The Effects Of Whole Language Instruction On Reading Achievement And Attitude Of Fourth Grade Students PDF Download

The purpose of this study was to determine what effects a college and elementary student supplemental independent reading partner project had on the attitudes, word attack skills, and reading comprehension of average fourth grade readers. The study involved 52 fourth graders who had scored in the third quintile on the reading subtest of the Missouri Mastery Achievement Test at the end of the third grade. All elementary students involved in the study were pre-tested and posttested through administrations of the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey and the Word Attack and Passage Comprehension subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery Revised . The 26 students making up the treatment group were assigned college reading partners who met with them twice a week for a half-hour period of recreational reading. The other 26 students, the control group, received only regular classroom instruction. The data in this study were analyzed using analysis of covariance. The posttest means were compared using pretest scores as the covariate and posttest scores as the dependent variable. Results of the analysis revealed a significant improvement in the academic reading attitude, the recreational reading attitude, and the word attack scores of the treatment group when compared to the control group. The improvement in passage comprehension of the treatment group when compared to that of the control group was not statistically significant, but was approaching significance. On the basis of this study it can be concluded that a college-elementary reading partnership which focuses on recreational reading can improve the reading attitudes, word attack skills, and passage comprehension of the average fourth grade reader.