When explicitly required by direct questions, less skilled comprehenders' inference performance improves greatly while skilled comprehenders perform at ceiling¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2001 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? With prompts and direct questions added, skilled comprehenders reached ceiling and less skilled comprehenders' inference scores improved substantially, though these descriptive data were not statistically analyzed. → Kate Cain 2001
Evidence¶
Kate Cain 2001¶
Kate Cain, Jane V. Oakhill, Marcia A. Barnes, and Peter E. Bryant. (2001). Comprehension skill, inference-making ability, and their relation to knowledge. Memory & Cognition, 29(6), 850-859. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03196414
q2 · i? · associational · r2
Descriptive analysis of total inferences made across initial questions, prompts, and direct questions (e.g., "Why did Dack wish he was a turtle?"), adjusted for knowledge-base recall. The article states these data are not independent of earlier scores and were not subjected to statistical analysis; means are reported in Table 7.
"Nevertheless, the mean scores are reveal- ing: The skilled comprehenders were now performing at ceiling, and, more interestingly,the less skilled compre- henders’ performance improved greatly."
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Inferencing — outcome: instruction changes it
Related Claims¶
- Less skilled comprehenders make fewer knowledge-based coherence and elaborative inferences than skilled comprehenders even when the relevant knowledge is equally available — related
- Prompting underspecified responses improves children's performance on both local and global coherence inference questions at all ages — related
- Inference-making performance improves with age between 6 and 10 years, with children performing better on global than local coherence inference questions — related
- Skilled comprehenders recall more literal story content than less skilled comprehenders, but the groups do not differ significantly in interpreting novel similes — related
- Theory-guided five-step prompting of AI interaction improves open-ended explanation performance in construction education review, while unprompted AI access alone does not — related
- Low-skilled readers with strong background knowledge partially compensate for poor reading skill at the textbase level but not for inferencing — related
- An instructional focus on advanced reading abilities benefits poor comprehenders while good readers suffer under that focus — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
direct-questions-boost-poor-comprehenders-inferences |
title |
When explicitly required by direct questions, less skilled comprehenders' inference performance improves greatly while skilled comprehenders perform at ceiling |
description |
When explicitly required by direct questions, less skilled comprehenders' inference performance improves greatly while skilled comprehenders perform at ceiling |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2001 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — kate-cain-2001 |
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