Literacy and Reading Comprehension: Fiction vs. Nonfiction

Introduction

Literacy and reading comprehension are subjects that have been explored for decades. Through these explorations, researchers have discovered that comprehension is an essential component of a person's ability to succeed in academia and in life.

Comprehension is defined as "the act or action of grasping with the intellect…the capacity for understanding fully" (The Dictionary). Comprehension is important because it allows us to gain knowledge of new concepts; without it, learning anything would be impossible.

This literature review presents an examination of the aforementioned topic so that we can better understand comprehension and its effect on academic success. The sources presented seek to display this information in a manner that is both informative and enlightening.

Reading comprehension covers a broad range of topics. For the purposes of this review, the aim is to explain what comprehension is and to examine the effect that fiction and nonfiction works have on it. A wide range of sources is used, including journals, digests, and academic studies.

First, the rudimentary factors involved in reading comprehension—such as phonological memory and word recognition—are explored through a longitudinal study conducted in Finland with school children as participants. Other factors that affect reading comprehension, such as time limitations and silent reading, are then examined through studies conducted at two universities with children and adults as participants.

The review then focuses on its central topic: comprehending fiction versus nonfiction works. Background information on narratology is provided, followed by an international study on the comprehension of fiction and nonfiction works. Strategies used to aid students in comprehending both text types are then explored, drawing on an ERIC Digest summary published in 2000. Subsequent sections discuss using narrative works to explain expository subjects, improving comprehension of nonfiction text, and the overall question of which text type is better for comprehension.

Rudimentary Factors in Reading Comprehension

To understand the broad concept of comprehension of fiction and nonfiction works, it is first necessary to understand the basic factors that lead to good reading comprehension. The following study seeks to explain the basic mechanics of comprehension in young children.

A longitudinal study conducted in Finland using 222 children from preschool through second grade sought to discover what roles phonological memory, phonological awareness, and word recognition play in reading comprehension. The study included 100 girls and 122 boys from schools in an urban area. The children ranged in age from 6 to 8 years old, with an average age of 6 years and 9 months (Dufva, Niemi, and Voeten 2001, 96).

Researchers used three different span tests to conduct the experiment. The word span test presented children with familiar words and then asked them to repeat those words in the order presented. The sentence span test presented a sentence and asked the children to repeat it. The final test was the digit span test, administered using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Dufva et al., 97–98).

Phonological memory allows a reader to temporarily store the product of decoding before combining phonemes to form a word. This is particularly important for children who do not yet have fully developed reading processes, because it allows them to store and interpret information at a higher level. Previous studies had concluded that phonological memory contributes greatly to an individual's listening and reading comprehension skills (Dufva et al., 92).

The longitudinal study found that phonological memory plays only a small role in phonological awareness among first and second graders, and thus has a small effect on word recognition in the same group. The study found that phonological memory did not affect reading comprehension but did affect listening comprehension, specifically at the preschool level. The study also found that phonological memory in first-grade students was directly correlated with word recognition when those students reached second grade (Dufva et al., 91–92).

The Effects of Time Constraints and Silent Reading on Comprehension

A study measuring the effects of time restraints on reading comprehension was performed at a university. Eighty-nine participants—52 females and 37 males—took part. All were psychology students and college freshmen who received course credit for participating. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether students' reading comprehension would improve under the pressure of time restraints.

Previous studies of similar scenarios, outside the domain of reading comprehension, had concluded that time constraints create mindfulness: the participant becomes more focused and motivated to perform the task at hand, and as a result completes the task more thoroughly and with better results (Walczyk, Kelly, Meche, and Braud 1999, 157). In an earlier study by Walczyk, reading comprehension was measured only against extreme time constraints, and participants performed poorly under those conditions.

The current study measured reading comprehension under three conditions: no time pressure, severe time pressure, and mild time pressure. The hypothesis was that students under mild time pressure would be more focused than those under no time pressure and would consequently demonstrate better reading comprehension. Researchers predicted that students under severe time pressure would become frustrated and perform poorly.

The experiment utilized computer technology to measure stress and arousal levels as well as reading speed. The results were as follows:

"The best comprehension occurred for those reading under mild time pressure. More importantly, the enhanced comprehension of those in the mild pressure condition occurred more efficiently than those in the no pressure condition. They achieved greater text comprehension per unit time. The large standard deviations of those in the no pressure condition convey that many who read text under no time pressure spent a lot of time reading, perhaps more than was necessary." (Walczyk et al., 163)

The study concluded that mild time pressure increases effort and motivation among readers. Conversely, severe time pressure caused readers to become overly aroused and unable to concentrate, leading to poor performance (Walczyk et al., 164).

In addition to time pressure, silent reading rate has an impact on comprehension. Previous studies found that students who could read silently at a faster pace processed more information and, in doing so, demonstrated better reading comprehension that required less effort. Those studies also concluded that fast silent readers are more likely to enjoy reading and to continue reading in the future. Additionally, the number of words students could read correctly per minute affected their ability to comprehend (Freeland, Jackson, McDaniel, Skinner, and Smith 2000, 416).

The participants in this study were three males from rural areas in the mid-South, ages 16, 12, and 13. During the experiment, each student was taken to a controlled room, asked to read a passage silently, and timed by the researcher. The experiment did not impose any time limits (Freeland et al. 2000).

The study found that repeated reading increased both silent reading rate and comprehension. It concluded that accurate, fast readers have a higher capacity to understand what they are reading. Repeated readings also allowed participants to answer literal or fact-based questions accurately, though repetition did not improve accuracy on inference-based questions (Freeland et al. 2000).

Conclusion

Comprehension is essential to the well-being of an individual both academically and socially. The review of various literary sources has reiterated this fact throughout this paper. Although the evidence shows that fiction is easier to comprehend than nonfiction, the review also found that the comprehension of nonfiction text is vital to a student's success and must be taken seriously.

This literature review found that an individual's ability to comprehend is based on a myriad of factors. The primary factors that influence comprehension are phonological memory and word recognition. The reviewed literature found that phonological memory has a significant impact on listening comprehension, while word recognition plays a large role in reading comprehension.

Secondary factors that influence a person's ability to comprehend include time restraints and silent reading rate. The investigation revealed that mild time restraints create mindfulness, which motivates readers to focus and ultimately leads to better comprehension. The inquiry also found that people who read accurately and quickly store more information than those who read silently at a slow pace.

It should be noted that the conclusion section of this paper contains a reversal of the definitions of fiction and nonfiction as presented earlier in the review—a discrepancy present in the source material. As established in the body of this paper, fiction (narrative text) refers to imaginative storytelling used primarily for entertainment, while nonfiction (expository text) refers to informational writing such as essays and textbooks.

The review also found several strategies that can make comprehension of both fiction and nonfiction easier. The most studied of these is the Multipass strategy, which encourages readers to pass through a text multiple times to achieve better comprehension. The literature-based approach, which uses narrative text to teach expository subjects, was also reviewed; geography and history were found to benefit greatly from this method. Understanding the structure of expository text likewise proved to be an important factor in increasing student comprehension.

The review concluded that fiction is easier to comprehend than nonfiction, while conceding that additional studies should be conducted on nonfiction so that we can better understand what needs to be done to make expository text more accessible. This review has explored a wide range of topics related to people's ability to comprehend information, and the careful examination of these topics has yielded several conclusions about the importance of reading comprehension in every facet of life.