Effects of repeated reading and self-directed behavior on reading skills and generalization of the reading skills of the third-grade hill tribe students

Abstract

To examine the effects of repeated reading and self-directed behavior on reading skills and generalization of the reading skills. Twenty-eight participants were selected from poor third-grade hilltribe readers from ChiangMai Suksasongkraw School. They were matched by reading times and comprehension scores and were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions: (a) repeated reading with self-directed behavior (RR+SDB) (b) repeated reading with teacher-directed behavior (RR+TDB), (c) non-repeated reading with self-directed behavior (NRR+SDB), and (d) non-repeated reading with teacher-directed behavior (NRR+TDB). The material included five sets of repeated and non-repeated stories and three new stories. The individual student orally reread 4 times of each set of repeated or non-repeated stories, detected errors while reading, and answered comprehension questions after reading. The students used self-directed or teacher-directed behavior according to their treatment conditions. When finished reading, each student was provided the three new stories to read for testing reading skills generalization. The dependent variables included three types of reading skills (a) reading time (speed), (b) error detection, and (c) comprehension. Results revealed that (a) The students who used repeated reading were significantly better than the students who used non-repeated reading on reading time and error detection, but not on comprehension; (b) The students who used self-directed behavior were not different from the students who used teacher-directed behavior in reading time, error detection, and comprehension; (c) The students who performed repeated reading with self-directed behavior were significantly better than those students who performed repeated reading with teacher-directed behavior in reading time; (d) It was found that there was significant improvement in reading time and error detection in the repeated reading with self-direction group; and (e) The generalization of reading time was found in both repeated reading and non-repeated reading