Task-Oriented Reading in Primary School. The Ability to Discriminate Relevant Content from Multiple Text of Fourth- and Sixth-Graders

Introduction.  Multiple-text task-oriented reading is using several texts to perform an assigned task. It involves two core processes, namely, comprehending text contents and discriminating the text contents that are relevant for the task. We explored these two processes in primary school students. Method.  We had 150 students from grades fourth (9-10 years old) and sixth (11-12 years old) use three texts to learn about an assigned question. After using the texts, they took a recall test, which required them to recall as much as possible about the question-relevant information, and a verification test, which required them to judge inferences from the text contents, both question-relevant and question-irrelevant, as true or false. Results.  The participants performed worse in recall than in verification. The sixth-graders outperformed the fourth-graders in recall and, more clearly, in verification.   Discussion and Conclusion. The results suggest, first, that students are better able to comprehend text contents than to discriminate task-relevant content and, second, that both the ability to comprehend text content and the ability to discriminate task-relevant content improve throughout the school years but the former may develop faster.