Context and reading comprehension studies

Putting things into a context or contextualization is the ability of the reader or student to place language items in a meaningful and also real perspective instead o treating them as separate or individual items of language and hence it makes the manipulation of language easier. It is the ability to manipulate the language that makes it easier for the ease in understanding the comprehension presented to an individual at a particular time (Baker et. al., 2009). Having context before beginning reading a comprehension enables the student to have a more real and understandable communicative value to the language and vocabulary that the learner may encounter thus can decipher the meaning of such a comprehension with much ease. It is also the contexts that are placed by a student before they begin the learning process that is instrumental in assisting the student at remembering the language and also recall the information provided in such a comprehension at a later date. The use of context cues is also critical at assisting the learner at learning and also attaching meaning even to some unfamiliar words that they may encounter during the exploration of the comprehension (Baker et. al., 2009). For example, if a reader finds some words that they have never seen before, they may use the information from pictures provided or from the words or sentences that surround the word so as to try and find its meaning. It is, therefore, clear that learning among learners especially on language acquisition and also of reading and understanding a comprehension relies heavily on the ability to place it into a context. Having a context before reading such a comprehension is what shapes up the thinking and also the vocabulary identification, acquisition and also understanding by the learner leading to a better mode of learning and also language comprehension (Baker et. al., 2009).

A study by Smith and Vela (2001), involves the review of other studies that entail the incidental environmental, human contextual-dependent memory and then there is the provision of a statistical analysis of the various results of the variety of similar studies (Smith & Vela, 2001). The theoretical approach of the survey was pegged on the assertion that introspective thoughts that may include conceptualizing and remembering may require some of the cognitions typically presented in the immediate surroundings. The study involving a meta-analysis of all research in the area found out that the manipulation of the incidental environmental contexts has a direct effect on the memory of the individual (Smith & Vela, 2001). The study indicated that the context has a modest effect on the memory the ability to recall for an individual. The use of the meta-analysis method is because it provides the quantitative analysis of the argument or the view of the context-dependent memory findings of various similar studies thus getting a more informed and comprehensive standpoint (Smith & Vela, 2001). The results of the study are that having some changes in the contexts of other immediate environments during the learning processes would lead to a direct effect on the ability to recall by such a learner. It means that the individual has formed the memories out of the cues presented in the immediate environment that they were in and hence it is the context of learning. It makes contextual learning a significant aspect of improving learning among individuals (Smith & Vela, 2001). The study emphasis on the need to have a context for every reader before they get into reading a comprehension so as to ensure that they read and understand clearly and also form long-term memories of the knowledge. The use of contextual cues has also been emphasized by the study since it is the use of such cues that provides the individual with the required tools to the learning process involved in a reading a comprehension. Moreover, the emphasis of an immediate environmental context further provides the cues since it leads to the formation of context-dependent memories that rely on such cues to recall what has been read in a comprehension (Smith & Vela, 2001).