Inferential skills in oral text comprehension: a comparison between students in Grade 1 and 2 in priority education versus non priority education

In disadvantaged socio-demographic areas, schools benefit from the Priority Education system or the Enhanced Priority Education (i.e. EPE) system to provide the best possible support for pupils in their acquisition of 'reading, writing and speaking'. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine children's comprehension performance in grade 1 and 2, by comparing pupils educated in EPE schools and pupils educated in a non-priority education zone (non-EPE). To do this, all the children were given a listening comprehension task based on a story taken from children's literature. The task consisted in answering questions proposed as the story was being listened to by choosing an answer from among three vignettes offered to test the pupils' level of comprehension: one vignette illustrated the situation described by the extract that preceded the question (i.e. a literal vignette); one vignette included elements implicitly suggested by the story, given that the inference of situational coherence mobilized the students' general knowledge (i.e. inferential vignette); and one vignette was considered irrelevant because it illustrated a character who was not involved in the extract preceding the question (i.e. irrelevant vignette). We examined the choice made on this comprehension task by comparing pupils in a EPE context with those in a non-priority education zone (non-EPE). The main results are informative in several respects: (1) There was no significant difference between pupils in their choice of literal vignette, regardless of the type of school (EPE vs. non-EPE) or the grade level considered; (2) in grade 2, pupils in EPE schools selected the inferential vignette less often than those in non-EPE schools; (3) in grade 1, it was the irrelevant vignettes that revealed the presence of a difference between these two schooling contexts, to the disadvantage of pupils in EPE schools (especially boys). These different results all confirmed the value of introducing assessments of listening comprehension skills that make it possible to discriminate the level of interpretation acquired and to put in place measures to provide the best possible support for the success of all pupils.