Abstract
Purpose: The sentence represents intention by the intimate connections between words. This is also the same with the paragraph. The reading is no more than the grasp of the intention by understanding of the word-and-sentence relations. Ability of comprehension these relations is the most fundamental factor in reading. The purpose of the present study is to clarify the difference between children of inferior abilities and those of superior abilities in learning the Japanese language.
Procedure: (1) The first survey. The test consisted of questions relating to the following problem areas: understanding of (a) subject in a sentence,(b) predicate in a sentence,(c) omitted subject and (d) subjects and predicates in sentences where distance between the former and the latter are varied. Sixty subjects of each sex (superior 30, inferior 30, respectively) in three grades (2, 5 and 8) were used.
(2) The second survey. The test contained questions relating to the following problem areas: understanding of (e) pronouns,(1) conjunctions whichdenote the reverse connections and (g) conjunctions which denote the natural connections. Sixty subjects of each sex (superior 30, inferior 30, respectively) in each grade from 1 through 9 were used.
In both survery boys and girls in each group were equal in number. All questions were of multiple chioice type. All words used in questions were as understandable as possible.
Results: The main findings are as follows: (1) higher the grade, the more were the cases which showed significant differences of mean scores beween the superior and the groups, and the lower became the level of significance.(1st survey).(2) The x2-test of score distributions of both groups showed the tendency as same as the result of the 1st survey.(2nd survey). Thus, the present study clarified that there was a significant difference between two groups in the fundamental reading ability, and as the grade proceeds, the difference appeared increasingly more significant.
