Enhancing text comprehension through watching TV

The purpose of this experimental research was to analyze the possibility of stimulating student text comprehension through a guided exploration of an amusing TV cartoon that is also difficult to be fully comprehended, using the attractiveness of dynamic images as a resource for improving text comprehension. 38 students of an Italian Secondary School participated to the study. They were 15 years old on average. A group of 19 student received a training for processing the cartoon comprehension difficulties, and was helped in detecting and making the required bridging inferences. A multimedia comprehension post test verified a significant difference between the two groups. The educational implications of the research concern the possibility of using interesting and motivating material for the enhancing text comprehension . The educational treatment performed gave the students the opportunity to acquire a special learning strategy that consists of consciously making the processes that good comprehenders of both written text and audiovisual narratives automatically and correctly are used to make.