Another element of understanding or comprehension lies beyond syntax. When I listen to someone talking and I understand what they say, do I go through the different steps of syntax analysis men*tioned above? Do I parse the sentence, determine the word class, and analyze punctuation? The answer is yes, but I do it very quickly and automatically without much effort or thinking. I also understand speech and written text by establishing many con*nections and linking the material to my knowledge.
When asked whether they have understood what has been said, the answer given by some people reveals their knowledge-base, their experiences, and, let us not forget, the feelings and emotions that are aroused by the speech or text. For example, “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts” invokes my feelings and emotions to complete my understanding of the sentence.
The famous opening line of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” will strike individuals in different ways according to their own ex*periences. Thus, there is no doubt that my understanding depends on my past, my history; it is autobiographical.
The comprehension of a school text may depend more on logic and knowledge previously given in textbooks than on auto*biographical experience. It is determined more by knowledge gained in school than by feelings and emotions, but even the factual text can stir up emotions that make the material more meaningful.
Superficial understanding of a sentence like I can resist everything except temptationmay not cause amusement in a Grade 4 child who can just understand the words but cannot enjoy the absurdity of the sentence. A child who does not know the economic condition of present-day Russia would not understand the dark humor making the rounds in Moscow—I got no food and got no one to bury me.
We learn a great deal through formal instruction, reading books and magazines, watching TV, interacting with others, generating ideas, and also from our own thoughts. Together these make up our world knowledge, the other important ingredient for comprehension that goes beyond our ability to analyze the syntax or the grammar in a statement. It is the knowledge of oneself, of personal history, of our past learning and culture, as well as inferences and reflections.
We can teach the rules of syntax to a child whose comprehension is poor, but experience and world knowledge cannot be acquired easily through formal instruction. The role of knowledge and language as cultural products has to be understood if we are to prescribe remediation for poor comprehension.
Thus children’s difficulty in comprehension may go beyond syn*tax. Meaning beyond syntax, as argued earlier, is derived from the cultural context and autobiographical experiences of children as much as from formal education. That is why we need to encourage our own communication with children, to take them out, engage them in casual conversation, and give them the opportunity to model after an adult’s socially acceptable behavior.
These are just some of the benefits of adult-child interaction. Unfortunately, for many reasons, some children may lack these opportunities for inter*action with responsible and caring adults and it is not hard to under*stand why they will lack comprehension of text and speech.