READING COMPREHENSION OF STUDENTS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL II: A STUDY ON PERFORMANCE USING DIFFERENT TYPES OF TASKS AND INFERENTIAL CATEGORIES

ABSTRACT This research had the goal to examine the reading comprehension of primary school students according to their level of education and the proposed tasks. The research subjects were 62 students from the 6th to the 8th year of Primary School II, from a public school in the city of Porto Alegre (RS / Brazil). Data collection was performed using Questionnaire, True or False and Multiple Choice. The questions had a correspondence with the contents, inferential categories, and Cloze. Each subject answered only one task. This distribution was carried out randomly in each class of students. The collected data were organized and treated statistically, thus enabling the following results: a significant difference in reading comprehension (p = 0.007) in regard to the level of education, indicating progression of scores as the schooling process goes on; a significant difference (p = 0.003) regarding the type of task, in which Multiple Choice task presented the highest average score (4.43), the True or False task showed the lowest average score (2.60) and the Quiz tasks and Cloze indicated intermediate averages (3.29 and 3.28, respectively); and a development on the ability to make inferences (relating to the inferential category) was seen as the educational level increases.

摘要 本研究旨在依据受教育阶段与设置的任务，探究小学生的阅读理解能力。研究对象为巴西南里奥格兰德州阿雷格里港一所公立第二小学的62名六年级至八年级学生。数据收集采用问卷、判断题、多项选择题三种形式开展，测试题目涵盖文本内容题、推理题型以及完形填空题型。每名受试者仅完成一项任务，且任务分配在各班中随机进行。对收集到的数据进行整理与统计分析后，得到如下结果：不同受教育阶段的阅读理解能力存在显著差异（p=0.007），表现为随学业推进得分逐步提升；不同任务类型间也存在显著差异（p=0.003）：其中多项选择题任务的平均得分最高（4.43分），判断题任务平均得分最低（2.60分），小测验任务与完形填空任务的平均得分处于中间水平（分别为3.29分与3.28分）；此外，推理能力（对应推理题型）随受教育阶段提升而得到发展。