Self-study
Each child in a group of young children read aloud both a short paragraph and a list of randomly ordered words from the paragraph. ███ ████ ███████████ ███████ █████ ████ ████ █████ █████████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███ ███ █████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ███ ██████ ████ █████ █████████████ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ███████ ███ █████
Stimulus Summary
We have two tasks: reading a paragraph aloud, and reading a list of randomly ordered words from that paragraph. Every child does both tasks. Here's what happens:
More experienced readers made fewer errors on whichever task they performed second, regardless of whether it was the paragraph or the list.
Beginning readers always made fewer errors on the paragraph than on the list, no matter which task came first.
Anticipation
This is a Resolve/Reconcile/Explain question. Before looking at the answers, let's get clear on what's surprising.
The experienced readers' pattern might make intuitive sense. You might expect that the second task will go better than the first, because the children have already seen the words once.
What's weird is that beginning readers don't show this pattern. They always do better on the paragraph, even if the paragraph comes first and they haven't seen any of the words yet. And they don't improve on the list even after having just read all the same words in the paragraph.
The correct answer needs to help explain why beginning readers don't benefit from doing a task second but instead always do better on the paragraph.
18.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ████ █████████ ███ ███ ███████████ ███ ███ █████████ ████████
a
Because several words ████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ██████████
(A) tells us the list was shorter than the paragraph because some words appeared multiple times in the paragraph but only once in the list. This is a fact about the two tasks, but it applies equally to both groups of readers. It doesn't explain why beginning readers always performed better on the paragraph while experienced readers performed better on whichever task came second.
b
In reading the ██████████ ███ ████ ███████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ████ ███ █████████ ████████
This tells us experienced readers were better at using context than beginning readers. But if experienced readers had a bigger advantage from context, we'd expect them to always do better on the paragraph (since the paragraph is the task that provides context). Instead, experienced readers did better on whichever task came second, even when that task was the list of randomly ordered words with no context at all. So (B) doesn't fit the experienced readers' pattern.
c
The more experienced ███████ ███████ ███ █████████ ██████ █████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ██ █████████ ██████
Beginning readers relied solely on context to guess at difficult words. That means context is the only tool in their toolkit. When they read the paragraph, they have context to lean on, so they make fewer errors. When they read the list, the words are randomly ordered, so there's no context to use, and they struggle. And, even if they read the paragraph first and encountered all the words already, that prior exposure doesn't help them with the list, because they don't sound out words. Their only method is context, and context is either present (paragraph) or absent (list). That's why order of the tasks doesn't matter for them.
d
Both tasks used ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ █████ ███ ████████ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ███ █████████ █████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████
Like (A), this is a fact about the tasks that applies equally to both groups. Yes, both tasks use the same words, so children would recognize words in the second task. But this is exactly the fact that makes the beginning readers' pattern puzzling in the first place. If seeing the same words again should help (and it does help the experienced readers), why doesn't it help the beginning readers?
e
The beginning readers ████ ████ █████████████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ███████████ ███████ ███ ██ ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ███ ███ █████
This tells us beginning readers made more errors overall than experienced readers on both tasks. That's not surprising, and it doesn't address the question. We're not asking why beginning readers make more mistakes in general. We're asking why the order of the tasks didn't affect beginning readers' performance. The fact that they made more total errors doesn't explain why they always did better on the paragraph regardless of whether it came first or second.