General reading variables The dependent variables and scoring procedures

Recognition of Elements includes a variable set of Recognition of Letters, Syllables, and Words. Relevant comments for each variable are now presented, to give an understanding of the scoring procedures. Variable: Recognition of elements—1. Words Each student was first asked to identify a word in a story with a named vowel in it and a point was awarded if the attempt was correct. The student was then asked to read the word identified. A problem arose when the word was incorrectly identified. A point was awarded if the student could read the word correctly even if it did not contain the vowel asked for. A further point was awarded for recognition of a named word. Recognition of elements—2. Syllables This variable was a straight-forward identification of named syllables within words. A point was awarded when the student pointed to the correct syllable. Recognition of elements—3. Letters In the letter identification assessment, students were asked to point to two words in a story where the words 1 began with the same letter, and 2 ended with the same letter. In the former case the students were asked to read the syllable in each word which contained the letter. It must be pointed out that this variable was not scored for test one and the variable was not included in test two because the students had problems in the understanding the requirements for this assessment. In the two methods being taught, the basic component of instruction in the primers was the syllable, and students were not required to sound out letters. Phonemes were taught by contrast of minimal differences between syllables, not as isolated letters, so at this early stage few learners understood what was expected of them. When scoring tests three and four, although some students did indicate words where only the letters were identical, either identical letters or syllables were considered as correct. The problem was compounded by the difficulty of finding the right terminology in both languages used for testing. Some students in the Tok Pisin program did not understand the concepts of “first” and “last,” and in the Urat program there was some misunderstanding due to the translation difficulty. Consequently, to standardise the assessment, scores were not recorded for occasions 1 and 2 on this variable. Variable: Engaging the text Students who made some attempt to read and who showed in the taped attempt that they could read some words of the selection, were given a point for engaging the text. Students who created a text that had no relationship to the written text were considered as not engaging the text. In the final test, students were expected to read excerpts of four different stories. The tester read the heading of each story to give some orientation to the topic, then asked the participant to read a selected portion. Some students continually repeated the heading, while others created a text about the topic that had no relationship to the written form. These were deemed not to have engaged the text. Variable: Time Each reading session was taped and the reading time noted from the time the tester told the student to read until he or she completed the portion. Variable: Proportion of correct syllables A calculation was made of the proportion of correct syllables in the students’ reading of each text. Variable: Comprehension After research of the literature to find appropriate comprehension questions that could cover the four tests, three were chosen: 1. What happened? 2. What do you think might have happened before that? 3. What do you think might have happened after that? Certain problems soon became clear. The first question needed to be general because there were different texts involved, and if the topic of the portion was mentioned by the tester, the reader could possibly give an adequate answer without having read the text. As mentioned above, translation of the second and third questions was difficult, especially in Urat, where ‘think’ and ‘remember’ translate as the same word ngoihiryembe and ‘before’ and ‘after’ translate as ngindehei ‘first’ and yuwo ‘last’. There was confusion relating to the last two questions, so only the first was scored. In the next section, the specific reading variables are described.

3.4.3.2. Specific reading variables

The five divisions for the specific reading variables were as follows: 1. Intonation Contours letter, syllable, word, and phrase reading 2. Substitution of Words nonsense, compatible, and incompatible words 3. Substitution of Elements within Words consonant-vowel, consonant, consonant cluster, digraph, vowel 4. Fluency within Words omission, insertion, self-correction of syllables 5. Fluency within Sentences repetition of syllables, words, and phrases Each of these variable groups included a variable set with three to five variables in each set as shown. First, we consider the Intonation Contours variable, which was scored for reading • letter-by-letter • syllable-by-syllable • word-by-word, and • phrase-by-phrase. Phrase-by-phrase reading did not refer to phrases only but also included longer sections of text. In scoring the Intonation Contours variable, each text selection was first marked for standard syntactic intonation contour breaks, after listening to the texts read by a number of readers including fluent readers. These units were then considered to be the scoring templates for the particular text being analysed. For example, on occasion 4, in the Urat test the four texts were divided into a different number of contour units 4,6,6,5 comprising phrases or clauses. For the Tok Pisin test, each selection divided readily into eight contour units. Within each contour, words were considered for letter-by-letter and syllable-by-syllable reading. In the example below URAT Text 3, the contours are separated by brackets {}—the words within each bracket were spoken as a contour unit: {Mye uku pe,} {kin ngihip syep pakai.} {Kin tutuh tutuhe supule.} {That man} {has no hands and legs.} {His legs and hands are very short.} {Na etekee} {tue ngaiye hwang Sumbue} {titi dul wanar tae.} {You’ll see him} {like the snake Sumbue} {just lying there.} Variable: Intonation contour—1. Word: Letter-by-letter The number of words read letter-by-letter was recorded. This variable was included because some of the learners persisted in attempting to sound out letters consonants were pronounced as syllables—the C plus the vowel e without being able to read the words. Reading letter-by-letter was not part of either of the instructional methods, but there was some pressure from the Gudschinsky learners to have letter instruction included in the Urat program. There were also letter readers in the Tok Pisin study resulting from earlier literacy programs. Intonation contour—2. Word: Syllable-by-syllable In this variable, each word read syllable-by-syllable was scored. A problem occurred in the scoring when students attempted to read words they did not know by guessing or sounding out letter-by-letter, or syllable-by-syllable. To keep the scoring consistent, each word that was attempted by sounding out whether by syllables or letters and said correctly was counted as word-reading, but such words not said correctly were considered as syllable or letter-reading, depending on the method used. For example, regarding syllables, readers who said the first syllable or each syllable of a word correctly, then read the whole word and continued reading the text were considered as reading by words. Conversely, those who repeated syllables and could not complete the word and say it correctly, and those who read the syllables correctly but slowly, and did not say the word as a whole were considered to be reading by syllables for that word. Intonation contour—3. Unit: Word- by-word A unit was considered to be a syntactic group of words in an intonation contour as explained above. The number of units read word-by-word were scored. If more than one word in the unit was omitted, a point was not accorded for that unit. Intonation contour—4. Unit: Phrase-by-phrase The number of units read by phrases, or a sequence of words instead of individual word reading, was scored for this variable. Some readers paused in unit breaks different from the proposed norm, so adjustments were made according to the number of units calculated for the particular text being scored. The next two variable groups are concerned with substitution, that is, Substitution of Words, and Substitution of Elements within Words.