ABSTRACT This review evaluates Schank’s, Frederiksen’s, and Kintsch’s models for representing language comprehension according to their relevance to educators. First, two areas of research that have contributed to theories of comprehension are described: schema theory and linguistic theory. Second, the three models of comprehension are discussed in view of these theories. In conclusion, the value of these theories to reading educators is remarked.
Educators at all levels are concerned about their students’ difficulty comprehending written material; at the same time, educational psychologists and those who are investigating artificial intelligence are interested in describing the mental processes involved in comprehension. If the latter group’s representations of comprehension can be made intelligible to educators outside the fields of psychology, they may suggest solutions to the reading comprehension problem. Consider the fact that computers can now be programmed to produce paraphrases of, and answer questions about, texts written to resemble newspaper articles. Such “behaviors” are taken as evidence that the machines are able to “read” and “comprehend” such texts. Before computers can be programmed to so “behave,” a theory of comprehension, or a model of the comprehension process, must be articulated. What do such theories and models have to say to the teacher who is concerned about students’ comprehension deficiencies?
This paper describes three models of comprehension– Schank ( 1972 ), Frederiksen ( 1975, 1977 ), and Kintsch ( 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979 , in press)–and evaluates them according to their relevance to educators. First, however, two fields that have contributed to theories of comprehension, schema theory and linguistics, are described in order to make the complex comprehension models more intelligible.
Two Theories of Comprehension
“Reading comprehension” can be described as the result of a successful interaction of a reader with a text, and schema theory and linguistic theory are valuable for what they have to say about the parties to that interaction. Theorists have found it helpful, for example, to conceive of the reader’s prior knowledge as organized in frameworks, or schemata, each of which interrelates all of his or her knowledge about a particular topic, and to describe the text by the case relationships of its noun phrases to its verbs. Brief descriptions of the two theories follow.
Schema Theory
The schema is a construct used by cognitive psychologists in their theories of memory and learning. It is especially useful to those who would characterize comprehension, for comprehension is a learning process in which prior knowledge plays an important role. A schema can be thought of as a knowledge structure, or framework, which interrelates all of one’s knowledge about a given topic. Prior knowledge, organized in schemata, in turn influences the form and content of new knowledge.
Anderson ( 1977 ) emphasized the dynamic, constructive nature of schema use and described the role of schemata in learning–how they serve as organizers for input and how without them new experiences would be incomprehensible. Schank and Abelson ( 1977 ) make a similar point about the usefulness of scripts in communication: “What they do is let you leave out the boring details when you are talking or writing, and fill them in when you are listening or reading” (p.41). What Schank and Abelson mean by a script is an event schema, “a predetermined, stereotyped sequence of actions that defines a well-known situation” (p.41). One popular example of a script is the restaurant script, which contains all that is associated in one’s memory with going to a restaurant: such actions and
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