Children’s Use of Comparative Text Signals: The Relationship between Age and Comprehension Ability

In this study we examined age differences in children and young adolescents’ use of comparative text signals in order to gain insights into the development of signaling knowledge. We predicted that differential patterns of age differences would be found for readers classified as having low, middle, and high comprehension ability, and that the middle group of comprehenders would have the greatest amount of variability with age. 4th-, 6th-, and 9th-grade readers’ use of words employed to mark comparative relationships were compared by means of an open cloze. Results from analyses of competency of use scores, indicated that readers in the middle comprehension group had a larger number of significant increases in competency with age. Fewer age differences in overall competency were found for readers in low and high comprehension groups. Analysis of individual signals indicated that patterns of age differences may also vary in relation to the particular signal being processed. The findings from this study suggest that readers’ overall comprehension ability may influence the acquisition and use of text signals.

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