Effects of Repeated Reading with the Instruction of Different Task on Improving Reading Comprehension for High School Students

李文艷

【Abstract】Effective reading strategies are essential for student reading success. This paper studied the effects of repeated reading on the comprehension for high school students. Two classes of students with 50 in each were asked to read repeatedly and the control group with no intervention reading a new text. Results show that the repeated reading has a positive effect on reading comprehension especially when the reading task was finished under the instruction of different task contents. Discussion focused on future research on reading strategies for high-school students.

【Key words】repeated reading（RR）； reading comprehension； high school students

1. Introduction

The lack of skills is the basic block of reading. It was reported by the Center for Education Reform （1998） that 25% of 12th-grade students have not basic reading skills. Not all of the high-school teachers are prepared to teach basic reading skills（Espin&Tindal，1998）. Thus， high-school students may not get the instruction they need （Gillespie&Rasinski，1989）. One widely studied instruction is repeated reading（RR）. Most of the RR researches are mainly focused on elementary school students. More research is needed on RR strategies for high-school students. Further， there are some studies in China studied the effects of task repetition. Zhou Dandan （2004） asked an English learner to retell a story 6 times， and found that 6 repetitions of the task have some benefits on the task output and complexity of the contents. Du Juan and Zhang Yiping （2011） asked some learners to retell the same story 7 times in 7 weeks and some others to retell 7 different stories in 7 weeks. The date indicates that repetition obviously has effects on the learners oral output. However， the former research on task repetition has mainly focused on the effect which only based on the same task content. The present study further explored the effect of task repetition based on different task contents.

This study was designed to study the RR strategy for high-school students in several ways. Specifically， the two main questions were as follows： （a） Does RR exerts any effect on reading comprehension of the high-school students？ （b） Does RR for the different task content lead to greater gains in reading performance？ It was assumed that RR would have positive effects on reading performance， with RR for the different task content lead to the highest level.

2. Method

2.1 Participants

The participants in the study were 100 Grade 1high-school students in one middle school in Xian. By the time of this study， they had been learning English in schools for at least 5 years， and they had little chance to speak English outside the classroom. All the students were told that the tasks they would take were for the research but were not told the specific purpose of the research. It was assured that the collected date would not be used as an evaluation of their studies so that the anxiety could be avoided. The participants were divided into 2 groups randomly with 50 in each. The two groups were named as Group 1 and Group 2 in the following.

2.2 Materials

Passages from 4 units in Book 1 of New Senior English for China Students were used in the study. We used two passages in the study， and the topics were friendship and earthquake. The first passage was followed by 10 multiple choice questions with three possible answers. Differently， the second passage was not only designed with the above mentioned 10 multiple-choice questions， but also with another 10 true or false determines sentences which were related to the topic of the passage.

2.3 Research Design

The research has designed two experiments which were carried out among 90 students （with 50 students in a group）. At the first experiment， both groups were given a text. In a limited time， students were asked to answer 10 multiple-choice questions after reading and they were not allowed to go back to the text. After finished reading， the text was collected and students answered the questions. Although both groups are required to read a new passage （the difficulty level of which is under the cognitive level of all the participants） in a limited time， the group 2 students were required to finish the reading questions directly， while the group 1 students have to reread the same passage for another two times， then group 1students could answer the questions which were the same as group 2. In the second step， both groups of students were firstly required to reread a new text for 3 times. After students finished reading， the group 1 students need to finish 10 questions which were related to the new passage. While the group 2 students， except for answering the multiple-choice questions， were required to finish another new task—determine another 10 sentences with true or false. All the two tasks were taken after the passages took back when the students finished reading.

3. Results

According to the result of the study， group 1 students with reading repetition answered more questions correctly than group 2 students which have no intervention. That is to say， all participants had better reading comprehension in the RR conditions. As to the results of the second experiment， it was predicated that RR could lead to a greater progress in reading comprehension for all students when they finished tasks under the instruction of different task contents. In all， the efforts made during this intervention show positive results for all participants.

4. Discussion

In this study， RR led to increases in reading comprehension. Findings from this study show that RR can bring progress in comprehension for high-school students. The RR strategies used in this study offered students extra chances to practice reading related text. Besides， through the 10 comprehension questions and 10 true-or-false questions， students paid more attention to the content of proses. Hence， the extra chance to practice different tasks had a positive effect on reading comprehension of high-school students. Besides， after repeating the tasks for several times， the students get more familiar with the content of the task. All students proved progress in reading fluency and comprehension in RR conditions. The mixed results found that RR strategy under the lead of different task contents has greater positive effect on comprehension.

5. Implications for Teaching

Studies have proved the relations between RR and reading comprehension. Versions of the tasks in this study also have been found to have great influence on English learning. The higher levels of comprehension from RR indicate that more reading may help students understand material better， because when the students read the same passage for more times， they paid more attention and made more preparations for their cognitive process； especially when the students have to consolidate their cognition with the help of different task content. The results of this study suggest that RR under the help of different task content can lead to progress beyond only offer students RR method with the same task content. Therefore， much importance should be paid to RR， better with the guide of different task content in reading teaching. What should be paid attention to is that passages and tasks should be designed properly to fit in the levels of learners.

6. Limitations and Future Research

Although some steps have been carried out to reduce the disturbance of other factors on the study， it still has some limitations. First， the limitations to the material used in the study. The comprehension levels of students are only assessed after completing the 10 multiple-choice tasks and 10 true-or-false tasks. A perfect design would include both a pre- and post- assessment using similar tasks in each experimental period to test the ability of students. While this additional assessment was not in this study. Second， the study examined only the immediate effects of RR strategy on the understanding of reading material. It is unknown if RR had an effect on overall comprehension. Future researchers should investigate whether the effects of classwide RR strategies generalize to unknown reading material. Furthermore， this study is done in a small sample size， it is unknown if the results can fit other students with different reading skills.

7. Conclusions

Overall， the results of this study suggest that RR can lead to progress in the reading performance of high-school students. Furthermore， RR under the guide of different task content may enhance positive effects for some students. Greater effects may have resulted if the intervention has occurred more frequently under the guide of different task content. Regarding to the emphasis on content area learning at the secondary level， this strategy could lead to gains in not only reading performance， but also content area performance.

References：

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