to be a discussion rather than an interrogation, and researchers were encouraged to discuss and reword questions as they saw fit, using English or a local language.
Jane and MaryJane was at the bus stop. She was waiting for her sister Mary. The bus was late. After ten minutes had elapsed, the old bus came trundling along the road and stopped at the bus stop.
When Mary got off the bus, Jane was surprised. Her sister was not wearing a blue dress but a vermilion one. And she was carrying a big bunch of flowers - there were roses, daisies and yellow snapdragons.
Jane ran up to her sister. "Mary, how are you?" she said. "Where did you get that new dress, and why are you carrying those flowers?"
"Hello, Jane," said Mary. "Oh, I'm so thirsty. Let's go and have a grenadine. Then I'll tell you everything."
Sample of Suggested Questions and Prompts
1) What's this passage about?
(1a) Where was Jane?
(1b) What was she doing?
(1c) Who is Mary?
(1d) Did Mary get off a bus?)2) Is there anything you don't understand?
3a) Was the bus late?
3b) Why do you think it was late?4a) Was Jane surprised?
4b) Why was Jane surprised?5) What is "vermilion"?
5a) What was Mary wearing?
5b) What did Jane think Mary would be wearing?6) What is a "snapdragon"?
6a) What was Mary carrying?
6b) What is "a rose"?
The recordings were transcribed, and where necessary translated. Since the data is essentially "talk" it does not lend itself in all instances to quantifiable analysis.
Transcription Key:
P: the "target" pupil
PF: one of the target pupil's friends
I: interviewer
Utterances that were originally in the local language have been translated into English and appear in italics. Lexical and syntactic deviancies from standard English have been preserved. No attempt has been made to reproduce the pupils' pronunciation.
7.3.1 Understanding the gist of the text
7.3.2 Direct reference questions
7.3.3 Inference questions
7.3.4 Difficulties in the text reported by pupils
7.3.5 Guessing based on the appearance of words
7.3.6 Use of context
7.3.7 Inferencing word meaning from world knowledge
In Zambia all of the high scoring group, and 11 of the 12 in the low scoring group were able to give adequate answers to the first question "What's the passage about?". Acceptable responses included "It's about Jane and Mary" or "Jane was waiting for her sister". Likewise in Malawi all pupils high scorers gave adequate answers to the question. Six of the Malawian low scorers, however, gave unacceptable responses e.g. starting to reread the text, or giving responses such as "buying a dress" or "the buses was late" (sic).
Direct reference questions may by definition be answered by quotation of the appropriate sentence or section of the text. The direct reference questions most commonly asked were 1a (Where was Jane?) and 1b (What was she doing?). These questions were generally correctly answered, although it may be that pupils are simply reading aloud the sentences from the text in sequence, and assuming that the questions follow that sequence. This strategy can lead to incorrect answers in sequences such as:
MAB27 (there are other similar sequences)
I: Where was Jane?
P: Jane was at the bus stop. (first sentence)
I: What was she doing?
P: She was waiting for her sister. (second sentence)
I: Did Mary get off the bus?
P: The bus was late. (third sentence)
Pupils generally provided acceptable answers to direct reference questions, and there does not seem to be any striking differentiation between the high and low scorers, as the following tables indicate:
Table 50: Responses to Direct Reference Questions, Malawi
|
|
Acceptable |
Unacceptable |
Total |
|
High scorers |
17 (81%) |
4 (19%) |
21 (100%) |
|
Low scorers |
18 (86%) |
3 (16%) |
21 (100%) |
Table 51: Responses to Direct Reference Questions, Zambia
|
|
Acceptable |
Unacceptable |
Total |
|
High scorers |
34 (97%) |
1 (3%) |
35 (100%) |
|
Low scorers |
12 (75%) |
4 (25%) |
16 (100%) |
The relatively high scores achieved in this category by pupils who in other respects had great difficulties confirm that direct reference questions are likely to be unreliable indicators of comprehension, and should be used with caution in the classroom, and in tests.
The questions asked in this case were of two types:
(i) text based, where the answer may be inferred from another section of the text (e.g. Why was Jane surprised? where the answer provided in the text is: Her sister was not wearing a blue dress.)(ii) based in the pupil's knowledge of the world (e.g. Why do you think Mary was carrying a bunch of flowers?), where the answer is not in the text, and therefore has to come from the pupil's "head". Such suppositional inferences cannot be judged "right" or "wrong" in terms of the text, but simply more or less reasonable in the light of our general knowledge of the world.
(i) Text Based Inference
There are a number of examples of appropriate text-based inferences, e.g.:
ZEG06
I: Was Jane surprised?
P: Yes.
I: Why was she surprised?
P: At the dress Mary was wearing.
Inappropriate inference from the text include:
MDG15
I: Was Jane surprised?
P: Yes, she was.
I: Why was Jane surprised?
P: At the bus coming late.
The results of text-based inference questions were as follows:
Table 52: Results of Text-based Inference Questions, Malawi
|
|
Unacceptable |
Acceptable |
Total |
|
High scorers |
3 |
8 |
11 |
|
Low scorers |
5 |
1 |
6 |
Table 53: Results of Text-based Inference Questions, Zambia
|
|
Unacceptable |
Acceptable |
Total |
|
High scorers |
2 |
2 |
4 |
|
Low scorers |
2 |
1 |
3 |
As expected, there is a tendency for high scorers to produce a greater number of acceptable responses. However, even high scorers have a degree of difficulty with inference questions.
(ii) Inference from World Knowledge
Reasonable answers derived from inferencing based on knowledge of the world include the following:
ZEB08:
I: What is [the passage] all about?
P: I thought Jane was going to a funeral.
I: What makes you think she was going to a funeral? Maybe you can have some ideas.
P: Because she was carrying roses, flowers.ZDB12
I: Was the bus late?
P: Yes.
I: Why do you think the bus was late? Why do you think the bus was late? What could make the bus late?
P: If not many people come.
Here it should be appreciated that many buses in Zambia and Malawi have approximate departure times, but do not leave until they are full. The bus departure is therefore delayed - sometimes up to a day - if not many people have come. This is a good example of inference being determined by cultural context.
With one exception in each country, all the difficulties identified by pupils were individual words. It may be that vocabulary was in fact the only source of difficulty, and that there were no other difficulties arising from discoursal convention or lack of appropriate background knowledge. Interestingly in both countries more high scorers than low scorers (a total of 16 as opposed to 12) identify words as unknown. Either some low scorers were not aware of what they did not know, or they did not wish to admit ignorance. Another possibility is that only good readers were confident enough to admit ignorance. Subsequent questioning by the interviewers revealed that the low scorers had in fact considerable difficulties with vocabulary. The words most commonly reported as unknown were, as expected, one or more of the 5 words prejudged to be unfamiliar (elapsed, trundling, vermilion, snapdragon, grenadine) which had been deliberately written in to the passage. In Zambia they accounted for 56 of the 66 tokens identified by pupils as unknown. Other words which some pupils did not know included: daisies, bunch, surprised, sister, everything, thirsty.
The strategies that the pupils had recourse to for assigning meaning to unknown words, include: (i) guessing based on the appearance of the word; (ii) use of world knowledge; (iii) using context.
Guessing meanings of unknown words on the basis of their similarity to known words occurs in many instances, even if the guess makes no sense in the surrounding context. Guesses based on appearance include: vermilion: guessed as chameleon, nylon and million; daisies: guessed as many days and days; snapdragon guessed as photograph (from "snap"); thirsty guessed as
Thursday and first as in the following examples:
MBG20
I: What is vermilion?
P: It's a million.
I: Not million, but vermilion.
P: I only know million.MMFB19
I: Thirsty. What is it in Chichewa?
P: Thirsty?
I: Mm.
P: On Wednesday, thirsty is Wednesday.
I: Not Thursday, thirsty.
P: Thirsty.
PF: First.
I: Again?
PF: First thing.
By a process of extension "vermilion" is also more plausibly glossed as "expensive" by 4 pupils, e.g.:
MAB43
I: This word is vermilion. Now read the sentence -
P: Her sister was not wearing a blue dress but a vermilion one.
I: Now, what does the word mean?
P: Maybe it means she bought a dress costing one million.
In this investigation, use of context to attribute meaning to unknown words is usually prompted by the interviewer, and does not appear to be a strategy that pupils spontaneously have recourse to. Certainly classroom observation suggests that guessing from context is a strategy that teachers do not encourage pupils to adopt.
Context is, of course, unlikely to yield the exact meaning of an unknown word, but rather a partial meaning. Thus in the present text pupils might guess that "vermilion" is a colour, but not exactly what sort of colour etc.. Clearly there is an element of subjectivity in assessing the acceptability of these "guesses"; in this study anything that indicated that a crucial semantic feature had been identified was accepted (e.g. "slowly" or "moving" were accepted for "trundling"). Examples of acceptable prompted guessing include:
MBG11
I: What is vermilion? (Pause) What was Mary wearing?
P: Mary is wearing...
PF: Mary was wearing blue dress.
I: Yes. What did Jane think Mary would be wearing?
P: How are you?
I: No.
P: Hello Jane.
I: No. Mary was wearing a blue dress and Jane thought... It's a... Mary was not wearing a blue dress - was not wearing a blue dress, but Jane though Mary would be wearing a blue dress, but Mary was wearing a vermilion dress. What is vermilion?
P: A red one.MCG24
R: What is a snapdragon?
P: I don't know.
I: What was Mary carrying? (Pause)
P: A big bunch of flowers.
R: What is a rose?
P: Rose - I think they are flowers.
I: Then what is a snapdragon?
P: I don't know.
I: You read from "And she was carrying -
(Pause, pupil reads silently)
P: So they are flowers too.
On some occasions, the interviewer devises a situational context outside the text in an attempt to help the pupil with the unknown word. This strategy may be thwarted by the pupils reacting unpredictably, as in this example:
MBG20
P: (identifies as a word she doesn't know) Surprised.
I: You mean this one? Read the sentence again.
P: When Mary got off the bus, Jane was surprised.
I: What's the meaning? Mmm?
P: She was shouting.
I: Shouting? If you see four policemen coming in here, how would you feel?
P: I would be frightened.
I: Frightened - before you are frightened, what might happen first?
P: I will tell my friend.
I: Telling a friend. Right. How would you feel if you saw your father come into school?
P: Happy.
I: Happy? Oh, what about seeing your mother coming in a pair of short trousers?
P: It would be a disgrace.
I: All right. Thanks very much.
Although this Malawian pupil obviously understood the interviewer, she consistently did not propose the Chichewa version of "surprised" which the interviewer was attempting to elicit.
There is a tendency, as one would expect, for high scorers to produce a higher frequency of acceptable answers when prompted, than low scorers. Of the words that were identified as unknown high scorers were able to arrive at a higher proportion of acceptable answers, as the following tables indicate:
Table 54: Acceptable responses by Malawian pupils to prompts for unknown words
|
|
Number of prompted occasions |
Number of acceptable responses |
Percentage of acceptable responses |
|
High scorers |
47 |
26 |
57.8% |
|
Low scorers |
38 |
9 |
23.7% |
Table 55: Acceptable responses by Zambian pupils to prompts for unknown words
|
|
Number of prompted occasions |
Number of acceptable responses |
Percentage of acceptable responses |
|
High scorers |
43 |
38 |
88 % |
|
Low scorers |
31 |
16 |
52% |
One might speculate that high scorers are probably able to use the context more appropriately because they understand it better, and because they may have more confidence than low scorers.
Instances where world knowledge does seem to be a factor include the following, where we may surmise that the pupil's experience tells her that an "old bus" probably travels slowly:
ZEG21:
I: Was the bus late?
P: Yes, it was.
I: Why do you think the bus was late?
P: Because it was old.
Cases where pupils use world knowledge to make inappropriate guesses are more easily identified, e.g.:
MAB27
I: What was Mary carrying?
(Pause)
P: She was carrying a big bunch of flowers.
I: Yes. What is a rose?
P: There were rose, daisies, and yellow snapdragons.
I: Then what is a rose?
P: Rose is a name of a person.
I: No, in this case it's a flower.
The reading passage for both Malawi and Zambia was based upon an extract from the Zambian coursebook entitled Werenga Cinyanja. The same passage was given to the Malawian and Zambian pupils. The topic "building a school" was considered sufficiently familiar. The text begins as follows:
Mfumu Mitulo atacoka pamudzi paja nyakwawa Kameta ndi anthu ake pamodzi ndi ena ocokera m'midzi yozungulira, anagundika nayo nchito youmba ncherwa zomangira sukulu....(see Appendix I for full text).[Translation:
After Chief Mitulo had left the village, Headman Kameta and his people, with some others from nearby villages, set about making bricks to build a school.
The women brought water and grass to cover the bricks, while the boys carried the brick-moulds. Some of the men were in the pit treading the clay and water, while other men were busy cutting wood to bake the bricks.
When the bricks were ready, Headman Kameta asked Mr Jamu, who knew how to build with bricks, to start digging the foundation for the school.]
All questions and discussion on this passage were carried out in the local language, by the research assistants. As in the case of the English text, different types of questions were asked. The following are typical examples:
1. What is this passage about?
2. Is there anything you don't understand?
3. Who was the village Headman?
4. What did the women do?
5. Who cut the wood?
(3, 4 and 5 are direct reference questions)
6. Why did the women cover the bricks?
(This question requires an inference based on knowledge of the world along the lines of To protect them from the sun.)
7. Why did Kameta ask Mr Jamu to start digging the foundation?
(This question requires an inference based on the text)
Two pupils chose to read the text silently, while the other 22 read aloud. All these pupils read fairly fluently with occasional deviancies which were judged to be performance slips, rather than due to lack of competence. Questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 were handled with no difficulty in all cases where they were asked.
For question 2, the words which the Malawian researchers felt might cause difficulty were: anagundika (started, set about), zikombole (brick moulds), and nkhando (pit). As in the case of the English text, the only difficulties identified by pupils are lexical items, and as in English, there is an inverse correlation between group level and identification of difficulty, with 4 readers from high scoring group admitting difficulty, and none from the low scoring group. The words which the pupils actually identified as difficult were: anagundika, nkhando, (as predicted) together with panthawiyi (while), nyakwawa (headman, adviser), and ncherwa (bricks). This last word, ncherwa, appears to have been identified because of its spelling. However, the unexpected spelling does not seem to have confused the pupils, as this example makes clear:
MCG12
I: How about the second paragraph?
P: There is a difficult word. The word has the same meaning but the spelling is different.
I: What is the word?
P: Ncherwa.
I: What is ncherwa?
P: Njerwa. I know that the word is spelt "njerwa". I find the spelling "ncherwa" strange.
I: Yes. Then what is "njerwa"?
P: It is moulded soil.
I: Yes
This suggests Malawian pupils are quite "robust" with respect to handling printed words that vary from their own pronunciation. The word identified as difficult on most occasions was nkhando (pit); 14 pupils were not able to assign the correct meaning to it. Responses to the question included "I've forgotten", "Something fearsome", and "In the soil". This word is not in fact crucial to an understanding of the passage. Despite that difficulty, the clear impression from the sessions is that Malawian pupils are fluent and confident in responding to the text. There is less hesitation, less quoting directly from the text, and almost every answer is acceptable. As a result, the researchers could satisfy themselves fairly quickly that the text had been processed with understanding.
The most striking feature of the reading in Nyanja is the very large proportion of pupils who said they were unable to read it, or who tried and failed to read it. In the high scoring group 5 out of 12 pupils either could not, or did not want to, read the Nyanja text aloud, while the same was true of 6 out of 8 middle scoring pupils, and all 12 low scoring pupils.
In all, only 9 out of 32 pupils gave evidence of being able to read the Nyanja text, and are perforce the subjects for this analysis of reading strategies, although comments made by those who could not read the text also appear. The following are examples of the responses of pupils who were not prepared to read the text (again italics indicate translation from Nyanja):
ZDB12
I: OK. Now we are going to try Nyanja. I'm sure you'll be able to do something. Do you want to read silently or aloud?
P: Aloud.
I: Read.
P: Nyanja is very difficult for me. I only know a few things.
I: Why? Don't you learn Nyanja?
P: We do.
I: But why? Because you've said that at home you use Nyanja and you've said you learn it in class? You don't like it? So you can't try even a bit?
P: Just a few bits.
I: OK, what are those few bits? What are they?.....
P: I just don't think I can manage.ZAB14
I: (...) Now let's try the Nyanja passage. (...)
P: You mean to read?
I: Yes, give it a try.
P: I don't know Nyanja.
I: Ah- no - give it a little try. Would you like to read to yourself or aloud, so that I can hear? (pause) Will you? You mean you can't try because it's difficult?
P: Yes.
One pupil, who makes an effort to read the Nyanja is forced to give up, as are the two friends accompanying him:
ZFB04
I:... Now would you like to try reading the Nyanja passage? It's good to try Nyanja because -
P: Oh yes, let's try the Nyanja, because it is difficult for us.
I: It is difficult for you? What about you Misheck? Is it difficult for you too?
PF1: I don't know how to read Nyanja.
I: So you don't know how to read? What about you Lufeyo?
PF2: I can try a bit.
I: So we can try - can't we? Are you going to share it or what are you going to do? Before we start reading - may I ask who is going to read?
PF2: Let me try.
I: OK, you start from here at the beginning
P: Mfumu......
I: OK, Rodney help your friend.
PF: Mfumu - Ma - ah, I can't.
I: OK, Rodney can't manage. Maybe Lufeyo can try?
PF: Mu- Mu- Mfumu ali napita pa- pa-
I: I don't think Lufeyo can manage either, because some of what you've read is not there in this passage.
Possible reasons for the high incidence of refusals, and failure to read the Nyanja text are discussed below. Turning to the 9 pupils who actually read the Nyanja passage, all appear to have understood the gist of the passage. Typical responses include:
ZDB01
I: What does the passage talk about?
P: It talks about a school.
I: What about it?
P: Building a school.ZFG17
I: (....) what's the main thing in the passage?
P: That the school will be built.
A total of 20 direct reference questions were asked, and (with one exception) all were answered appropriately, e.g.:
ZCB04
I: Which chief came from that village?
P: Chief Mitulo.
I: Who brought the water?
P: Women.
I: What about the men? What were they doing?
P: They were trampling the mud.
The Zambian researchers identified the same potentially difficult words as the Malawians, namely: anagundika (started on, undertook), zikombole (brick moulds) and nkhando (pit). Other words which were the researchers asked about were, nyakwawa (headman, adviser), ncherwa (bricks) and zodzathenthera (burning/firing). Pupils were asked about these 6 words a total of 23 occasions. On 14 occasions pupils gave appropriate responses spontaneously, while on 4 occasions they were prompted to the answer, and on 5 occasions the answers were inappropriate. Examples of correct answers from prompting include:
ZCB13
I: What about this word "nyakwawa"? What does it mean?
P: "Nyakwawa"?
I: Yes, "nyakwawa", what do you think it could mean?
P: It's too hard for me.
I: "Mfumu Mitulo atacoka pamudzi paja nyakwawa Kameta ndi anthu ake pamodzi ndi ena ocokera m'midzi yozungulira" Now whenever you read "nyakwawa Kameta and his people", what do you think it means?
P: The adviser.
I: Good. That's it.ZEG21
I: What about "ncherwa", do you know it?
P: Isn't it those fruits? [probably thinking of "nchele", the strangler fig]
I: No, I'm talking about "ncherwa" since they are talking about building a school. What do you think they are?
P: Isn't it that rope for tying?
I: What's that?
P: The rope that's made from tree bark.
O: No, it not that, because "ncherwa" are made from mud.
P: They are bricks.
Examples of inappropriate responses include:
ZFG17
I: What are "ncherwa"?
P: I don't know.
I: What do you think "ncherwa" is?
P: That you are late [probably thinking of the verb "-chedwa", to be late]
As in the case of English, the above cases seem to indicate a tendency to attribute meaning to unknown words based on their appearance, or similarity to known words, rather than through using context. The general impression of the researchers concerning the 9 pupils who read the Nyanja text is that 2 had only a very general idea of what the text was about, while 7 appeared to have a reasonable comprehension, although they had difficulties with some individual words.
Nyanja is a language that is used by most of these 32 Zambian pupils at home, by all of them on a daily basis with their friends, and is also in theory the local Zambian language taught in their primary schools. Their poor overall performance in reading it is probably due to two reasons. First the variety of language used for the individual reading, and second lack of exposure to written Nyanja (see 8.2 and 8.3 for elaboration of these reasons).
