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How Can We Improve Literacy and Comprehension in Primary School Children: Could
Instruction in Semantic Ambiguity Improve Metalinguistic Reading and Comprehension?
Marian J Lucey Sheane, Resource Class Teacher in Sacred Heart NS, Aughrim, Co Wicklow.
Part-time lecturer with Carlow Institute of Technology.
Abstract
The research was a thesis for an M Ed. It was based in linguistics and explored semantic
ambiguity and its role in improving the literacy development in learning support/resource
class children aged 9/10 years old. They were experiencing difficulties with reading and
comprehension. The children were instructed in an intervention programme in semantic
ambiguity to assess if it would have an impact on improving their metalinguistic reading and
comprehension.
The children were tested at pre-intervention programme level; the instruction in semantic
ambiguity then took place and they were again tested at post intervention programme level.
Pre-tests and post-test were given in three sections, section one was to assess ambiguity
detection, section two to assess comprehension monitoring and section three to assess
reading comprehension.
The children’s results improved significantly from pre-test to post-test. These results
supported the hypothesis that instruction in semantic ambiguity improves children’s reading
and comprehension ability.
Brief training in these skills was enough to increase their sensitivity and helped children
recognise the need to monitor their comprehension. Through instruction in semantic
ambiguity there was a significant improvement in their reading and comprehension.
Introduction
This research was an exploration into semantic ambiguity and its role in improving the literacy
development in learning support class children in an Irish primary school. Children aged 9/10
years took part in the research. They were experiencing difficulties with reading and
comprehension and were falling behind their peers in their academic class work.
If a child has a difficulty with reading usually a problem with comprehension follows. Not only
is this obvious in English class but the issues follow the child into History, Geography, Science
and Mats where written problems cause difficulties and in fact all subject areas are affected.
Consequently the child loses confidence and very often a downward spiralling of self-esteem
and self-worth follows.
In order to divert this cycle and assist children in improving comprehension levels, studies
already carried out in this area were researched.
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The studies where instruction in semantic ambiguity improved metalinguistic awareness and
so improved comprehension were interesting. The fact that the studies focused on children’s
humour was something that was also appealing.
Previous research by Zipke, et al., (2008) suggested that an intervention programme in
semantic ambiguity, improved children’s reading and comprehension, however, that study
was not carried out on children attending learning support classes. The five children in this
research were instructed in an intervention programme in semantic ambiguity, to assess if it
would have an impact on improving their metalinguistic reading and comprehension.
The children were tested at pre-intervention programme level; the instruction in semantic
ambiguity then took place and they were again tested at post intervention programme level.
Pre-tests and post-test were given in three sections, section one was to assess ambiguity
detection, section two to assess comprehension monitoring and the third section, to assess
reading comprehension.
Section one in semantic ambiguity was assessed at word level, sentence level and riddle
resolution. Comprehension monitoring was assessed with tests in heteronym pronunciation,
miscue self-correction and anomaly detection in familiar stories. Lastly, reading
comprehension was tested with a cloze text test and the Diagnostic Reading Analysis (DRA)
test was administered.
Following the pre-tests the intervention programme took place. This lasted approximately
four and a half hours. Instruction was in the following four disciplines.




Session 1.
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Multiple word meaning.
Multiple sentence meaning.
Riddles.
Text Reading.
The following week, children took the post intervention programme tests. All results were
assessed and are discussed in the findings chapter.
The children’s results improved significantly from pre-test to post-test. Most telling were the
results in the anomaly detection test where each child scored 100% at post-test level. Even
though the children had not received instruction in this discipline, the other training sessions
had made them more metalinguistic aware and so they picked up on every anomaly. These
results supported the hypothesis that instruction in semantic ambiguity improves children’s
reading and comprehension ability.
Literature Review
In this literature review language learning in the Irish Primary schools is discussed. Language
is the core to our acquisition of education and comprehension is an essential part of the
process. With comprehension, children learn quickly and make progress; the opposite is true
of children who find comprehension difficult. There are many reasons for this lack of
comprehension and many strategies are used in classrooms to improve comprehension levels,
for instance, discussion, questioning, retelling, prediction, inferential text, improving
vocabulary, etc. However, there are still children who do not progress in this area and find the
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everyday grind of comprehension a struggle. This chapter reviews the studies that have been
out exploring possible links between a good understanding of metalinguistic awareness (MA)
and improved comprehension in children of primary school age.
This review will examine and discuss the main interventions used to improve MA in schools
today. Since classroom content covers written language as well as spoken, grammar allows
examination of the nature of the written texts. Can the teaching of grammar improve
metalinguistic awareness in children? Grammar is the essence in learning the written word.
This review covers how grammar is taught in Irish National Schools today and the emphasis or
lack of emphasis that is put on teaching it. Should teaching grammar be a method used in
schools to improve children’s awareness of the use of their language? Also what is the purpose
of teaching grammar? The author examines the different types of grammar and the results of
studies that claim to be of best benefit to students. It questions why teaching grammar does
not improve metalinguistic awareness, yet instruction in semantic ambiguity does?
Why children are not already metalinguistic aware is investigated and how it can be
incorporated into present day teaching.
Could an intervention programme in semantic ambiguity make a difference to children
attending learning support/resource classes?
Studies by Yuill, (1998), Cairns, et al. (2004) and Zipke, et al., (2008) examined whether reading
comprehension is benefited by instruction in metalinguistic awareness. These studies
provided positive results between instruction in semantic ambiguity and comprehension.
These studies used specific methods of intervention and ones that the children involved
seemed to enjoy. The studies are the basis of the author’s hypothesis in helping children to be
more aware of the metalinguistic content of a text, namely through instruction in semantic
ambiguity and therefore improving their comprehension. Having researched the subject it
was decided that metalinguistic awareness should also be beneficial to children attending
learning support classes and who find reading and comprehension even more of a daily
challenge than the regular children in a class.
The above studies are discussed and the results viewed as to how semantic ambiguity is used
in everyday life, verbal language and school learning.
Learning Language in Irish Primary Schools
Pinker, (2000) suggests language comes so naturally to us that it is easy to forget what a
strange and miraculous gift it is.
Language in the Primary School is an INTO Discussion Document published in 2004. The reason
for the document lies in the importance of language in the process of education and
development.
This document states that one of the most impressive features of early years learning is the
extraordinary amount of language a child acquires during the first three and a half to four
years of life. By the time a child has reached that age s/he will have not only acquired an
impressive vocabulary but also will have mastered the grammar and syntax of the mother
language. A child will make grammatical mistakes, often using “ed” on an irregular verb to
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indicate past tense as in “runned” but will be giving unquestioned evidence that s/he has
mastered the inflections of the past tense.
Furthermore the document states that language is developed by use and by language
interactions. Grammar is learned through the use of oral language. Chomsky’s theory of
Universal Grammar has been described both as the basic design underlying the grammars of
all languages and the circuitry in children’s brains that allows them to learn the grammar of
their parents’ language and the nuances of language interactions. The importance of
children’s experience of language interactions in the home and in school is paramount and
the quality of the language interaction will have far reaching effects in terms of both language
learning and learning generally. Language in the Primary School (2004)
The approach to reading espoused in the Irish Primary School Curriculum, English, (1999)
reflects the most successful international theory and practice. This book is issued by the
Department of Education and Skills and the English curriculum is presented in two books. The
first gives the aims and objectives as well as an overview of what should be covered by each
class from junior infants to sixth class. The second book, which is a teacher guideline, covers
English in the primary school curriculum including the content of the English curriculum,
school planning for English, classroom planning for English and approaches and
methodologies.
The Primary School Curriculum English, (1999) book goes on to say that the development of
phonological and phonemic awareness is at the core of the emergent reading phase. This is
addressed through extensive oral language activity, involving rhymes, rhythmic activities,
language games and onset and rime. These activities will take place in the context of a printrich environment, where the library corner will be a central feature, an experience of
collaborative reading with the teacher using large format books and language experience
materials and the provision of consistent opportunities to browse and read books in the library
corner. It envisaged that children would not engage with formal reading until the senior infant
class.
It continues that from senior infants children are encouraged to read for meaning and to
respond to texts in a variety of ways. They are also encouraged to read a wide variety of
material that will include narrative, informational and representative texts. Arising from the
importance given to reading for meaning, great stress is laid on the development of
comprehension skills, basic comprehension skills at first and later higher comprehension skills.
The approach to writing in the curriculum is based on the principle that children learn to write
through writing. They are encouraged to write on a wide variety of topics, for different
audiences and in a variety of genres. Central to the approach, from the earliest years, is the
process of writing, editing and redrafting. This enables children to draft a piece of writing and
then discuss it with the teacher. Through this conferencing process, as the curriculum terms
it, the teacher will, by suggestion and encouragement, help children to improve the expression
and accuracy of the writing, with the eventual aim of enabling children to become
independent writers who recognise different registers of language and their appropriate use.
It is principally through the writing process also that children’s mastery of grammar,
punctuation and spelling are developed.
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What is Metalinguistic Awareness?
Metalinguistic Awareness has been defined by (Roth, et al., 1996, pg.259), as the ability to
focus on and manipulate the formal properties of language – specifically, the ability to analyse,
think about, talk about, or play with language as an object separate from its meaning in or out
of context.
This definition can be broken down as examining language whether spoken or written and to
use conscious thought to think about that structure of language; then, the ability to examine
the parts of language and the ability to inquire and investigate the unlimited ways that
language can be constructed to tell a story or communicate an idea/ideas.
Metalinguistic awareness is regarded as having special importance for helping students learn
to decode words and to comprehend texts. Other types of metalinguistic awareness have not
attained this status, although there has been substantial research indicating the benefits of
instruction in syntactic awareness Tunmer, Nesdale and Wright, (1987), morphological
awareness, Carlisle, (1995), syntactic awareness, Gaux and Gombert, (1999) and Nation and
Snowling, (2000).
Metalinguistic awareness is a tool for increasing comprehension and vocabulary. It is a skill
that can be taught. Its focus is on making the child aware of the construction of a sentence
and of unfamiliar language and then working out its meaning. From teaching in a primary
school the author has found that children with a good vocabulary can understand a new word
by the context or a diligent child can look it up in a dictionary. A child who does this will usually
have good comprehension skills, a good vocabulary and be a good reader. However, some
children who do not understand the meaning of a word within a sentence, or may find the
structure complex will often read the words without understanding the meaning and so
comprehension is compromised and reading for meaning is poor.
According to (Nation, et al., 2000, pg.21) there are a number of reasons for this lack of
comprehension, a child may lack motivation, a child may be struggling with decoding words
and so not be able to keep abreast of comprehension as well as the job of decoding, a child
needs to hold information in the working memory long enough for the information to be more
extensively processed therefore a child must have adequate vocabulary, grammar and
syntactical skills to organise and interpret the written message efficiently and lastly, the child
needs higher order thinking skills to process the written message and to go beyond the surface
layer of the text and infer possible meanings.
Wagner et al. (2007) suggests reading failure is due more to lack of comprehension than due
to phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the first stage of teaching metalinguistic
awareness when a child learns different sounds, letter blending and then moving on to decode
words and so read. Reading comprehension relies heavily on vocabulary knowledge and also
metalinguistic awareness. This is because when a child learns a new word and adds this word
to his/her vocabulary s/he is making use of his/her metalinguistic skills.
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Intervention Programme in Semantic Ambiguity
Research carried out by Cairns, et al. (2004) on the benefits of teaching children to detect
ambiguity in sentences helped children be metalinguistic aware when reading. The children’s
ability to detect the ambiguity of lexically ambiguous sentences and structurally ambiguous
sentences was assessed in the preliminary study that was conducted when the children were
7/8 and 8/9 year olds respectively. Ambiguity detection skill was found to be related to 7/8
year olds reading readiness and to 8/9 year olds reading achievement. This was a positive step
towards helping children’s comprehension.
The results suggest that the detection of lexical ambiguity develops in 7/8 year olds, correlates
highly with reading readiness measures and is a strong predictor of 9/10 year old children’s
reading ability, indicating that it is a precursor of reading skill. In this study, the ability to detect
structural ambiguity emerged in 8/9 year old children and was a predictor of 9/10 year old
children’s reading ability.
Ambiguity detection skill was found to be related to the reading ability of 7/8 year olds. The
journal cites, the acquisition of metalinguistic skills in middle to late childhood has long been
an important area of research in typical first-language development. Initially, this interest was
motivated by the fact that metalinguistic development involves an intersection of linguistic
and non-linguistic cognitive systems. The child’s ability to address the form of language as
distinct from the content was viewed as a specific ramification of a general perceptual
flexibility that develops in middle childhood.
Interest in metalinguistic development has been heightened in recent years, however, by the
discovery that these skills are related to and predictive of, successful reading acquisition.
Syntactic awareness, pragmatic awareness and most importantly phonological awareness
have all been implicated casually in emerging literacy.
It is not until the decoding skill is securely in place that children move away from treating
words as isolated units and pay attention to their role in sentences. For some students,
however, the ability to refocus attention from form to meaning in written language does not
come easily. Tunmer, et al., (1984) have suggested that what these students need is
metalinguistic awareness, specifically syntactic awareness, to help them integrate word units
to form meaningful sentences and texts and enable them to monitor their comprehension.
Greater facility with self-monitoring in turn serves to boost reading comprehension.
Hakes, (1980), and Van Kleeck, et al. (1982) say that two of the basic hallmarks of
metalinguistic skill are the ability to attend simultaneously to the form and content of
language and the ability to think and talk about language as an object rather than simply as a
means of communication.
People who can perceive and report that a sentence such as “The man’s nails were sharp” has
two meanings but only one form demonstrates both of these metalinguistic abilities. The
perception that a sentence form can have dual content demonstrates the first hallmark and
the ability to talk about the sentence and its two meanings demonstrates the second.
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Methodology
Research Subjects
Eight tasks were administered as pre-tests and then repeated as post-tests following training.
The post-tests were identical to the pre-test except for the content. There were three
measures to assess Metalinguistic Awareness, three measures for Comprehension Monitoring
and two measures for Reading Comprehension. All pre-tests were administered prior to
training and post-tests administered a week after training ended. All pre-tests were
individually administered to each child. Post-tests were also administered individually.
Three tests were administered to assess ambiguity detection.
No. 1 Homonym Definitions
This test assesses ambiguity detection at the word level. The test was compiled by the author
and followed those from the Cairns, et al., (2004) and Zipke, et al., (2008) studies. Each child
was given a list of 10 homonyms and was asked to describe as many meanings for each word
as possible.
After the first definition the child was asked, “Does _____ mean anything else?” If the child
gave more than one single meaning but with different instances rather than a different
meaning only half score was given. If she gave two different meaning using the same word,
for instance the word “can” as a verb and “can” as a noun and was able to put it in two
different contexts that made two different meanings clear, the item was then marked correct.
No. 2 Ambiguous Sentence Detection
In order to detect ambiguity at sentence level, participants listened to ten ambiguous
sentences, one at a time and explained as many meanings as possible as in Cairns, et al. (2004).
If the children needed help they were assisted in their efforts and pictures were sketched to
help visualise the meanings. Ten sentences were then given to each child. The child was asked
to give one meaning and then to think of another meaning. The number of instances where
the child correctly explained two distinctive meanings was scored.
No. 3 Riddle Resolution
This test was again to detect ambiguity and was adapted from one used by Zipke, et al. (2008).
Firstly, the concept of a riddle was explained as a puzzling question that ends with an answer
that is funny and usually makes you laugh. The question and answer make a riddle when the
same words have two different meanings. Children were also instructed that only one of the
punch lines contained an ambiguity that gave the riddle multiple meanings and their job was
to decide which line made the question into a riddle. They were given examples of these
before testing began. The author read eight questions, each was followed by two punch lines
and the child chose the line that created a riddle. The number of correct answers was scored.
The test consisted of eight, two choice items; chance level performance was four items
correct.
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Comprehension Monitoring Tests
The following three tests assess comprehension monitoring:
No. 1 Heteronym Pronunciation
To assess comprehension monitoring at word level, children read out four sentences, each
containing two heteronyms, that is, words that are spelled the same but are pronounced
differently. For example “I picked up my bow and arrow and took a bow.” Children read each
sentence aloud. The number of sentences with the heteronyms pronounced correctly initially
or by self- correcting was scored.
No. 2 Miscue Self-Correction
To assess comprehension monitoring during text reading, children read aloud from graded
paragraphs that increased in difficulty. The scores were calculated on all passages that were
read by the number of miscues or word substitutions that were produced and the proportion
that was self-corrected. Four questions were also asked on each paragraph to gauge
comprehension. These scores were also calculated.
No. 3 Anomaly Detection
To assess comprehension monitoring at story level, children read aloud from familiar stories
containing, micro and macrostructure anomalies. The Little Red Hen at pre-test and The Three
Little Pigs at post-test level. Baker and Zimlin, (1989) conceptualised structures requiring local
attention to words, sentences, structural cohesiveness and internal consistency as
microstructure standards, for instance, “I will make rice from this lovely wheat” said the little
Red Hen. Macrostructure standard are those requiring external knowledge of the world, for
instance, “Summer had come and the weather was much colder.” Children were instructed to
read aloud and to stop whenever they read something that they thought didn’t make sense
or that was wrong. The number of anomalies mentioned by children were counted and given
a score.
Reading Comprehension Tests
Two tests assess reading comprehension:
No. 1 Cloze Text Exercise
This pre-test involved reading a passage on Spring-time. There were twenty six blank or
missing words and twenty six words in the “word box” at the top of the page. The child was
to choose the correct word for the appropriate blank to complete the meaning of the passage.
The scores were calculated by the number of correct words chosen. A similar passage was
given as a post-test, this time the title was Summer-time.
No. 2 DRA Tests
The Diagnostic Reading Analysis by Crumpler and McCarty (2004) is a modern oral reading
test designed specifically for less able readers from seven to sixteen years. The test is precisely
structured, with an initial listening comprehension passage helping to confirm the starting
point for each pupil. The pupil then goes on to read and answer questions on three graded
passages – fiction and non-fiction – pitched at appropriate levels of difficulty. The purposewritten reading texts utilise vocabulary, content and contexts with which pupils can readily
engage and are supported with full-colour illustrations.
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The Diagnostic Reading Analysis has been fully standardised and provides measures of reading
accuracy as standardised scores and reading ages, fluency/reading rate and reading
comprehension. Additionally, the latest edition provides a standardised measure of
comprehension processing speed, making the DRA ideal for access arrangements assessment.
Each assessment takes up to fifteen minutes. Form A was administered as a pre-test and form
B as the post-test. The 2007 edition of the test was used in this study.
Metalinguistic Awareness Intervention Programme, Sequence and Periods of Training
Training was carried out for the group in three sessions of 30 minutes per week over three
weeks. These sessions took place during the children’s regular learning support schedule. As
in the Zipke, et al. (2008) study, children received training in ambiguous detection in words
and then in sentences with multiple meanings. They were then instructed in the use of
homonyms in riddles and finally in text reading using the Amelia Bedelia series.
They performed the procedures as follows.
Session 1: Multiple Word Meanings
Children were taught that words can have more than one meaning. The word “homonym”
was explained to them as they were not familiar with it. It is not expected that the children
will remember this word. With help the children brainstormed and discussed words that had
more than one meaning that they knew or were familiar to them. The children were then
given a tub containing forty words, including nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. They were
challenged to find the homonyms; twenty two of the forty words were homonyms. As in Zipke,
et al., (2008) study, two primary strategies were used to teach homonym identification. The
first was to consider whether a word, such as watch, could be another class form. For instance,
if it is a thing, can it also be something you can do? The second strategy was to generate
synonyms to uncover potentially different definitions and then to assess whether the
synonyms were truly different. For instance the word ball and football are both sports so the
word ball is not different in meaning.
Session 2: Multiple Sentence Meanings
Instruction again followed the testing by Zipke, et al., (2008) in their study. Teaching in this
area consisted of two parts. First, the children explored five ambiguous sentences; each was
accompanied by two sketches representing two different meanings of the sentence. The
children heard the sentence, “The dog chased the man on a bicycle”, they were shown a
sketch of a dog chasing a man cycling a bike, a second sketch featured a man running away
and being chased by a dog cycling a bike. Their task was to explain how each picture illustrated
the sentence.
Next, the children were challenged to represent the two meanings of five ambiguous
sentences using “Post-it” sheets to attach to pictures displaying an appropriate context. For
instance, in response to the sentence, “The ball was found by the kitten,” children were given
sheets with a ball and a kitten and were expected to attach them to the picture in two different
ways to represent the two meanings of the sentence; (1) by hiding the ball near the kitten and
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adding another character who finds the ball and (2) by placing the ball anywhere on the scene
and then having the kitten find the ball.”.
When the first sentence had been practiced, a chart was introduced labelled with a large “W”
on the top of each of three columns. It was explained that the three “Ws” stood for who does
what to whom. As the children progressed through the sentences, the author wrote down
answers for each interpretation of the sentence in the appropriate columns.
Session 3: Lexical Riddles
The concept of lexical riddles was introduced to the children. “What is grey, has four legs, big
ears, a tail and a trunk? A mouse going on holidays.” It was explained that questions and punch
line answers are riddles when they contain words with two different meanings. Then an
example of a structural riddle was given: “Where can you see a man eating fish? A seafood
restaurant.” The three “W” chart and post-it sheets were used if needed to explain the
answers. The children told riddles that they already knew.
Following the Zipke et al., (2008) study, the ideas of Bernstein, (1979), were loosely followed
for writing riddles with children. Students identified a subject that was of interest to them.
The group then brainstormed the subject to create a list of words pertaining to that topic.
When the list was completed the children looked for homonyms in the list. They made up
questions that involved the primary meaning of the word but were really about the alternative
meaning. The children were prompted by one another.
Children had the opportunity to read and enjoy riddles from Bernstein’s Fiddle with a Riddle;
Bernstein, (2008), reports that this book came about through careful study of the genre and
work with lots of children.
Another book used in this session was Alda, A. (2006), Did you say Pears? Lastly, Terban and
Maestro, (1982), wrote the riddle book Eight Ate, it is referred to as - a feast of homonym
riddles. Technically the terms in this riddle book are actually homophones. Each riddle shows
a black and white line drawing that combines both meanings of the words.
Session 4: Text Reading
In the final session, the children graduated to book reading. They read the Amelia Bedelia
series as per the Cairns et al., (2004) and Zipke et al., (2008) studies. Amelia Bedelia is the
eponymous title character, a maid prone to making the mistake of taking instructions literally.
For example, when asked to “run an iron over the tablecloth”, she puts the cloth on the floor
and with iron in hand runs across it with her shoes on. However, the day and her job are nearly
always saved by her fantastic baking abilities. The books include lexical and structural
ambiguities lodged in individual sentences. Firstly, the children read Amelia Bedelia and the
Surprise Shower. (Parish, 1979, pg. 12, 20, 22-23.) If children had any difficulty they were
assisted with their reading.
The children were instructed to stop at every sentence with more than one meaning and
explain how Amelia understood the sentence as well as how the sentence was meant to be
understood. This was then discussed.
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The children then read Amelia Bedelia’s Family Album by Parish, (1988). On the first of several
alternating pages, Amelia introduced her family members, with their names and professions
and their employer’s conventional interpretations of the professions. The next page displayed
Amelia’s alternative interpretation. For example a “boxer” to Amelia was somebody who put
things in boxes whereas to most people a “boxer” is someone who enjoys boxing as a sport.
(Parish, 1988, pg. 13) After the first few examples, the author covered Amelia’s interpretations
in the book and required the children to speculate on what Amelia would say.
Finally, the children added their own entries into Amelia‘s family album with professions
brainstormed by the children.
Post-tests
One week after the last instruction session post-testing commenced. Children had been
instructed to reprocess ambiguous words, sentences and riddles until the second meaning
became evident. Prior to and following instruction children were assessed to detect the level
of ability in detecting structural and lexical ambiguity with words, sentences and riddles. The
measure of change indicated would then inform the author whether the instruction was
effective. The post-test were administered in the same format and sequence as the pre-tests.
Key Findings
The key findings of this study were derived from the pre-test to post-test results.

Each child improved from pre-test to post test in the three areas of testing, (1)
ambiguity detection, (2) comprehension monitoring and (3) reading comprehension.

Children responded positively and enthusiastically to the intervention programme.

The findings of the study indicate that reading and comprehension can be improved
by instruction in semantic ambiguity in children of 9/10 years old attending learning
support classes.

The present study’s findings are in agreement with previous studies carried out;
instruction in semantic ambiguity improves metalinguistic reading and
comprehension.
The results of these tests show that this specific method of improving metalinguistic
awareness worked well with the 9/10 year old children in the study. It reinforces and expands
on the findings of previous studies carried out.
What are the Policy and Practical Implications of these Findings?
The findings of the present study are in line with previous studies carried out that instruction
in semantic ambiguity can improve metalinguistic awareness and reading and comprehension.
Young children aged 4/5 years come to school struggling with vocabulary and so a problem
with comprehension follows. In a study by Tunmer and Bowey (1984), they found that when
children begin to learn to read, their focus on meaning is set aside and they shift their
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attention to the form of language, including phonemic and lexical units and their relationships
to letters and spelling units. It is not until the decoding skill is securely in place that children
move away from treating words as isolated units and pay attention to their role in the
sentence. For some students, however, the ability to refocus on the meaning of what is being
read creates a challenge. Tunmer and Bowey (1984) suggest that what these children need is
MA- specifically syntactic awareness- to help them integrate word units to form meaningful
sentences and texts and to enable them to monitor their comprehension.
Following the present study, there is every reason to believe that the strategies and
instruction used in the study could be adjusted for use with younger children entering school
to increase their vocabulary and improve comprehension. This would carry through what
Tunmer and Bowey (1984) found to be of most use in their study. Without good
comprehension skills it is impossible for a child to progress in the education system.
It would appear that the teaching of grammar in Irish Primary Schools needs to be revised and
grammar seen as the whole system and structure of a language in general, usually consisting
of syntax and morphology, needs to be taught in schools today. This would include lessons
like those used in the research being taught as an everyday occurrence. This would have a
positive impact on the comprehension abilities of children attending Irish schools. The
teaching of grammar as a written entity, as it is in Irish schools, simply does not work for the
weaker student. Research was carried out by Myhill and Jones (2004) to investigate whether
explicit teaching of grammar, drawing on meaning-centred approaches to language which
relate specifically to the writing being taught, can have a beneficial impact upon the quality of
students’ writing. The findings of their study were, teaching writing with a contextualised
focus on grammar at relevant points can have a significant beneficial effect on learners. The
benefit is differentially experienced by learners of different writing attainment. The
intervention had a negative impact on weaker writers and a strong positive impact on more
able writers.
The weaker writers and readers are at a disadvantage. If children are poor readers and
consequently have poor comprehension skills, as they are in the present study, they will not
be able writers. In order to help learning support/resource class children’s comprehension
and grammar and improve their reading ability other approaches need to be used. It is now
proven by the present study that instruction in semantic ambiguity can help these children to
be more metalinguistic aware and so improve their reading and comprehension.
Discussion and conclusion
Effects of Semantic Ambiguity Instruction on Metalinguistic Awareness and the Processing of
Language
The results showed that instruction in MA involving ambiguity detection was taught effectively
to 9/10 year old children attending learning support. They improved in their ability to give
multiple definitions of homonyms and to explain double meanings in ambiguous sentences
from pre-test to post-test. Instead of terminating thought after deriving one interpretation of
verbal information, they remained open to alternative interpretations and to detect sources
of ambiguity, as Cairns, et al. (2004) suggested. Several of the training disciplines required this
type of processing. Children were required to think of two very different meanings for
homonyms and ambiguous sentences, working out riddles by examining two punch lines and
making up new ones that hinged on homonyms, predicting unexpected second meanings in
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the Amelia Bedelia books, identifying and elaborating additional ambiguous terms having
expected and unexpected meanings as in familiar idioms, headlines or something that a child
said or heard. Cairns, et al. (1999) pointed out that the majority of the one thousand most
common words in English are multiply ambiguous. In addition to the type of lexical ambiguity
where a single word can have more than one meaning, multiple meanings can be created by
structural ambiguities within syntax. Ambiguity intended or unintended is all around us. When
there are two incompatible meanings to a word, phrase or sentence children need to be able
to employ strategies to determine which meaning is the preferred one. This is a necessary skill
for successful reading comprehension that adults use all the time without thinking, however,
a child in learning support will need to learn how to use this strategy and will need lots of
practice to improve the skill. According to Cairns, et al. (2004) these skills can be taught
explicitly through fun classroom mini-lessons. This was found to be true in the present study
where children improved their scores in this area.
CM (Comprehension monitoring) was the second discipline to be tested. Heteronym
pronunciation, reading passages increasing in difficulty and anomaly detection were the three
pre-test and post-test areas.
Heteronym pronunciation and miscue self-correction were included to assess CM because
they involved language monitoring at the word level. According to Zipke, et al. (2008)
performance in these two tests showed no benefit of metalinguistic instruction. The task
assessing self-corrections of children’s oral miscues was not significantly correlated with any
other pre-test or post-test including the other CM tasks. Self-correction of miscues may not
be a good indicator of CM because miscues may be corrected for other reasons. They may go
uncorrected when they are consistent with the meaning of the text and they may be corrected
when letters in the written words do not match sounds in the substituted words. The
heteronym task required children to read a sentence and pronounce a repeated spelling in
two different ways to reflect different meanings, for instance, “Please excuse me while I think
of an excuse.” Cairns continued that analysis of the processes underlying success in this task
suggests that detection of ambiguity may not be required. Simply comprehending the
intended meanings of the heteronyms in the sentences may activate correct pronunciations.
It is therefore not surprising that instruction in ambiguity detection did not contribute to
performance in this task.
It is clear to the author that, from the other training sessions, children’s sensitivity to words
and sentences was heightened. This led to pupils being more conscious of what they read.
For the children involved in the study the first test in the CM section was heteronym
pronunciation. It was monitored from pre-test to post-test and four children improved their
scores and only one child’s score dropped. This is a significant improvement considering the
children did not receive any isolated training in this area.
The second discipline was the reading of four passages increasing in difficulty and answering
four questions on each passage. The author felt that the children were more anxious to
comprehend what they were reading. Even though one child dropped marks in four reading
passages her overall mark increased. While reading the author noticed that children read at a
slower rate that indicated they were thinking about what they were reading.
Anomaly detection was the last part of CM testing. The children read the story The Little Red
Hen in the pre-test and The Three Little Pigs in the post-test. They would be very familiar with
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these stories. Each story contained two types of anomalies, macrostructure and
microstructure. Macrostructure items were those that required children to draw on
knowledge that they would already know and would use this knowledge to recognise the
inconsistencies, whereas microstructure items required children to remember what they had
just read to detect the discrepancy. Again because of the children’s heightened sensitivity to
multiple meanings of words and sentences through training in the other disciplines they were
more attuned to detecting discrepancies in the story in post-tests. The result in this discipline
could not have been better. All five children scored 100% in the post-test.
To summarize, these findings indicate that instruction/training in semantic ambiguity was
successful in improving children’s metalinguistic ability to identify multiple meanings for
homonyms, multiple meaning sentences and their comprehension monitoring ability to detect
anomalies embedded in stories that they read. These findings support the hypotheses that
Metalinguistic Awareness can be taught effectively and that it transfers to Comprehension
Monitoring of the type that requires the detection of semantic ambiguities in text.
Children showed a significant increase from pre-test to post-test in this section. The reading
comprehension test involved children completing cloze text passages. The texts were
recommended for 9/10 year olds. In the pre-test, the passage was about spring time, the posttest was a passage about summer. In the post-test passage the first section was about the
season, the second section was about summer food, the next about summer clothing, the
fourth was a section on summer holidays and the last was about summer animals. There were
twenty five blanks and a box at the top of the page with twenty five words, one word suitable
for each blank.
Even though the children were again not trained in this specific task, an explanation for their
increases is that the skills taught during MA training exerted a bigger impact on the ability to
complete passage meanings. To arrive at the decision of what word to use in a “blank”, they
had to apply background knowledge and reasoning to complete the text. Metalinguistic
training may have improved the children’s ability to focus on and think about the meaning of
the passage.
According to Pressley, (2000) researchers studying how to improve reading comprehension
have focused on three major casual factors: word decoding; background knowledge, including
vocabulary and content knowledge; and cognitive strategies. Less attention has been paid to
metalinguistic awareness. Zipke, et al. (2008) suggest this may be an oversight and would also
say that language lies at the core of reading comprehension. To understand and interpret text,
readers must engage in active thinking and verbalising about the meanings of words and
sentences. They must remain flexible in discerning intended meanings and must engage in
psycholinguistic processing skills that they employ in aural comprehension.
From the present study the author would agree with Zipke, et al. (2008) as the learning
support children displayed these skills during post-testing. Zipke, et al. (2008) continue that
this processing is an integral part of what readers do to construct a text’s meaning. It contrasts
with the processing involved in the application of cognitive and metacognitive strategies
during text reading, for example, creating mental images of meanings, summarising the main
ideas or asking questions about the text. The latter processing is external and optional in its
application rather than central to the construction of text representations. Zipke, et al. (2008)
findings underscore the importance of pursuing research on MA to advance understanding
about meaning construction during reading comprehension. The author agrees with Zipke, et
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al. (2008) and has found that the results of the present study suggest that training in MA
exerted a direct impact on reading comprehension.
Strengths and Limitations of Findings
According to Zipke et al. (2008) the design of the study allows the user to rule out alternative
explanations for the effects of metalinguistic training on post-test performance. The author
used the design and content of that used in 2008 to devise the present study pre and posttests. The children included in this study were five Irish, 9/10 year old learning support
children from a variety of backgrounds but all with very good home backup support. The
school is in a small town and they all come from rural backgrounds. However, this sample is
very small. In Yuill, (1998) and Zipke, et al. (2008) studies, the sample was again small but
greater than the present study. Yuill worked with 7 and 8 year old children in a British school
and based her study on the Tunmer and Bowey (1984) study. Cairns, et al. (2004) based their
study on Yuill but worked with younger 4 and 5 year old children. Zipke, et al. (2008) used the
previous studies as a base for her own study. The present study was based largely on that of
Zipke, et al. (2008). She used lower socioeconomic 9 and 10 year old children from a variety
of cultural backgrounds enrolled in US urban schools.
Whether the instruction in metalinguistic awareness would be beneficial to other students
from different backgrounds, cultures and of different ages is a question that remains
unanswered. However, given the reading comprehension difficulties of the children attending
learning support in the present study, it is important to identify forms of reading instruction
that are potentially beneficial for them.
One obvious limitation is that the post-test were administered immediately after training to
assess the effects of metalinguistic instruction. It remains unclear whether the knowledge and
strategies learned during training would persist over time or whether more extensive
instruction would be needed to ensure more lasting effects. This is something the author
would like to investigate further.
Even though the results of the present study are positive a further study using a larger cross
section of learning support children would need to be used to get a more definite result on
MA training and to settle any uncertainties raised by this study.
The results of the present study along with previous studies researched carry important
implications. The implications of the study are in line with the study by Zipke, et al. (2008). MA
is recognised in the form of phonological awareness to assist children to learn how to read but
MA that involves processing multiple meanings and ambiguity detection has not as yet been
recognised as a method of assisting reading and reading comprehension. The findings of the
present study suggest strongly that this may hold the key to reading comprehension for
children in learning support classes and indeed all children. As the previous study by Yuill,
(1998) involved 4 and 5 year old children and resulted in a positive outcome there is little
doubt that the teaching of MA through detection of ambiguity is a success in reading
comprehension.
Ambiguity detection qualifies as a type of MA in that a student must use control over their
mental processes to recognise that words and sentences have double meanings and to
reprocess those meanings. Zipke et al. (2008).
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The present study points out that teaching 9/10 year old children attending learning support
classes, homonyms and ambiguity detection skills, both structural and lexical improves their
reading comprehension. This study along with the previous research carried out suggest that
incorporating these skills into a programme for children struggling with reading and reading
comprehension could be taught with beneficial effects. The present study also suggests that
teaching children to manipulate language, to read, understand and write riddles, to read
ambiguous texts like the Amelia Bedelia series, increases their understanding of ambiguity and
their reading comprehension. All exercises included in the intervention programme could be
used in whole class situations. The children enjoyed and showed such enthusiasm during the
programme that it would appear these exercises would be popular with all children. The
present findings suggest that teaching ambiguity in language would be a most worthwhile
method of improving and expanding children’s reading and reading comprehension.
The results of the present study are positive and reinforce those of previous studies
undertaken. Furthermore, this study expanded the findings of the previous ones by proving
that instruction in semantic ambiguity can improve metalinguistic awareness in children who
attend learning support classes. With only four and a half hours instruction, all children made
significant improvement in their scores from pre-test to post-test results. More instruction
could enhance results further, however this would need more research.
Ambiguity is all around us and adults and some children use the necessary skill to determine
the intended meaning of a sentence without even thinking. Some children need to use
strategies to determine the intended meaning of a sentence but as the study indicated these
can be taught explicitly through fun classroom mini lessons.
In the Comprehension Monitoring section of the study children were not taught in the area of
anomaly detection. However, through instruction in semantic ambiguity their metalinguistic
ability in identifying homonyms and multiple meaning sentences, awareness transferred to
their comprehension monitoring where they were 100% successful in detecting anomalies
embedded in stories in post-test results. This supports the finding that Metalinguistic
Awareness can be taught effectively and that it transfers to Comprehension Monitoring.
Zipke, et al. (2008) suggest that language lies at the core of reading comprehension. With
instruction in MA children become aware of language and can use the skills of active thinking
and verbalising about the meanings of words and sentence to improve comprehension. They
need to remain flexible in interpreting intended meanings and make use of psycholinguistic
processing skills as it is an integral part of comprehension.
This present study reiterates that the teaching of MA has a direct impact on reading and
comprehension.
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