Using Silent Motion Pictures to Teach Complex Syntax to
Adult Deaf Readers
Leonard P. Kelly
Gallaudet University
This research tested whether silent motion pictures could be
a source of contexts that fostered comprehension of relative
clause and passive voice sentences during reading. These two
syntactic structures are chronically difficult for some deaf
readers. According to the instructional strategy, while subjects watched silent comedy stories, the video display intermittently focused attention on short segments of action and
then called for a decision regarding which of two sentences
printed in a workbook described the action segment. After
this, a display on the video screen provided feedback on the
accuracy of the decision. If successful here, this approach
might be applied to other areas of competence in order to
elevate the generally low level of reading performance by
many deaf students. The study applied a single subject design
in order to measure sentence comprehension accuracy before
and following use of the materials. The computerized testing
procedure also measured sentence reading time, an index of
attention use. Thus, these data allowed an examination of
whether any increases in comprehension were associated with
slower, more laborious rates of reading. The instructional approach was an indirect one sharing multiple aspects of whole
language methodology, and the sample included deaf subjects
at a variety of reading ability levels. This permitted examination of whether an indirect instructional approach could be
successful with readers demonstrating relatively low reading
ability. The central research question of the study was the
following: "Can this instructional method be effective with
deaf readers?"
This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of
Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Captioning and Adaptations Branch, Initiative 84-026R, Grant #2202. I
thank the Film and Motion Picture Department of the Library of Congress for their assistance and Karen Saulnicr and Linda Stamper for their
valuable work on the project. Correspondence should be sent to Leonard
P. Kelly, Gallaudet Research Institute, Gallaudet University, Washington,
DC 20002 (e-mail: [email protected]).
© 1998 Oxford University Press
Reading comprehension is a problem for many people
who are profoundly deaf. According to the most current data published by the Gallaudet Research Institute
(1996), the average 18-year-old with a severe to profound hearing loss reads with the comprehension of a
hearing child nearing the completion of the third
grade. Only 6% of deaf 18-year-olds, the age when secondary school is normally completed, read at a level
equivalent to that for an average hearing reader of the
same age.
A number of investigations have linked these reading comprehension problems to difficulties analyzing
the syntactic relations among words in certain types of
English sentences. Misinterpretation of sentence syntax produces a direct misunderstanding of the author's
intended message. This body of research includes work
by Berent (1988), Israelite (1981), Kelly (1993, 1996),
Moores et al. (1987), Power and Quigley (1973), Quigley et al. (1976), Robbins and Hatcher (1981), Schmitt
(1968), Scholes, Cohen, and Brumfield (1978), and
Wilbur (1977).
In addition to causing misunderstandings of sentences directly, according to Just and Carpenter (1992),
difficulties processing syntax can also limit comprehension in an indirect but still damaging manner by intruding on other reading processes. It is not enough for
readers to construct accurate meanings from sentences
with challenging syntax; they must also do so with a
minimal draw on working memory capacity. Working
memory is the region of the mind for processing information that we are attending to. Its capacity is limited,
218 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 3:3 Summer 1998
and its contents are relatively impermanent, tending to
be forgotten if neglected even for an instant. These
limitations of working memory place a premium on
completing certain components of a complex task, like
reading, with relative automaticity, that is, with minimal conscious effort. Kelly (1996) found that deaf
readers' limited syntactic knowledge inhibited full utilization of their vocabulary knowledge during reading.
Those readers who had managed to attain reasonable
command of syntax were able to capitalize more fully
on their accumulated knowledge of word meanings.
Akin to this, if a reader devotes excessive attention
to analyzing the syntax of complex sentences, it will be
difficult to keep in mind the gist of the text to help the
processing of each new sentence. Walker and Yekovich
(1984) referred to such helpful information as a "composite memory trace." This is an amalgam of conceptual information, drawn either from the text or the
reader's knowledge repertoire, which can facilitate
reading by clarifying pronoun reference (Walker & Yekovich, 1984), by helping to construct inferences
(Glanzer, Fischer, & Dorfman, 1984; Lesgold, Roth, &
Curtis, 1979), or by promoting integration of newly
processed text with the earlier parts of the passage
(Daneman & Carpenter, 1983). Kelly (1995) demonstrated that the presence of a Composite Memory
Trace can facilitate the processing of new text by both
skilled and average deaf readers. It follows that displacement of a Composite Memory Trace by laborious
processing of syntax can impede fluent reading and necessitate a time-consuming memory search in order to
restore the conceptual information.
A number of syntax studies have identified deaf
readers' specific problems with passive voice and relative clause sentences. A passive voice sentence appears
as the top example in the display. This is referred to as
a reversible passive sentence because either noun could
function as an agent for the verb in the sentence. The
relative clause example in the display is known as a medial relative clause sentence because the clause is positioned between the subject and verb of the main clause
of the sentence.
Passive voice: The boy was helped by the girl.
Relative clause: The boy who kissed the girl ran away.
According to research by Quigley, Wilbur, Montanelli, and Steinkamp (1976), these two types of sentences are among the most difficult for deaf readers to
comprehend. Many deaf readers tend to wrongly apply
what Quigley and King (1980) referred to as a "surface" reading strategy. They would read the top sentence in the display, overlook the markers signaling the
passive voice structure, and interpret it to mean "The
boy helped the girl." When reading the relative clause
sentence, surface readers would process the sequence
of words in a linear as opposed to hierarchical fashion,
assign the last noun in the relative clause the role of the
grammatical subject of the main verb, and thus interpret the sentence to mean that it was the girl who ran
away, not the boy.
There are several reasons why these two sentence
types qualified as desirable learning objectives for testing the instructional approach applied here. First, because these syntactic structures do appear with some
frequency in English text, their mastery would contribute directly to better reading comprehension. Perhaps more important, however, was the strategic value
of these two particular structures due to their pronounced resistance to instruction. Quigley, Wilbur,
Power, Montanelli, and Steinkamp (1976) found that
deaf 18-year-olds, even after completing virtually all of
their formal educations, demonstrated dramatically
lower comprehension of these two structures than
hearing children who were eight years younger. Because these two sentence patterns are so resistant to acquisition, they constitute rigorous tests of the instructional method under study.
Rationale for the Instructional Strategy
The video materials were designed to give readers frequent opportunities to process the target sentence
structures in a highly meaningful context, easily accessible, even to low ability readers. Considerable theory
and research on language learning (see Carroll, 1986,
and Krashen, 1977) indicate that learners have a
greater likelihood of developing competence in a specific linguistic convention if they are afforded frequent
opportunities to notice that convention in the context
of meaningful communication. The context sharpens
Silent Motion Pictures 219
learners' expectancies of what a passage will say next,
so that they are better able to figure out the meaning of
challenging language.
Neuman and Koskinen (1992) found that videotaped material can provide a source of meaningful context for language learning, which they referred to as
"comprehensible input" (p. 95). They produced evidence that this context fostered hearing children's
learning of vocabulary words that appeared as captions
to the action on the video. The action of the video provided a rich context of meaning, and, significantly, this
meaning was readily accessible to the viewers. The
same context would have been far less accessible, if low
ability readers were required to construct it solely
through their reading of extended text rather than
through observing the video action. The children in
the Neuman and Koskinen study were able to focus visually on the printed captions while they heard the
same words spoken on the video's audio track, and this
made it easier for them to establish the print/meaning
association. For most deaf viewers, however, spoken information is relatively unavailable as a meaningful context to support processing of challenging captions, and
that is another reason why this project used video action to provide that context.
In recent years, principally because of the influence
of Ewoldt (1981), reading instruction in the field of
deaf education has moved away from a basal reader
skills-oriented approach, referred to as "drill, grill, and
kill" (p. 437) by Reyes (1992). With increasing frequency, according to Kelly (1995), teachers of deaf students are adopting the whole language approach to literacy development initiated in this country by
Goodman (1968).
The instructional method of this project shares a
number of aspects with whole language as described by
Pearson (1989). Whole language discourages a systematic coverage of many reading subskills in a specified
sequence. Instead, it calls for addressing skills on an asneeded basis. In like manner, the present project focused only on two specific skill areas and only for those
specific students who had demonstrated a need for the
instruction. In addition, whole language calls for dealing with specific reading skills only in the context of
whole texts rather than through isolated sentences or
even paragraphs, and in this project the focus on the
relative clause or passive voice sentences was always in
the context of a complete story portrayed on the video.
Also consistent with whole language, the instructional strategy implemented here was more indirect
than direct. That is, the program did not explain how
to interpret the two kinds of sentences. Rather, the program provided frequent opportunities for subjects to
crystallize their own internal rules for interpreting
these two kinds of sentences. (The word "direct," as
used here, should not be confused with "directed,"
meaning teacher-guided.) The emphasis of the exercises in this program, as in whole language, was always
on the meaning rather than on the form of the sentences. The form of the sentences was never brought explicitly to the learner's attention. Finally, advocates of
whole language urge use of "real literature" as the appropriate context for reading development activities,
and the classic movie materials used here are an important component of our artistic culture.
Dolman (1992) has articulated concerns that the
whole language approach may not be the best method
for fostering the reading development of many deaf
children. His assertions mirrored those made by Delpit
(1986, 1988) and Reyes (1992) regarding the exclusive
use of whole language methods with children from
nonstandard language backgrounds. According to
them "one size does not fit all." Based on his comparison of the reading processes of skilled and average deaf
readers, Kelly (1995) also questioned whether whole
language adequately addresses the kinds of skill deficiencies prevalent among the average deaf reader. The
present project helped illuminate this issue because it
tested the effectiveness of an instructional application
that shares many of the aspects of whole language, and
it did so with a sample of readers from a variety of ability levels.
Instructional Method
The Video Stories
The program used 10 silent movie videos depicting humorous, raucous action from the early twentieth century. Each one was a complete story about 30 minutes
220 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 3:3 Summer 1998
in length with setting, characters, and a plot. The original videos occasionally display text via a medium
known as an interframe; however, the meaning of the
stories is conveyed almost exclusively through the actions of the characters within the highly predictable
contexts of the stories. In other words, comprehension
of the stories is relatively independent of language
competence. Moreover, the videos are commercially
successful productions that are still available in stores
because they are entertaining. This medium had the
potential for instructional effectiveness partly because
it promised to provide subjects with an amusing experience in happy contrast to many traditional reading
comprehension programs.
The Instructional Procedure
When screening test results indicated subjects were
good candidates for the project, they were individually
informed of their weakness comprehending one of the
two sentence structures and invited to participate.
Prior to viewing their first instructional video, they
watched an orientation videotape that explained in a
uniform manner the appropriate procedures for using
the materials. Each video session usually included the
following sequence of activity:
1. Prior to starting the video machine, the subject
read through all the sentence pairs for the assigned
story in order to identify any troublesome vocabulary
for discussion. The sentences for all 10 videos had been
bound in a workbook.
2. Approximately once a minute, the video would
display a graphic that stated, "Please read Pair # 1 " (or
whatever was the next sentence pair.) This message
stayed on the screen for 20 seconds giving the subject
time to read the two sentences, now somewhat familiar
because of the review process accomplished in the previous step.
3. When the message faded, subjects knew to pay
close attention to the next short segment of video action. Early try-outs of prototype videos had indicated
that viewers preferred an advance warning, temporarily
encouraging vigilance greater than normally invested
when following the plot of a simple story. These "target
scenes" were about five seconds in duration, and from
their prior orientation to the program, subjects knew
that only one of the members of each sentence pair
would describe the target scene.
4. The subjects also knew that the target scene
would be concluded by another screen message:
"Choose from Pair 1." This message remained on the
screen for 15 seconds, giving the subject time to scan
the two sentences again and select an answer.
5. After 15 seconds the message was replaced on
the screen by a different message stating "Correct Answer: A" (or B, if appropriate), which remained on the
screen for 10 seconds. After that interval, the story resumed until the next "read pair" screen display. After
each correct answer was displayed, the subject was responsible for marking his or her response either right
or wrong. At the conclusion of the session the subject
totaled these results and recorded them on a summary
sheet in the front of the workbook.
Through this routine, subjects repeatedly connected the printed target sentences with the meaning
they represented or they were alerted to their errors.
In theory, this experience would eventually guide the
subject to infer how the target sentence structures
"worked," leading in turn to comprehension of similar
sentences during normal reading.
Subjects did have the option of pausing the video
to provide additional processing time at any point in
the session, and this was particularly useful after incorrect, responses when they might wish to reflect on the
need to alter their interpretation of the exercise sentences. Each video included approximately 25 exercise
items. This number struck a balance between providing
enough practice opportunities, on the one hand, and
maintaining the continuity of the larger story by minimizing interruptions, on the other. Subjects normally
worked individually with the videos, and it was possible
to monitor them through an observation window. In
general, subjects continued working with the videos
until they began to respond with consistent accuracy
to the exercises, and at that time postintervention assessment was administered. Results of postintervention
assessment combined with the number of videos a subject had not yet viewed determined whether the subject
was returned to the videos or excused from the
program.
Silent Motion Pictures
221
Table 1 Sample video workbook exercise items
Type of sentence pair
Relative clause
1. Correct option (B) is a relative clause sent.;
alternative is 2 independ. sents.
2. Correct option (B) is one of 2 relative clause sents.
3. Correct option (B) is a set of 2 independent sents.;
alternative is a rel. clause sent.
Passive voice
4. Correct option (A) is a passive voice sent.;
alternative is a subject-verb-direct object sent.
5. Correct option (B) is one of 2 passive voice sents.
6. Correct option (B) is a subject-verb-direct object
sent., and the alternative is a passive voice sent.
Sample sentence pairs
A. Mortimer was with the attendant. Mortimer pushed him
into the revolving doors.
B. The attendant who was with Mortimer pushed him into the
revolving doors.
A. The drunken man who found the hotel manager woke him
up.
B. The hotel manager who found the drunken man woke him
up.
A. Mortimer who ran up the stairs with the attendant guided
him to his room.
B. The attendant ran up the stairs with Mortimer. The
attendant guided him to his room.
A. The large man was freed from the door by the attendant.
B. The large man freed the attendant from the door.
A. The attendant was guided to his room by Mortimer.
B. Mortimer was guided to his room by the attendant.
A. Mortimer was scolded by the porter for smoking.
B. Mortimer scolded the porter for smoking.
The exercises for each video included three different kinds of sentence pairs, and this assortment was designed to induce a variety of discriminations by the
subjects. Table 1 displays examples of the three different combinations for each of the two target structures.
In every one of the sentence pairs, the incorrect choice
always included the word sequence that would be attractive to a reader applying the misguided surface
reading strategy. Each exercise item thus challenged
the surface reader to process an incorrect but seductive
sentence and to reject it.
The instructional routine had several advantages.
First, the exercises actively engaged the subjects in
careful scrutiny of the nuances of the printed sentences. Rather than allowing subjects to sit back and let a
captioned visual display "wash over" them, the program required subjects to actually do something,
namely, make judgments about meaning and then produce an overt response. Second, this format assured
that subjects could apportion adequate attention to
both the video action and the printed text associated
with that action. At issue still is the capacity of viewers
to distribute attention between captions and the action
of videos in a way that allows effective processing of
both sources of information. There is some possibility
that a portion of a captioned display will be neglected.
Printing the target sentences in an accompanying
workbook rendered this a moot issue, because the action and printed text could always be inspected separately. Another theoretical benefit of printing the sentences on paper was that it presented the text in the
form that subjects process it during normal reading.
Beyond these theoretical benefits, there were also
practical advantages to the print-on-paper format. The
print format afforded much greater editorial flexibility
when revising the original sentences following reviewer
evaluations. The process of revising text displayed as
captions is much more labor-intensive and requires
specialized equipment and personnel. In addition, relative clause sentences are quite lengthy, and it is difficult to display even one, let alone two, on the monitor
screen at the same time without resorting to a relatively
small font size or obscuring the video action. Finally,
by not placing the text on the videos themselves, it
would be possible to reuse the same video segments
with different worksheets to illustrate and teach the
meanings of a wide variety of sentence structures and
vocabulary beyond those addressed in this project.
222 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 3:3 Summer 1998
Research Method
The sections that follow describe the research design of
the study, the assessment instruments used to measure
competence at various stages of the investigation, and
the characteristics of the subjects selected for participation.
Research Design
The study applied a single-subject, multiple baseline
design in order to test the effectiveness of the video instructional program. Prospective subjects underwent
multiple testings with specialized reading assessments
to identify those who demonstrated a consistent deficiency comprehending either of the two target structures. When multiple episodes of testing produce consistent results with the same subject prior to an
intervention, this is referred to as a stable baseline. According to Tawney and Gast (1984), a stable baseline
allows an investigator to rule out competing explanations for changes in performance following an intervention. These alternative explanations can include the
customary threats to internal validity such as history,
testing, regression to the mean, instrumentation, maturation, and mortality. Also according to Tawney and
Gast (1984), by replicating this regime of repeated assessments and instruction with multiple subjects, it is
possible to test the external validity or generalizability
of the results.
Instrumentation
The single-subject design called for development of an
array of alternate forms of an assessment instrument
for determining whether a subject's baseline performance was stable for each subject and then to detect
possible changes in competence following introduction
of the instructional intervention. The instruments
were developed in a way to isolate those comprehension
failures stemming solely from limitations in syntactic
knowledge from those resulting from difficulties with a
combination of syntax and vocabulary. In addition, the
testing procedure collected data on processing fluency
as well as the customary right/wrong accuracy. These
additional data would illuminate the extent to which
increases in accuracy were coincident with a relatively
large (or small) draw on working memory capacity.
Each form of the assessment instrument measured
performance in four different areas of competence: (1)
comprehension of passive voice sentences, (2) comprehension of passive voice control sentences, (3) comprehension of relative clause sentences, and (4) comprehension of relative clause control sentences. The
sentences constituting the two kinds of control items
used exactly the same content words as their respective
sets of complex sentences, and they expressed essentially the same meaning. However, the control sentences for the passive voice were stated as less challenging
subject-verb-direct object sentences, and those for the
relative clause were phrased as two simple sentences.
Thus, any disparity in comprehension between complex and control sentences could not be attributed to
less challenging vocabulary words in one of the two
sets. The only difference between the complex and
control sentences was syntactic.
Table 2 displays examples of the combinations of
control and complex sentences that were included in a
single testing session. Each assessment included 20
such combinations in order to test the passive voice
structure and 20 to assess the relative clause structure,
constituting a total of 160 items for each testing session. Notice that each "quartet" of sentences contains
two complex sentences with alternate meanings and
two controls with alternate meanings.
The assessments were administered on a personal
computer, and subjects responded to each item by
completing the following sequence of steps. First, the
subject pressed a mouse button to reveal the stimulus
text. Subjects read the stimulus at a comfortable pace,
and then pressed the button a second time, removing
the stimulus text and revealing a probe that called for a
true/false response. Thus, subjects needed to keep the
meaning of the stimulus text active in working memory
while evaluating the probe. The subject's task was to
decide whether the information in the probe was consistent with the information that had been read in the
stimulus component of the item. Finally, the subject responded by pressing one of two mouse buttons to indicate a true or false decision. The computer then presented the next stimulus sentence, and the sequence
was repeated.
Silent Motion Pictures
223
Table 2 Sample stimulus/probe pairs in comprehension assessments
Version
Complexity
Stimulus sentences
True/false probe
The young boy who skated on to the ice with the
teacher was a wonderful skater.
The young boy skated on to the ice with the teacher.
The young boy was a wonderful skater.
The teacher who skated on to the ice with the young
boy was a wonderful skater.
The teacher skated on to the ice with the young boy.
The teacher was a wonderful skater.
The teacher was a wonderful skater.
Relative clause
1
Complex
1
Control
2
Complex
2
Control
Passive voice
1
Complex
1
Control
2
Complex
2
Control
The policeman was chased by the robber.
The robber chased the policeman.
The robber was chased by the policeman.
The policeman chased the robber.
The items were administered by computer in four
sets of 40 items, and each member of a quartet, like
those in Table 2, was placed in a different item set. Half
the complex items were true, as were one half of the
simple items. Whenever the complex stimulus was followed by a false probe, the probe was worded so as to
be attractive to a surface reader of either passive voice
or relative clause sentences. In half of the complex/
simple pairs, the complex version appeared prior to its
simple counterpart, and for the remaining pairs, the
simple version appeared first in the test. As a result,
the effect of presentation order was equally divided between the complex items and the control items. Once
items had been assigned to one of the item sets, they
were arranged in a random order. This was the procedure used to develop six alternate forms of the assessment.
To examine test reliability, I calculated a coefficient
alpha for each of the four subscales for each of the first
three forms of the assessment instrument. The reliabilities of all subtests were extremely high, ranging from
.98 (of a possible 1.0) on the Complex Passive subtest
of Test 1 to .87 for the Passive Voice control subtest of
Test 2. The associated standard errors of measurement
(SEM) also indicated a high level of measurement precision, ranging from 3.0% for the Passive Control
items of Test 2 to 5.6% on the Complex Relative
Clause items of Test 2.
During testing, unknown to the subjects, the computer also recorded reading time for the stimulus text.
The teacher was a wonderful skater.
The teacher was a wonderful skater.
The teacher was a wonderful skater.
The
The
The
The
robber chased
robber chased
robber chased
robber chased
the
the
the
the
policeman.
policeman.
policeman.
policeman.
The accuracy and reading time data were summarized
as ratios between performance on the complex versions
of the sentences and their control counterparts. The
accuracy statistic is the principal index of program
effectiveness. The measure of processing time was not
used to decide program effectiveness but rather to illuminate a more deliberate examination of the accuracy
results from several individual cases.
The accuracy of each subject's responses was summarized as a ratio comparing the percentage of probes
answered correctly on the complex and control versions of the two syntactic structures. The control score
constitutes a context for appraising the other value.
The ratio always presents the result from the control
items as the first value, the numerator, and the results
from the complex items are displayed as the denominator. For example, the accuracy ratio 80/20 indicates
that the subject correctly answered 80% of the probes
following control versions of text while responding
correctly to 20% of the probes following the complex
versions of those sentences.
The reading time index presents the median time
in milliseconds required to read the control sentences
compared to the time required to read complex sentences. Theoretically, as a student becomes newly aware of
how to process a certain syntactic structure, processing
time will tend to increase as the reader applies the new
knowledge intentionally, methodically, and perhaps laboriously. ' However, after extended practice, reading
time ideally should decline, indicating an improvement
224
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 3:3 Summer 1998
Table 3 Subject characteristics
ID
Target
Gender
Onset
BEA
Chron. age
Comp
Reading rate
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
11
PV
RC
RC
RC
RC
RC
PV
RC
RC
PV
RC
RC
M
F
M
F
F
M
F
F
F
F
F
F
Birth
Birth
Birth
Birth
Birth
Birth
Birth
Birth
2 years
Birth
Birth
Birth
120
107
102
95
93
92
100
100
Deaf
DeafDeaf
83
37
22
19
32
19
18
25
18
19
21
21
30
65
99
78
97
98
97
12057
3306
3023
5132
2598
7397
9530
3157
4067
10504
10504
3724
80
97
84
95
95
94
PV = passive voice; RC = relative clause; BEA = better ear average hearing loss; Comp. : % correct control items, first 3 assessments; Reading rate =
msec/sent, control items, first 3 assessments.
'Indicates self-report.
in fluency and a lesser burden on working memory capacity. An example of a Reading Time Ratio is 3044/
3824. Like the accuracy ratio, the denominator of this
statistic presents data related to the complex version of
the sentence. In this case, the median time required for
the subject to read the 40 relative clause sentences in
the assessment set was approaching four seconds, while
reading the 40 pairs of control sentences resulted in a
median time of slightly more than three seconds.
Determining Significant Changes in Performance
The SEMs generated from the reliability analyses were
used to establish a logical criterion for deciding the
effectiveness of the instructional program. If any score
improves by a value equal to more than four SEMs between two consecutive tests—one prior to and one following instruction—measurement theory (see Nunnally, 1967) indicates only a 5% overlap in the
measurement error distributions of the two tests. By
extension, if a subject's assessment score following instruction is more than four SEMs higher than the preinstruction score, then it can be concluded with 95%
certainty that the difference represents a true change
in competence, and it is not an artifact of measurement
error. Thus, in the evaluation of results from the individual subjects, an improvement in performance was
considered significant if it equaled 22.4%, which is
four times the largest SEM resulting from the reliability analyses described earlier. This is admittedly a
rather stringent criterion for determining program
effectiveness. However, this did assure that significant
statistical results indicated a truly potent method.
Subjects
The project called for subjects meeting the following
criteria: a severe to profound hearing loss with onset at
the age of two years or younger, hearing parents, and
no additional disabilities. Again, the single subject with
baseline methodology required identification of subjects who demonstrated a consistent deficiency on one
of the two types of complex items compared to the corresponding control items. The baseline phase of the
study prompted the exclusion of many candidates either because their performance on the complex items
was at a high level on their very first assessment or because their performance on the complex items demonstrated a steady improvement across several assessments.
Table 3 lists the characteristics of subjects chosen
for participation in the project. Information is reported
for 12 applications of the instructional program with
11 subjects; one subject used the materials with both
passive voice and relative clause sentences. These data
include gender, chronological age at the time of participation in the project, age at the time of hearing loss
onset, and better ear average hearing loss. In two cases
this was not available, but these subjects described
themselves as deaf.
Silent Motion Pictures
225
Table 4 Accuracy ratios for baseline and intervention stages of assessment for 12 applications of the video instruction
ID/syn
1PV
2RC
3RC
4RC
5RC
6RC
7PV
8RC
9RC
10 PV
10 R C
11RC
Testl
57/40
98/5
48/60
90/65
95/10
93/28
93/5
97/75
75/68
93/43
85/50
83/18
Test 2
65/45
98/0
80/48
98/63
98/5
100/48
80/13
100/75
83/35
100/50
95/48
100/10
Test 3
78/30
98/0
73/52
100/68
98/0
98/23
80/28
95/1003
90/55
98/53
98/70
90/5
Test 4
60/30
100/1006
93/55
100/954
100/905
100/983
80/15
100/1008
83/35
100/886
93/55
93/35
Test 5
Test 6
10
75/68
100/10010
Effect
70/43'
100/10010
93/25 10
100/987
83/9O10
90/88 10
78/20 8
100/10010
70/43
I
I
95/100 10
I
I
90/0 10
100/100'°
88/43'°
88/58 s
95/80'°
M
I
M
I
I
D
I
M
Numerator of the ratio indicates the percentage correct for control items; denominator indicates complex items.
Superscripts indicate number of videos seen prior to the test. Absence of a superscript indicates baseline measurement.
For Effect, 1 — eventual increase, M = maintenance, D = decline in accuracy following intervention.
Table 3 also displays information on two baseline
measures of reading ability. The Comprehension variable represents each subject's percentage of correct responses on all of the control items from the first three
baseline assessments, a corpus of 240 items. The Reading Rate variable is the median sentence reading time
for all control items in an individual assessment averaged for the first three assessments. Both of these statistics reveal a wide degree of variation among subjects,
and this variability allowed testing of whether the program was effective with relatively low ability readers.
Subjects were paid for their participation.
Results
Each row of Table 4 displays the results of one of the
12 applications of the video instructional method. Subject 10 (S10) used the materials with both passive voice
and relative clause sentences.
The baseline ratio scores, those without superscript
values, reveal the discrepancy between control and
complex items prior to the instructional intervention.
Subjects 2 and 5 demonstrated the largest gaps prior to
instruction, scoring almost 100% correct on the control items and close to 0% correct on the complex
items on three consecutive assessments. The superscripted ratios show test results following use of the
video materials. Superscript values indicate the number of videos viewed prior to taking the test. The far
right Effect column summarizes postintervention
scores compared to baseline performance and identifies
subjects who improved performance more than the
value of 22.4%, which is equal to 4 SEMs.
Inspection of the accuracy ratios reveals that 8 of
the 12 applications resulted in significant improvements in comprehending either relative clause or passive voice sentences. The remaining four did not show
improved comprehension performance. Subjects 1 and
10 significantly improved their comprehension of passive voice sentences, while subjects 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10
(again) significantly improved performance comprehending relative clause sentences. The most dramatic
improvement was by S2, who improved from a 98/0
final baseline ratio to a 100/100 ratio following instruction with six relative clause tapes. Similar dramatic
gains were made by S5, a baseline of 98/0 increasing to
100/90 following five videos, and S6, who improved
from 98/23 prior to instruction to 100/98 following
use of three videos. The high baseline error rates of
these subjects suggests that they had been misguided
by inaccurate rules for interpreting one of the two
types of complex sentences—perhaps the surface reading strategy—and once they became aware of their
misconceptions, their response patterns were completely reversed.
Applications of the video programs with several of
the other subjects indicated that the video instruction
can also be beneficial with readers whose baseline performance was well above the chance level but still far
from perfect. S4, for example, improved comprehen-
226 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 3:3 Summer 1998
sion from 100/68 to 100/95 following four videos, and
S8 improved from 100/75 to 100/100 after three videos. In similar manner, S10 evinced a final baseline ratio of 98/53 for passive voice sentences and improved
to 100/88 following instruction, while elevating relative clause comprehension from a 93/55 ratio before
instruction to 95/80 following use of the videos. SlO's
improved comprehension of both sentence patterns indicates that the video materials can be effective a second time, even though to her all the stories were reruns.
S1 is one of the most interesting cases to demonstrate significantly improved comprehension, because
his entry level reading ability was the lowest of all subjects participating in the study. As displayed earlier in
Table 3, his comprehension rate was the lowest of any
subject, 65% correct on the control items of the first
three assessment, and his reading speed was by far the
slowest, a median time of slightly over 12 seconds per
sentence. After viewing seven videos, his performance
on Test .5 indicated virtually no change in performance,
a 70/43 ratio following the 60/30 scores of the final
baseline assessment. However, while working with
these initial videos, he had been responding with increasing accuracy to the video exercise items.
After Test 5, he resumed instruction to complete
the final three videos, and, following that, his ratio on
the final assessment, Test 6, improved to 75/68, indicating an increase well beyond the threshold of 22.4%
distinguishing significant improvement. This clearly
indicates that in certain instances the video materials
can be effective even with readers at relatively low levels of reading ability. Combined with the results of the
subjects reported earlier, these data indicate that the
video materials can foster comprehension of complex
sentences.
As stated, four subjects did not demonstrate improvement in comprehension following use of the
video materials. Further inspection of Table 4 indicates
that S3's accuracy in comprehending complex sentences actually declined. Apparently this subject developed certain inaccurate conceptions of how to interpret
relative clause sentences as a result of using the videos
and thus responded with chronic inaccuracy on the assessment items that followed instruction. Some of the
others did actually obtain lower scores following intervention, but since their differences did not exceed the
22.4% threshold, they were classified as having sustained their baseline performance. The combined results of these subjects indicate that use of the videos
does not guarantee improved comprehension of the
two kinds of complex sentences. With the exception of
SI 1, the subjects who did not benefit were those who
had demonstrated the lowest reading performance
prior to instruction. The accuracy of these subjects on
the large sample of control assessment items, which
were all simple sentences, ranged from 78% correct for
S3 to 84% correct for S9. The Discussion section of
the article poses possible explanations for the ineffectiveness of the materials with this group.
Limitations
The results generated by this design do not support an
unqualified conclusion that these materials will foster
initial acquisition of either of the two target syntactic
structures. It could be the subjects who do appear to
benefit from the instruction may have learned to comprehend these sentence structures at some earlier time
in their schooling, but their command may have been
only partial, or, through lack of practice, their skill had
eroded somewhat. The video materials may have simply reminded them of what they had learned from
some skillful teacher in their past. To the credit of the
video materials, the two subjects who participated in
long-term follow-up testing maintained 100% accuracy six months after completion of the video program.
A second limitation of the project is that it does not
verify comprehension of the two target structures in
the realistic context of normal connected text. In contrast to the somewhat repetitive format and the isolated
sentences of the assessments used in this project, normal text presents a wide variety of sentence structures,
which could lull a reader into diminished alertness for
the challenging sentence structures. Such a reduction
in vigilance would likely increase the risk of lapsing
into a prior surface reading strategy. However, this potentially adverse effect is balanced by the enhanced
contextual support of normal text, which could guide
accurate construction of meaning from the challenging
syntax. In brief, this research design does not determine ability to comprehend the two structures in connected discourse.
Silent Motion Pictures 227
Discussion
The discussion that follows considers the potential
benefits of silent motion pictures used in combination
with printed exercises. Following that, an examination
of several individual cases demonstrates that improvements in comprehension accuracy may be accompanied
by varied effects on reading automaticity. The discussion concludes by addressing the program's lack of
effectiveness with the majority of the lower ability subjects in this study. The mixed results of this instructional program serve as a reminder that the field of deaf
education has not yet found the "silver bullet" for
eliminating the pervasive reading problems of deaf students.
The Partial Success of the Instructional Program
The results did show that silent movies constitute a
source of comprehensible input that can foster comprehension of relative clause and passive voice sentences.
Quite simply, the clear action of the target scenes supplied meaning. The combination of this easily accessible meaning with the learner's repeated and active engagement with corresponding printed versions of that
meaning can lead to improved understanding of complex sentence patterns. Improvements in performance
were replicated in both the relative clause and passive
voice sentences for subjects who had been previously
deficient in processing those patterns compared to simple sentence patterns using the same vocabulary words.
A number of subjects improved their scores from 0%
correct to 100% correct as a result of participating in
the video program. Some improved test performance
after only a few videos, while others required the full
course of instruction before demonstrating appreciable
gains in comprehension. They all reported enjoying
the video exercises. While observing subjects working
with the materials, investigators frequently saw a constant half-smile on their faces, which frequently
erupted into outright laughter when the action reached
one of its particularly raucous moments.
In addition to fostering sometimes dramatic
changes in performance, the video exercises had the
advantage of allowing learners to work independently.
Instead of obligating a teacher to paraphrase hosts of
relative clause or passive voice sentences into simpler
language, the video exercises gave extended practice
opportunities, which could be conveniently initiated
outside of a formal class setting. This format thus conserves teacher-student interactions for learning tasks
that are less repetitive.
Independent practice with the video exercises is
akin to the burgeoning pianist practicing a music piece
after the formal lesson from the maestro or the basketball
player taking scores of extra foul shots in the dimly lit
gymnasium long after the team's official workout has
concluded. As any musician or athlete can testify, the
time spent working alone to perfect a skill may be just
as important as the critical time receiving new infc • mation or guidance with an expert instructor present. The
video exercises essentially allow students an opportunity to practice their passive voice or relative clause
"foul shots" for an extended time on their own.
Implications Related to Automaticity
Improvements in accuracy like those just discussed can
sometimes occur at the cost of increased mental effort.
While learners apply new knowledge, they often do so
with limited automaticity. The work of Just and Carpenter (1992) has established how lowered automaticity
in one reading process can exert adverse effects on use
of one or more other reading processes. Research by
Kelly (1995, 1996) indicates that this phenomenon extends to deaf readers, as well. Thus, in the present investigation, an additional analysis examined how
changes in comprehension accuracy may have been associated with changes in automaticity.
Recall that while recording subjects' item-by-item
responses, the study's computerized assessment procedure simultaneously collected data on sentence reading
time. Although not a formal dependent variable in the
research, this measure provided an index of automaticity when subjects were reading complex sentences
compared to their controls. In the following section,
the data of two cases reveal that improved understanding of a sentence pattern can exert varied effects on automaticity.
For the first of these cases, recall that the comprehension accuracy of S2 improved from 0% to 100%
between baseline and postintervention assessment. It is
228 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 3:3 Summer 1998
illuminating to inspect the reading times for test sentences to determine whether automaticity was also
affected. On Test 3, the final baseline assessment, sentence reading time for relative clause sentences was 320
msec slower than for the control sentences; the ratio
was 2812/3132. In contrast, on Test 4, the first assessment administered after S2 had viewed six videos, the
median relative clause sentence was read 1757 msec
slower than the median control, more than five times
the difference that obtained on the final baseline assessment. Once alerted to her difficulties with relative
clause sentences and having been recently exposed to
approximately 150 practice exercises, S2 clearly began
to invest more time reading the complex sentences, indicating a larger investment of working memory capacity. As stated earlier, such an increase in conscious, intentional processing is understandable and even
desirable immediately after the apprehension of new
knowledge about a syntactic structure. It is also true,
however, that a sustained investment of time processing
a single sentence can undermine higher level text comprehension. Thus, it was a goal to improve not only
accuracy in processing difficult syntax, but also automaticity.
To this end, following Test 4, S2 returned to the
instructional videotapes to complete the four that remained in the series. She was not informed of the goal
of improving her reading speed, and she did not know
that the computer was recording her reading speed
. during testing. After completing the final four videos,
the subject was tested again, this time with Test 5. Accuracy was maintained at 100% for all items. However,
the reading time results demonstrated a continued elevation in sentence reading time seen in Test 4. S2's
time for reading relative clause sentences was a median
of 6213 msec, a value now 2500 msec slower than the
time for reading the control sentences. Again, there is
reason to consider that such methodical, nonautomatic
sentence processing during conventional reading might
jeopardize maintenance of passage level information. It
is not enough for readers to interpret sentences correctly; they must also do so with a relatively small draw
on working memory. If there is a heavy draw on attention during the processing of a single sentence, that
taxing of capacity may jeopardize higher level reading
processes. It is highly likely that the conceptual information stored in working memory during routine
skilled reading, termed a Composite Memory Trace by
Walker and Yekovich (1984), is far less available to S2
after reading a relative clause sentence than following
one with less complex syntax.
When accuracy is newly acquired, automaticity
does not necessarily plummet. Like S2, S8 also improved to 100% accuracy following intervention. Unlike S2, however, over the time that S8 worked with the
videos, she showed marked increases in automaticity, as
indicated by a lowering of her reading time. On her final baseline measurement, she read relative clause sentences 2400 msec more slowly than control sentences;
the ratio was 3733/6122. After three videos, she was
tested again, and the ratio was 3908/4436, meaning
that the differences in reading time between complex
and control sentences had shrunk to approximately 500
msec, one fifth of its prior magnitude. After the completion of all 10 video tapes, S8's Test 5 results generated a ratio of 2710/2678, indicating that the relative
clause sentences were being read at approximately the
same speed as the control sentences. Accuracy was
100% on all items. It is important to note that S8's
baseline accuracy ratio was 100/75, compared to 98/0
for S2, who, as reported earlier, encountered a dramatic
lowering of automaticity following intervention. Thus,
it could be that S8 had a sufficient initial command of
the relative clause structure that the additional practice, undertaken in the.relatively entertaining format of
the video program, contributed directly to increased
automaticity. In a follow-up assessment six months
later, S8's accuracy ratio was still 100/100, but her
reading time ratio was 3378/4148, indicating that in
the absence of regular practice, automaticity eroded
somewhat.
Limited Success With Lower Ability Readers
The results of this study suggest that less able readers
are not as likely to benefit from the video instruction.
This finding raises questions regarding the readiness
of certain learners to tackle complex sentence patterns
while processing of basic sentence patterns and vocabulary is still effortful. It also implies that exclusive use
Silent Motion Pictures 229
of an indirect instructional method, the kind encouraged by the whole language approach, may be inappropriate for certain low ability readers.
With only one exception, the readers not benefitting from the materials were those who, during the
project's baseline phase, had demonstrated the lowest
comprehension of a large sample of control sentences
and who took the longest time to read those sentences.
The failure of the program to work with these readers
has at least two possible explanations. For one thing,
their low accuracy and automaticity processing the
simple control sentences indicates that for these readers routine reading consumes large amounts of processing resources. Increasing the challenge further, relative clause and passive voice are two types of sentences
that call for a relatively high investment of additional
cognitive resources if they are to be processed accurately. Just, Carpenter, Keller, Eddy, and Thulborn
(1996) have recently shown in functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments that processing of relative,
clause sentences induces higher elevations of blood
flow activity compared to less demanding language
processing tasks. The complex syntax requires even
skilled readers to "think harder."
While skilled readers are able to "recruit" additional processing capacity from other parts of the brain
in order to handle complex sentences, the cognitive resources of the less proficient readers in this study were
already heavily taxed in their processing of routine sentences. Thus, they may not have had discretionary cognitive resources to invest in the additional linguistic
computations called for by these two kinds of complex
sentences. This issue might be tested empirically if assessment tests and exercise sentences were written with
vocabulary familiar to less-skilled readers. It could be
that the increased automaticity with a limited set of
words would free up adequate capacity for low ability
readers to attend to the nuances of the more challenging syntax. A more logical course of action is to await
a reader's relative automaticity when processing more
basic structures and vocabulary before tackling more
challenging ones.
A second possible explanation for the ineffectiveness of the video materials with less skilled readers
is that this group may require instruction more direct
than the indirect approach used here. A direct approach would point out the critical aspects of relative
clause sentences and explain how to process them with
consistent accuracy. In this project, the subjects simply
received repeated opportunities to process the complex
sentences in meaningful contexts and then got feedback on their responses.
Dolman (1992) has argued logically that the indirect methods encouraged by whole language advocates
may be as ineffective with many deaf learners as they
appear to be with hearing learners from disadvantaged
language backgrounds. His reasoning was similar to the
arguments by Reyes (1992) and Delpit (1986, 1988)
that certain students may require a more direct approach to skill development than what is customarily
espoused by whole language purists. Kelly (1995)
found that the competencies distinguishing skilled
from average deaf readers were ones accorded secondary importance by the whole language approach.
The failure of the indirect strategy of the video
program to foster the comprehension improvement of
the lower ability readers in this study suggests that this
aspect of whole language may need to be amended for
certain lower ability readers. With these learners it may
be necessary to resort to direct instruction. In fact, at
the conclusion of the present study, when all of the videotapes had been exhausted without changes in assessment performance, the four "unsuccessful" students
received direct explanations of how to interpret the
sentence structure that they were attempting to learn.
Explanations were given by a member of the research
team who was a former teacher of deaf students. In two
of the cases, the subjects improved their performance
to nearly 100% correct. A direct route to the nuances
of certain complex syntactic structures may be all that
is reasonably available to certain learners, such as the
lower ability ones in this study.
A subtle but critical implication of this research is
that the results are best described by the word "mixed."
An increase in comprehension accuracy did occur primarily for the more accomplished readers in the study,
although for some of these, this improvement may have
been at the cost of automaticity. The unfavorable results with less able readers suggest either that the target
learning goals may have been too ambitious or that a
230 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 3:3 Summer 1998
more direct instructional method may have been more
appropriate. The mixed results are also a reminder that
the field of deaf education is far from finished in the
process of devising the best combination of methods
for improving the reading comprehension problems
that affect so many deaf readers.
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Kelly, L. (1996). The interaction of syntactic competence and
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Lesgold, A., Roth, S., & Curtis, M. (1979). Foregrounding
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