Table 1.
Description of Stories and Questions Used to Measure Comprehension
| Story Number | General Topic | Number of Words | Target Phoneme | Target Word | Target Frequency | Number of Comprehension Questions
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | I | T | ||||||
| 1 | Measuring Star Distances | 161 | /d/ | distance | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 2 | Verbal Communication | 315 | /g/ | group | 5 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 3 | An Outdoor Scene | 278 | /g/ | green | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 4 | Insufficient Oxygen | 363 | /b/ | behavior | 8 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| 5 | Aluminum | 273 | /m/ | metal | 5 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 6 | Carbon Dating | 374 | /k/ | carbon | 14 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 7 | The American Party System | 490 | /b/ | both | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 8 | Effective Communication | 343 | /t/ | talk | 12 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 9 | Basketball | 270 | /m/ | men | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 10 | Science Fiction | 271 | /b/ | books | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 11 | Self-Actualization | 228 | /g/ | goal | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 12 | Hair Today; Gone Tomorrow | 313 | /b/ | bald | 10 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Note–F= factual; I = inferential; T= total.