Improving reading comprehension with readers theater

Abstract

Although readers theater has traditionally been recommended as a method for improving reading fluency, this 18-week quasi-experimental study examined the effects of a readers theater instructional protocol that updates and expands on traditional approaches by adding specific tasks that engage students in various reading comprehension and vocabulary activities. Because the students were not randomly assigned to either condition, propensity score matching was used to minimize potential bias between the groups. After the matching procedure, the overall total of second-grade students decreased from 145?to 76. A repeated-measures analysis of variance was conducted for all three measures. The results revealed statistically significant time effects on all three measures of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, including decoding, word knowledge, and reading comprehension. Only the reading comprehension measure was qualified by an interaction effect, and the results favored the readers theater treatment group. Implications for instruction and future research are discussed.     

Paths to reading comprehension in at-risk second-grade readers

Two studies of second graders at risk for reading disability, which were guided by levels of language and functional reading system theory, focused on reading comprehension in this population. In Study 1 (n = 96), confirmatory factor analysis of five comprehension measures loaded on one factor in both fall and spring of second grade. Phonological decoding predicted accuracy of real-word reading; automatic letter naming predicted rate of real-word reading; accuracy and rate of both real-word reading (more so than decoding of pseudowords) and text reading predicted reading comprehension; and Verbal IQ also predicted reading comprehension. In Study 2 (n = 98), the treatment group (before/after school clubs receiving an integrated instructional approach that was supplementary to the general reading program) improved significantly more in phonological decoding and state standards for reading fluency than the control group (general reading program that had some code instruction but emphasized comprehension). The rate of phonological decoding explained 60.3% of real-word reading. Both treatment and control children improved significantly in reading comprehension, but controlling for pretreatment individual differences in oral vocabulary or in phonological decoding eliminated this effect. Taken together, the results of the two studies support two paths to reading comprehension: one from vocabulary and verbal reasoning, and one from written language that has multiple links between subskills: (a) alphabetic principle --> phonological decoding, (b) automatic phonological decoding --> accurate real-word reading, (c) automatic letter coding ---> automatic word reading, and (d) automatic word reading --> fluent text reading. Instructional implications of both paths and the links within the written language are discussed.     

浅谈如何提高学生的英语阅读理解能力

提高英语阅读理解能力,必须掌握足够的词汇量和正确的阅读技巧和方法。本文从词汇、理解技巧及阅读方法三个方面阐述了提高英语阅读理解能力的方法。     

Processing demands of reading comprehension tests in young readers

In the present study we examined the processing demands of three reading comprehension tests, namely the Woodcock–Johnson Passage Comprehension (WJPC), a Curriculum-Based Measure test (CBM-Maze), and a Recall test, in the early elementary years. Our investigation was theoretically motivated by Perfetti’s Verbal Efficiency Theory and examined the contribution of a set of skills that are important in early reading (i.e., rapid naming, phonological processing, orthographic processing, fluency, vocabulary, and working memory) to the three reading comprehension tests. Furthermore, because this set of skills undergo rapid development in the early years, we assessed them in two consecutive years, Grade 1 and Grade 2, before examining their prediction to the three reading comprehension tests in Grade 2. The findings showed that the three reading comprehension tests pose different demands to the young reader. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to reading comprehension assessment and diagnosis of reading difficulties.     

Spelling consistency affects reading in young Dutch readers with and without dyslexia

Lexical-decision studies with experienced English and French readers have shown that visual-word identification is not only affected by pronunciation inconsistency of a word (i.e., multiple ways to pronounce a spelling body), but also by spelling inconsistency (i.e., multiple ways to spell a pronunciation rime). The aim of this study was to compare the reading behavior of young Dutch readers with dyslexia to the behavior of readers without dyslexia. All students participated in a lexical-decision task in which we presented pronunciation-consistent words and pseudowords. Half of the pronunciation-consistent stimuli were spelling consistent and the other half were spelling inconsistent. All three reader groups, that is, students with dyslexia, age-match students, and reading-match students, read spelling-consistent words faster than spelling-inconsistent words. Overall reading speed of students with dyslexia was similar to that of reading-match students, and was substantially slower than that of age-match students. The results suggest that reading in students with or without dyslexia is similarly affected by spelling inconsistency. Subtle qualitative differences emerged, however, with respect to pseudoword identification. The conclusion was that the findings were best interpreted in terms of a recurrent-feedback model.     

How to improve reading comprehension in high-risk students: effects of class practices in Grade 5

This study investigated the effect of class practices on students’ learning gains in reading comprehension in the 5th grade. A sample of 4,344 students in 283 classes in 176 schools was studied. Several class practices that have previously been demonstrated to be effective were tested while controlling for student characteristics and socioeconomic and ethnic class composition. Differential effects were tested to identify class practices that can contribute to narrowing the achievement gap between high- and low-risk students. Most class practices turned out to have a similar effect for both low- and high-risk students. However, “discovery learning” and “well-organised and attractive instruction” appeared to be more beneficial for low-risk than for high-risk students. Group composition in terms of social and ethnic background turned out to have no significant effect on learning gains in reading comprehension.     

Representing written vowels in university students with dyslexia compared with normal hebrew readers

The study investigates dyslexic and normal Hebrew readers’ perception of words containing a vowel letter in different orthographic and morphological contexts. In the first experiment, 72 undergraduate education students (half diagnosed with reading disabilities and half normal readers) were asked to judge pointed words with different morphological structures with and without the grapheme W. Half of the words had consistent (obligatory) W and half had inconsistent (optional) W. In the second experiment, the same procedure was repeated using the same words without pointing marks. Response latencies and accuracy were measured. In both experiments, dyslexic readers did less well than normal readers. They had lower scores on accurate lexical decisions and they took more time over these decisions. They also exhibited some deviant patterns, indicating that they cannot make use of orthographic and morphological cues that are available to normal readers, especially in the pointed experiment. Processing pointed words placed a heavier cognitive burden on the dyslexic readers. These findings are in line with other studies of adult dyslexic reader/writers, and support a reading / spelling processing model, which claims that internal orthographic representations of words are increasingly strengthened with each exposure during reading, but not all graphemes are strengthened equally. The general implication is that the ambiguities that exist in the relationships between orthography, phonology, and morphology underlie spelling knowledge, and are particularly difficult for dyslexic readers.     

Predicting reading comprehension of narrative and expository texts among Hebrew-speaking readers with and without a reading disability

The aim of this study was to investigate which cognitive and reading-related linguistic skills contribute to reading comprehension of narrative and expository texts. The study examined an Israeli national database of Hebrew-speaking readers in fourth grade, from which a subsample of 190 readers with a reading disability (RD) and 190 readers with no reading disability (NRD) was selected. IQ, text reading, reading comprehension, and various linguistic and cognitive skills were assessed. Structural equation modeling results suggested that both groups rely on lower level processes such as text reading accuracy and orthographic knowledge for reading comprehension of both genres. However, RD readers depend more heavily upon these lower level processes compared with NRD for whom higher level processes contribute more to reading comprehension. The various variables accounted for only 25-34% of reading comprehension variance, and possible explanations are discussed. Taken together, these findings highlight the variety of factors influencing reading comprehension and its multidimensional nature.     

Improving the reading comprehension of children with dysphonetic and dyseidetic dyslexia using story grammar

Five 8- to 10-year-old children with dysphonetic and dyseidetic dyslexia were given instruction in reading comprehension using a story grammar strategy in which story instruction was differentially designed to match the simultaneous or sequential mental processing strengths of each dyslexia subtype. A multiple baseline, single subject experimental design and statistical analyses indicated that the experimental treatments yielded statistically and clinically significant improvements in the proportion of qualitatively important story elements recalled by the subjects, when compared to baseline traditional remedial instruction. The results suggested that students with dyslexia can increase their reading comprehension with training in metacognitive strategies. The question of whether the results were attributable to the subtype-matched methods per se or to strategy training in general, as well as a number of methodological issues, is being explored in subsequent research.     

Matthew effects in young readers: reading comprehension and reading experience aid vocabulary development

The authors report data from a longitudinal study of the reading development of children who were assessed in the years of their 8th, 11th, 14th, and 16th birthdays. They examine the evidence for Matthew effects in reading and vocabulary between ages 8 and 11 in groups of children identified with good and poor reading comprehension at 8 years. They also investigate evidence for Matthew effects in reading and vocabulary between 8 and 16 years, in the larger sample. The poor comprehenders showed reduced growth in vocabulary compared to the good comprehenders, but not in word reading or reading comprehension ability. They also obtained lower scores on measures of out-of-school literacy. Analyses of the whole sample revealed that initial levels of reading experience and reading comprehension predicted vocabulary at ages 11, 14, and 16 after controlling for general ability and vocabulary skills when aged 8. The authors discuss these findings in relation to the influence of reading on vocabulary development.     

Beyond breadth: the contributions of vocabulary depth to reading comprehension among skilled readers

This study investigated the relationships among vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, reading comprehension, and reading rate among college‐aged students. While the relationships of some of these variables have been explored in previous research, the current study's focus on the role of vocabulary depth on the literacy measures within a sample of skilled readers is new and produced several interesting findings. First, consistent with the hypotheses, both vocabulary breadth and depth were significantly correlated with reading comprehension and reading rate. Second, while both types of vocabulary knowledge explained unique variance in reading comprehension, only vocabulary breadth explained unique variance in reading rate. Finally, although vocabulary breadth was significantly correlated with both of the vocabulary depth measures, the two depth measures were not significantly correlated with each other. This work implies that a strong depth of vocabulary affects reading comprehension, in addition to the well‐established relationship between vocabulary breadth and comprehension.     

The role of orthographic analogies in reading for meaning: evidence from readers with dyslexia

The aim of this experiment was to investigate the use of orthographic analogies in conditions that involved making sense of print (picture‐word matching) and pronouncing print (reading aloud) for readers with dyslexia. An adapted version of the classic clue‐word paradigm developed by Goswami was used. Participants were 40 readers with dyslexia and 40 reading‐age‐matched comparison readers. Based on previous theory and research in this area, we predicted that readers with dyslexia would read significantly fewer analogous words than their reading‐age‐matched counterparts. In light of the supposition that word‐picture matching does not require the synthesised pronunciation of a word, we also predicted that readers with dyslexia might be less impaired at analogy use in the picture‐word matching than in the reading aloud condition. However, we found that the dyslexic group read significantly fewer analogous words at post‐test than their reading‐age‐matched peers in both conditions. Also, performance in overall word reading was better for both groups in the word‐picture matching condition. The implications of these results for theory and practice in reading development are discussed, and methodological limitations are noted.     

A computer-based spatial learning strategy approach that improves reading comprehension and writing

This article explores the effectiveness of a computer-based spatial learning strategy approach for improving reading comprehension and writing. In reading comprehension, students received scaffolded practice in translating passages into graphic organizers. In writing, students received scaffolded practice in planning to write by filling in graphic organizers and in translating them into passages. Based on a cluster-randomized sampling process, 2,468 students distributed in 12 schools and 69 classrooms participated in the study. Schools were randomly assigned to the computer-based instruction (CBI) group or traditional instruction (TI) group. Teachers assigned to the CBI treatment integrated the applications into the language arts curriculum during one school semester. A standardized test was used to measure reading comprehension and writing. The data were analyzed through a statistical multilevel model. The findings showed that students in the CBI group improved their reading and writing skills significantly more than students under TI—yielding an effect size d = 0.30.     

The effect of phonics instruction on the reading comprehension of beginning readers

This study investigated whether two groups of6-year-old beginning readers taught to read by aphonics and by a ``book experience' non-phonicsapproach would differ in reading comprehension as wellas the processes of word recognition. The two groupswere matched for word recognition but despite this, thephonics taught children had higher readingcomprehension. Phonics taught children produced morecontextually appropriate errors, and in both singleword and text reading made more spoken attempts atreading unknown words. The non-phonics taught childrenhad much faster reading reaction times to familiarwords but they scored less in phoneme segmentation andnonword reading tasks. Compared with the nonphonicsgroup, the phonics group spent more time in attemptsat identifying unknown words and this included usingcontextual information, which apparently resulted inmore rehearsal of the meaning of the story text andhence better reading comprehension performance.     

浅谈如何提高高级水平留学生阅读能力

对外汉语阅读教学在汉语作为第二语言教学中起着承上启下的作用。通过对第二语言学习者阅读能力的培养,提高了其词汇运用的能力。本文根据本人本学期的高级阅读课实践,也是从授课角度探讨了如何提高留学生的阅读能力。     

Metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension in elementary-school students

The aim of this study was to explore comprehension monitoring and perceived use of reading strategies as factors of reading comprehension. Participants were elementary school students from the fifth to the eighth grade. Error correction and text sensitivity tasks from the Metacomprehension test (Pazzaglia, De Beni, &; Cristante, 1994). and the cloze-task were used as measures of comprehension monitoring during reading. A Strategic reading questionnaire (Koli?-Vehovec &; Baj?anski, 2001b) was applied as a measure of perceived use of strategies during reading. Girls had better results than boys on text comprehension, all measures of comprehension monitoring, as well as on the Strategic reading questionnaire. Significant developmental improvements in comprehension monitoring occurred after the fifth grade and between the sixth and the eighth grade. A similar change was evident in reading comprehension. All measures of comprehension monitoring were significantly related to text comprehension in all age groups. However, perceived use of reading strategies was significantly related to reading comprehension only in eighth-grade students.