Pre-reading activities may reduce processing demands in working memory

Reading research has found that pre-reading activities positively affect comprehension, which might also act as a tool to reduce the processing demands in working memory (ROSCIOLI; TOMITCH, 2022). The present study investigated whether there was a correlation between pre-intermediate and advanced Brazilian EFL students’ working memory capacity as measured by the Reading Span Test and their results obtained in comprehension tests after receiving treatment with two pre-reading activities: Contextual Redefinition and Graphic Organizer (MOORE; READENCE; RICKELMAN, 1999). The former focused on building vocabulary, whereas the latter targeted the organizational pattern of the text. There were two dependent measures: written free recall and comprehension questions. We hypothesized that the treatments would change the correlations between readers’ working memory capacity and task performance. Specifically, we expected the correlations between reading span and comprehension to be smaller in the treatment conditions compared to the control. The findings reveal that the activities can affect reading comprehension differently depending on students’ proficiency. The correlations between reading span and comprehension questions scores were smaller when advanced participants received treatment with the Contextual Redefinition. Conversely, there was an increase in the correlations between reading span and written free recall scores when the pre-intermediate group received treatment with the same pre-reading activity. Also, there was a decrease in the correlations between reading span and written free recall scores when pre-intermediate participants received treatment with the Graphic Organizer. Altogether, the Contextual Redefinition reduced processing demands for the advanced participants, whereas the Graphic Organizer did the same for the pre-intermediate group.