Predictors of Multiple Document Comprehension Among Third-Grade Students with Reading Difficulties

Abstract

For many academic, occupational, and civic purposes, readers must search for, select, evaluate, and integrate information from multiple document sources. Indeed, most current conceptions of functional literacy are defined in part by the ability to critically process and learn from multiple documents. Over the past 30 years, much has been learned about the processes involved in multiple document use, as well as reader, document, task, and contextual factors that give rise to performance differences. This work has inspired novel approaches to assessment and instruction that reflect key demands of 21st century literacy. However, elementary-level children, and particularly those with learning disorders (e.g., dyslexia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), have been largely neglected from this work. Consequently, little is known about how elementary-level children with and without learning disorders process multiple documents, the factors that predict and shape their performance, and the types of instructional methods that may optimally foster their development. This study was intended to provide an initial understanding of concurrent predictors of a key component of multiple document use: intertextual integration. That is, the ability to integrate information presented across two text documents. The study examined predictors of intertextual integration with a sample of U.S. third-grade students with reading difficulties (n = 70). Correlational analyses revealed that students’ intertextual integration performance was significantly and positively associated with single-document comprehension but not with word-level reading or passage-reading fluency. Multiple regression analyses indicated that single-document comprehension significantly predicted intertextual integration. However, the effect was small. Results also indicated that word-level reading and passage-reading fluency were nonsignificant predictors of intertextual integration.