An analysis of the utilization of the cueing systems by proficient and less proficient fourth-grade readers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the similarities and differences of proficient and less proficient fourth-grade readers in their utilization of the graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic cueing systems of language. -- Ten students from two grade four classes whose comprehension scores on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests (1965) fell between 4.2 and 4.7 and between 4.9 and 5.4 were selected for the study. The less proficient group was comprised of the five students with scores between 4.2 and 4.7, and the proficient group was the five students between 4.9 and 5.4. -- The students read orally the story "Space Pet," selected from the Reading Miscue Inventory (Y. Goodman & C. Burke, 1972). Each child was asked to retell as much of the story as possible. The reading and retelling of the story were audiotaped. The writer listened to the tape for each child in order to accurately record all the miscues, and to write down the story verbatim for each child. -- The miscues for each group were examined in terms of the amount of graphophonic similarity, the percent of syntactically and semantically acceptable miscues, the percent of miscues corrected, and the extent to which each group's miscues distorted meaning. Group means were tabulated and presented. The findings indicated that both groups of readers utilized the cueing systems, but did not use them equally. Both the proficient and less proficient groups relied more heavily on the graphophonic system than on either the syntactic or the semantic. The less proficient readers, however, used the graphophonic system more extensively than did the proficient readers. The proficient readers produced more syntactically and semantically acceptable miscues than did the less proficient readers. The proficient readers corrected a higher percentage of miscues and produced fewer miscues resulting in meaning change than did the less proficient readers.