Effects of Unfamiliar Diverse Names on Elementary Students' Passage Comprehension

• Published in: School psychology 2020-05, Vol.35 (3), p.215-225
• Main Authors: Taylor, Kala L. H., Skinner, Christopher H., Ciancio, Dennis J., Daniels, Stephanie, Wright, Shelby, Ryan, Kyle, Ruddy, Jonah, Moore, Tara, McCurdy, Merilee, Cihak, David F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Child; Childrens Literature; Cognitive ability; Cognitive Development; Comprehension; Correlation; Cultural Diversity; Curriculum; Elementary School Students; Elementary Schools; Female; Grade 1; Grade 2; Human; Humans; Literature; Male; Multicultural Education; Multiculturalism; Names; Phonetics; Reading; Reading Achievement; Reading Comprehension; Reading Instruction; Reading Skills; Students; Test Construction
• ISSN: 2578-4218; 2578-4226
• DOI: 10.1037/spq0000352

Elementary school multicultural reading curricula include characters with diverse proper names, which are often unfamiliar and differ phonetically from students' native language. These names could impact reading outcomes by increasing students' cognitive load and/or creating cognitive disfluency. In Study 1, students in grades 1 through 2 read a standard passage including common names and a matched passage including unfamiliar names of Russian origin. A paired samples t test indicated unfamiliar diverse names in grade-level passages significantly reduced students' reading comprehension. Study 2 was designed to determine if preteaching diverse names would mitigate their adverse effects on reading comprehension. Results indicated second-grade students who received preteaching comprehended significantly more of the passage than those who did not receive preteaching. Discussion focuses on the need for research clarifying the relationship between multicultural learning materials and academic outcomes and validating efficient methods for familiarizing students with difficult, phonetically unfamiliar words. Impact and Implications Children's literature may contain multicultural material, which includes diverse and unfamiliar that are difficult to read. Our first study suggests that including such names can hinder comprehension; however, our second study suggests that preteaching these names can prevent these adverse effects on comprehension. Thus, preteaching diverse names found in multicultural literature may enhance the probability that students choose to read multicultural literature going forward and allow educators to better address both multicultural and reading objectives.