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An investigation of the relationship between concreteoperational thought and reading achievementCarol P. Robeck aa Lecturer in the Department of Educational Curriculum and Instruction , Texas A & MUniversityPublished online: 28 Jan 2010.

To cite this article: Carol P. Robeck (1981) An investigation of the relationship between concrete operational thought andreading achievement, Reading World, 21:1, 2-13

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READING WORLD

An Investigation of theRelationship Between Concrete

Operational Thought andReading Achievement

Carol P. Robeck

ABSTRACT

Recent articles have suggested that there is a substantialrelationship between concrete operational performance onPiagetian tasks and successful beginning reading. Someresearchers have suggested delaying reading instructionuntil a child is in the concrete operational stage.

This study examined the relationship between perform-ance on five Piagetian tasks and three measures of readingachievement in 101 first, second, and third grade randomlyselected children. The results from this study indicated thatthe relationship is minimal and inconsistent across differentmeasures of reading as well as across grade levels. At allgrade levels, many children who were not concrete opera-tional in their performance on the Piagetian tasks werereading as well or better than those who were concreteoperational in their performance. Based on the results of thisstudy, the practice of making a prediction concerning read-ing achievement using concrete operational performance onPiagetian tasks would be unsound.

In the mid 1960s Almy, Chittenden & Miller (1966) conducted alongitudinal study that investigated the relationship between aspectsof Piaget's cognitive development theory, specifically the notion ofconservation and reading development. Their pioneer study led to anumber of studies in the 1970s that investigated the relationship be-tween concrete operational thought and reading readiness as well asbeginning reading achievement. The majority of these studies have

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used correlation analysis. The findings have indicated slight to moder-ate correlations between reading or reading readiness and variousPiaget tasks (Waller, 1977). Also found in the literature of the 1970s is anumber of articles that provide instructional suggestions based onextractions from Piaget's findings of how young children think, as wellas on the findings of the studies examining the relationship betweenPiaget's notion of children's cognitive development and reading.

Many of these suggestions are based on the assumption that con-crete operational thinking (evidenced by the ability to conserve) is anecessary prerequisite for formal instruction in reading. Roberts (1976)cites the work of Brekke (1971), Crutchfield (1970), and Hurta (1973) asfinding a relationship between reading or reading readiness and con-servation. Roberts concludes "Perhaps in the future we will makecertain that children know how to conserve before we teach them toread" (p. 249). Furthermore, Roberts does not feel that teachers should"wait for conservation ability to develop naturally" but should "take apositive action to induce conservation" (p. 248). He than providesévidence from research that has indicated that conservation can beinduced through training procedures.

Hoffman and Fillmer (1979) have also concluded that conservationis a necessary prerequisite to successful beginning reading achieve-ment. Citing Briggs and Elkind's (1973) study, Hoffman and Fillmerconclude "high scores on conservation tasks appeared to be the deter-mining factor in early readers' skill" (p. 29).

Presumably the interest in conservation stems from the fact that theexistence of knowledge of conservation is a clear indication of thetransition to concrete operational thought. The argument presented byresearchers (Elkind, 1976; Raven & Salzer, 1971; Simpson, 1972) is thatthe child who has reached the concrete operational stage is moreprepared for reading instruction than is the child who is in the pre-operational stage. But the development of concrete operational thoughtevolves over a long period of time and involves a number of notions ofconservation (for example, conservation of substance, weight, surfacesor volume, length, wholes) as well as the operations which includelogical structures such as seriation, classification, and correspondences(Piaget & Inhelder, 1969).

The ability to conserve is not a general ability in the sense that if achild can conserve substance, he can also conserve weight. Piaget'sfindings which have been supported by several studies (Dodwell,1968; Elkind, 1961 a, b, c, 1964; Kofsky, 1968; Lovell, Mitchell, &Everett, 1962; Lovell & Ogilvie, 1960, 1961 a, b; Uzgiris, 1964;Wohlwill, 1960) indicate that conservation of substance develops firstfollowed by conservation of weight and then volume. Furthermore,many of the training studies have shown that while there has been some

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success with certain training procedures designed to help a child un-derstand a particular conservation task, there is mixed evidence withrespect to whether or not transfer of learning occurs. Halford andFullerton (1970), Harper, Steffe, and Van Engen (1969), Kingsley andHall (1967), Lister (1969), Pace (1968), Rothenberg and Orost (1969),Smith (1968), Towler (1968), and Wallach and Sprott (1964) found somesuccess with various types of training procedures and transfer of learn-ing to some conservation tasks. However, Beilin and Franklin (1968),Beilin, Kagan and Rabinowitz (1966), Gruen (1965), Romberg and Gil-bert (1972), Smedslund (1968 a, b, c), Wallach, Wall, and Anderson(1967), Wohlwill and Lowe (1962) have found no transfer of learning.

Statements that suggest that conservation is a determining factorfor beginning reading success and that imply or directly state thatpositive action should be taken to induce conservation would seem tobe premature. It would seem that before the argument is made fordelaying reading instruction until the concrete operational stage ispresent or until understanding of conservation has developed, it isnecessary to determine which aspects of the concrete operational stageor types of conservation are actually prerequisites to successful readingachievement.

Furthermore, statements that imply that there is an appropriatetime to begin reading instruction (when a child has reached the con-crete operational stage) imply some sort of uniformity to the nature ofbeginning reading instruction. Certainly, the fact that beginning read-ing instruction is not uniform does not have to be verified here. What,then, is meant by "reading instruction?" For that matter what is meantby reading? Does the ability to conserve enable all children to copewith any type of reading instruction? Does the inability to conservemean that no type of reading can occur? Certainly not and the moderatecorrelations that have been established provide evidence that childrendo learn to read in some manner even though they are unable toconserve.

THE STUDYPurpose

In an effort to learn more about the relationship between begin-ning reading achievement and performance on a number of concreteoperational tasks, data from a larger study were extracted to examine apossible relationship between various measures of reading and per-formance on several Piagetian tasks.Subjects

Complete data were obtained from 101 subjects who were ran-domly selected from all first, second, and third grade students enrolledin the local school district. The subjects were distributed among thegrades in the following manner: grade one-18 boys, 17 girls; grade two

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- 18 boys, 17 girls; grade three - 17 boys, 14 girls. The sample popula-tion proportionately represented the ethnic groups enrolled in theschool district.

The school district from which the sample was drawn is located in aSouthwestern state in an area which is classified by the Bureau ofCensus as a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. The district has ahighly mobile population with a high influx of residents from all parts ofthe country. At the time of the study the school population for the firstthree grades represented four ethnic groups in the following percent-ages: White - 82 percent; Black - 8 percent; Hispanic - 6 percent;Asian or Pacific Islander - 4 percent.Procedures

Each subject was individually administered five Piagetian tasks:conservation of liquid, conservation of weight, classification includingclass inclusion, multiple classification, and seriation. A description ofeach of the tasks and procedures for administration can be found inRobeck (1979).

Reading achievement was measured through the use of an in-dividually administered Informal Reading Inventory, The PupilPlacement Test (Hollander & Reisman, 1970). The Pupil PlacementTests offer both oral and silent graded reading passages from the pre-primer level to the ninth grade level. An instructional reading levelfor oral comprehension, silent comprehension, and word recognitionwas determined for each subject using Powell's (1969) criteria.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe relationship between the Piagetian tasks and each reading

measure (oral comprehension, silent comprehension, and word recog-nition) was analyzed separately for each grade level. The means, stan-dard deviation, and range for the three reading measures, oral com-prehension, silent comprehension, and word recognition are providedin Table 1. With the exception of word recognition mean score for gradethree, growth in the mean reading scores is observed across gradelevels. The actual mean scores for word recognition for all three grades,and silent comprehension for grade three may appear to be suppressedsince the upper limit on the range for these areas reached the highestgrade level reading passage. However, through an examination of theindividual scores for those areas, it was found that only one child ingrade three reached the highest reading passage for silent comprehen-sion. One child in grade one reached the highest reading passage forword recognition, two children in grade two, and four children in gradethree. Therefore, it would appear as though the only mean score whichmay have been effected is the mean score for word recognition for gradethree which may account for the little increase, a difference in means of.23, noted in word recognition from grade two to grade three.

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TABLE 1

Mean, Standard Deviation,and Range of Reading Scores onThree Measures of Reading at Three Grade Levels

OralComprehension

Std.Mean Dev. Range

SilentComprehension

Std.Mean Dev. Range

WordRecognition

Std.Mean Dev. Range

FirstGrade 3.31* 2.04 0-9 2.91 2.08 0-8 3.74 2.76 0-11(N=35)SecondGrade 4.89 2.36 1-8 4.00 2.35 0.8 7.06 2.34 2-11(N=35)ThirdGrade 6.39 1.61 3-9 5.97 1.96 1-11 7.29 2.47 4-11(N=31)

*The following code was used to indicate reading level: 1=preprimer;2=primer; 3=first grade; 4 = second grade; 5=third grade; 6=fourthgrade; 7=fifth grade; 8=sixth grade; 9=seventh grade; 10=eighthgrade; l l = ninth grade.

Table 2 shows the correlations between the scores from the threereading measures and the Piagetian tasks for all three grades. As can beseen from Table 2, while a few significant correlations occurred, thecorrelations are generally quite small. Furthermore, none of the Piage-tian tasks correlated significantly with all three reading measuresacross all three grade levels. Conservation of liquid was the most con-sistent significant correlate with the reading measures, though notwith oral and silent comprehension at the second grade level. Further-more, if the variance (if) is calculated from the correlation coef-ficient, it is discovered that the highest correlate (conservation ofliquid at the first grade level) only accounts for 46 percent of thevariance in the reading measures.

Using multiple linear regression a further examination of the var-iance accounted for by the combined variables of classification, multi-ple classification, conservation of liquid, conservation of weight, andseriation indicates that in all but one case less than half of the variancein the reading measures is explained by the Piagetian tasks. Coeffi-cients of Determination, R2, for each of the three reading measures foreach grade level were: first grade - .54, .49, .49; second grade- .13, .23,

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TABLE 2Correlations Between Scores From Three Measures of Reading

and Five Piagetian Tasks at Three Grade Levels

First Grade(N=35)

ClassMClassConLConWSer

Second Grade(N=35)

ClassMClassConLConWSer

Third Grade(N=31)

ClassMClassConLConWSer

OralComprehension

.38

.40*

.68***

.28

.10

.24

.15

.15

.14

.28

.30

.27

.38*

.35-.19

SilentComprehension

.14

.35*

.68***

.26

.04

.18

.12

.18

.30

.37

.19

.30

.46**

.22-.004

WordRecognition

.19

.36*

.68***

.28

.17

.47**

.32

.46**

.02

.45**

-.05.20.36*.30

-.08

*P < .05**P < .01

***P < .0001aThe full name for the Piagetian tasks are: Class = Classification;MClass = Multiple Classification; ConL = Conservation of Liquid;ConW = Conservation of Weight; Ser = Seriation.

.38; third grade - .33, .31, .18 for oral comprehension, silent compre-hension, and word recognition respectively.

In order to obtain a clearer picture of the relationship between thePiagetian tasks and reading achievement, the subjects were dividedinto two categories (those reading below grade level and those readingon or above grade level) for each reading measure. Then a count wasmade to see how many subjects in each category performed at theconcrete operational level for each Piagetian task.

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Table 3 shows the number of children who were reading belowgrade level and the number of children who were reading on or abovegrade level on the three measures of reading who were concrete opera-tional on the Piagetian tasks.

TABLE 3Number of Children Reading Below and On or Above Grade

Level On Three Measures of Reading Who Are ConcreteOperational on Each of the Five Piagetian Tasks

First Grade

Class**MClassConLConWSer

Second Grade

ClassMClassConLConWSer

Third Grade

ClassMClassConLConWSer

OralComprehension

BelowGradeLevel

(N=10)*01127

(N=12)25868

(N=5)32215

On orAboveGradeLevel

(N=25)5

11221418

(N=23)1112151520

(N=26)1418231624

SilentComprehension

BelowGradeLevel

(N=12)12349

(N = 10)25636

(N=5)32215

On orAboveGradeLevel

(N=23)4

10201216

(N=25)1112171822

(N=26)1418231624

WordRecognition

BelowGradeLevel

(N=10)10126

(N=l)10111

(N=6)42216

On orAboveGradeLevel

(N=25)4

12221419

(N=34)1217222027

(N=25)1318231623

*The number in parenthesis indicates the number of children eitherbelow or on or above grade level.

**The full name for the Piagetian tasks are : Class = Classification;MClass = Multiple Classification; ConL = Conservation of Liquid;ConW = Conservation of Weight; Ser = Seration.

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It is quite obvious from Table 3 that the relationship betweenconcrete operational thought and beginning reading achievement isnot at all clear. The numbers on the tables provide more evidence forthe sequential development nature of concrete operational thoughtthan any evidence for a relationship between concrete operationalthought and reading achievement. In nearly every case of those chil-dren who were on or above grade level some were concrete operationalin their performance on the tasks and some were not. Or, conversely, innearly every case of those children who were below grade level somewere concrete operational in their performance on the tasks and somewere not. It can be said that a higher percentage of those children whowere on or above grade level in reading were concrete operational intheir performance than those who were below grade level; but it canalso be said that for many of the tasks, especially at the first grade level,when children are in the very beginning stages of learning to read, ofthose children who were on or above grade level, a higher percentagewere not concrete operational than those who were.

Thus far the analyses have examined the relationship betweenreading performance and each of the Piagetian tasks separately. Itseemed possible that a child's overall performance on the tasks mighthave a greater relationship with his reading achievement than hisperformance on any one task. Therefore, two analyses were completedusing a total performance score. A score of one was given for each of thetasks if performed at the concrete operational level and a score of zerowas received for performance at the preoperational level. A total scoreof 5 indicated concrete operational performance in all five Piagetiantasks.

Table 4 provides the mean scores for children reading below gradelevel and for children reading on or above grade level for each readingmeasure at all three grade levels. In all but one case the mean score forchildren reading on or above grade level is higher than for childrenreading below grade level.

Using the total Piagetian scores, Simple Linear Regression wasused to determine if there was a linear relationship between overallperformance on the Piaget tasks and reading grade level. The Regres-sion Sum of Squares indicated that the total Piagetian score accountedfor a negligible amount of the variance in the reading score. In eachcase the unexplained variance (Residual Sum of Squares) was muchgreater than the explained variance (Regression Sum of Squares). Forexample the linear regression that yielded the greatest Regression Sumof Squares (7.28, with F (1,35) = 3.32) was on word recognition at thefirst grade level. The Residual Sum of Squares was 72.27. Clearly,overall performance on the Piagetian tasks in this study accounted forvery little variance in the reading measures.

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TABLE 4Average Number of Piagetian Tasks Performed at theConcrete Operational Level By Children Below and

On or Above Grade Level

First GradeBelow

On or Above

Second GradeBelow

On or Above

Third GradeBelow

On or Above

OralComprehension

X = 1.1(N=10)X = 2.8(N=25)

X = 2.4(N=12)X = 3.1(N=23)

X = 2.6(N=5)

X = 3.6(N=26)

SilentComprehension

X = 1.6(N=12)X = 2.7(N=23)

X = 2.2(N=10)X = 3.2(N=25)

X = 2.6(N=5)

X = 3.6(N=26)

WordRecognition

X = .9(N=10)X = 2.8(N=25)

4(N = l)

X = 2.8(N=34)

X = 2.5(N=6)

X = 3.7(N=25)

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONSThe evidence from this study suggests that while there may be

some relationship between concrete operational peformance onPiagetian tasks and a minimum level of success with beginning read-ing, the relationship is not at all clear. Certainly, the evidence providedby this study indicates that performance on Piagetian tasks can not beused as a predictor of reading performance for an individual child. Onefirst grade child reading above grade level did not perform a single taskat the concrete operational level while another first grade child readingbelow grade level on the silent comprehension and word recognitionreading measures performed all but the multiple classification task atthe concrete operational level. These types of exceptions could befound at all three grade levels. When the degree of reading achieve-ment was considered (reading grade level score), the inconsistenciesare even greater. For example, one first grade child reading at theseventh grade level for oral comprehension performed all but theclassification task at the concrete operational level while another firstgrade child reading at the second grade level for oral comprehension

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performed all of the tasks at the concrete operational level.Not only were variations in performance on Piagetian tasks and

reading achievement noted at all three grade levels, but variations in anindividual's performance on all three reading measures at all threegrade levels was the rule rather than the exception. In discussingcorrelates of reading achievement, this study clearly pointed out thenecessity for defining what is meant by reading achievement. There islittle doubt that different results would have been obtained if differentreading measures had been used. There is also little doubt that diffe-rent results would have been obtained if an approach to reading otherthan the one being used in the schools from which the subjects werechosen had been used. The Economy Company (1972) basal series wasbeing used which isa highly phonetic approach. Barr (1975) and Cohen(1975) have clearly shown that instructional strategies effect the way inwhich children go about the task of reading.

It is not the purpose of this writer to suggest that we should ignorethe information Piaget has provided concerning the thinking of youngchildren in our instructional programming. It may be, and certainly theresearch that has been done thus far, suggests that the structure ofthought required for progress into the concrete operational stage ofthinking may be a contributing factor in coping with different types ofinstructional programs. Certainly, from what is known about youngchildren's thinking, instruction should be provided in as meaningfuland concrete manner as is possible. However, until more is know aboutthe relationship between concrete operational thought and readingachievement, teachers would be ill-advised to halt all reading instruc-tion until a child is able to perform some Piagetian task or combinationof tasks at the concrete operational level.

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