Event Title
The Effect of Prosody Salience on Reading Fluency and Comprehension
Presentation Type
Poster/Portfolio
Presenter Major(s)
Psychology
Mentor Information
Jennifer Gross, grossj@gvsu.edu
Department
Psychology
Location
Kirkhof Center KC62
Start Date
13-4-2011 2:00 PM
End Date
13-4-2011 3:00 PM
Keywords
Social Science
Abstract
Prosody refers to the natural stress, inflection, and intonation typical of everyday speech. In written English, prosody is not characteristically highlighted beyond syntax and punctuation. The study exploits stylistic changes to print (e.g., CAPs) to elicit prosodic emphasis when reading sentences containing heteronyms. Heteronyms are words with identical spellings, but different meanings depending on the syllable that is stressed in their pronunciation (consider the different denotations of PROduce and proDUCE). Participants will read aloud sentences in which the stylistic stress is congruent or incongruent with the word's pronounced stress. Because prosthetic-stress-marking may notably aid students with lower reading proficiency, the National American Adult Reading Test will also be administered. Pronunciation accuracy, reading speed, and text comprehension will be measured to determine if STRESS-highlighting can facilitate the reading of potentially ambiguous written words.
The Effect of Prosody Salience on Reading Fluency and Comprehension
Kirkhof Center KC62
Prosody refers to the natural stress, inflection, and intonation typical of everyday speech. In written English, prosody is not characteristically highlighted beyond syntax and punctuation. The study exploits stylistic changes to print (e.g., CAPs) to elicit prosodic emphasis when reading sentences containing heteronyms. Heteronyms are words with identical spellings, but different meanings depending on the syllable that is stressed in their pronunciation (consider the different denotations of PROduce and proDUCE). Participants will read aloud sentences in which the stylistic stress is congruent or incongruent with the word's pronounced stress. Because prosthetic-stress-marking may notably aid students with lower reading proficiency, the National American Adult Reading Test will also be administered. Pronunciation accuracy, reading speed, and text comprehension will be measured to determine if STRESS-highlighting can facilitate the reading of potentially ambiguous written words.