楊麗中*
摘要
「好書，好時光」（Good Books, Good Times or GBGT），是一項提供英語 課後輔導班學童英語圖畫書朗讀經驗的教學實驗計畫。 計畫以提昇國小英語 課後輔導班學童的英語朗讀流暢度（oral reading fluency or ORF）為主要目標，
進而瞭解學童在英語朗讀流暢度與相關閱讀理解以及常見單字個別認讀的表 現。 教學實驗為期 12 週，研究團隊配合北市二所國民小學的課程需求，選擇 不同類型的英語圖畫書並且運用重複互動式朗讀，有系統提供英語課後輔導班 學童圖畫書朗讀經驗。40 名中、高年級參加課後輔導班學童隨機分為實驗組 和對照組。實驗過程中，對照組主要使用教科書作為閱讀教材；實驗組除了例 行的教科書複習之外，則搭配教科書內容閱讀討論類似主題及語言特色的各類 型圖畫書。每週有 30 分鐘的時間，對照組採遊戲或角色扮演等方式教學，實 驗組則進行不同形式的英語朗讀練習，並提供語音示範光碟鼓勵學童課後練習。
研究結果發現，經過教學實驗之後，兩組的後測成績均有進步。但是，與對照 組比較，實驗組學童的英語朗讀流暢度和理解表現顯著進步，但是常見單字的 個別認讀表現則稍具優勢。結果也顯示，在常見單字的個別認讀、英語朗讀流
*臺北市立大學英語教學系副教授
暢度及閱讀理解的表現，實驗組內相對低成就學童的後測表現有明顯進步。此 外，相關性分析顯示，實驗組學童每分鐘閱讀正確字數（WCPM）的進步表 現與其每週朗讀練習頻率顯著相關。
關鍵詞：圖畫書、英語朗讀、口語朗讀流暢度、補救教學、國小英語教學
INTRODUCTION
Recent concerns about school children’s English proficiency have led to efforts to expand school programs designed as intervention efforts for children with poor academic performance. Early literacy interventions for our EFL children become an essential part of the "Collaboration Plan: After-School Alternative Program," which Ministry of Education launched in 2006. An important goal of the government-funded program is to offset the myriad developmental risks associated with disability and poverty by improving children’s readiness for schooling and, by extension, their short- and long-term academic success. Since intervention programs were put into practice in a wide range of school communities, however, questions have been coming in thick and fast (Ganske, Monroe, & Strickland, 2003). One of the key questions educators have attempted to answer is what kinds of additional instruction or intervention are likely to help because they are not part of the regular school reading instruction.
Having conducted site visits to after-school programs carried out in the past two years, the researcher observed that some intervention or after-school programs focused primarily on homework completion and tutoring. Educational activities, including homework, were central elements of the after-school program for children. It is indeed important to enable at-risk children to be successful in academic outcomes to help build their confidence as English-language learners.
Given the concerns over ensuring fundamental English skills, however, it is questionable whether sufficient reading opportunities are provided for children who perform poorly at reading, and whether these children receive necessary reading
instruction to process grade-level material that is challenging for them. If the After-school Alternative Program targets mainly on homework completion and tutoring, there is still something not found, something that seems to be the implicit and explicit instruction of reading. For at-risk children in reading, the potential opportunities to allow extended time for them to read may be even more limited.
Particularly for those children who lack exposure to English literacy, a combination of grade-level reading material that is challenging and practices focusing on spellings and pattern drills seems to limit their opportunities to learn to read and build their confidence to process English texts.
For decades, educators have recognized the limitations of basal readers in the development of literacy (Koeller, 1981; Larrick, 1987; Sloan, 2003). Marilyn Cochran-Smith, writer of the classic The Making of a Reader (1984), has suggested that reading is more than decoding and encoding the print, and that early literacy involves more than preparation for breaking the codes. Children need to learn ways to use and understand the written word while learning the mechanical skills of encoding and decoding print. In their longitudinal study of the correlation between reading volume and reading competence, Cunningham and Stanovich (1998) suggested that we must ensure, on the one hand, that children’s decoding and word recognition abilities are progressing solidly. On the other, we should provide all children, regardless of their achievement levels, with as many reading experiences as possible. This, Cunningham and Stanovich emphasize, becomes “doubly imperative for precisely those children whose verbal abilities are not in need of bolstering, for it is the very act of reading that can build those capacities” (p.8).
As far as reading experience and reading volume are concerned, young struggling EFL learners here obviously need more models, explanations, and demonstrations of how reading in English is accomplished, not more assignments without any instruction-level reading material, not more study skills without EFL reading instruction. Elementary school children are now offered English courses with two (or three or more) forty-minute periods per week in the regular EFL classroom. However, becoming proficient in a foreign language is a complex and demanding process that involves learning multiple dimensions of a language. If their attention is focused primarily on remembering what they have read rather than facilitating or evaluating their reading development, many low-performing children have significantly fewer opportunities to develop automatic decoding skills and are less likely to engage in meaningful English literacy related experiences. While some children enter school with hundreds of hours of read-aloud experience and familiarity with a wide array of English books, other children are completely without those experiences. If a normal child who is receiving the regular English-language instruction lacks grade-level English skills, then additional instructional time may be used to provide robust EFL reading instruction in the context of literacy activities that promote reading experience rather than remediates study skills.
PURPOSE
In an effort to capture that often-absent reading experience as well as reading instruction in EFL classroom, “Good Books, Good Times” (GBGT) was designed to provide EFL children with systematically structured read-aloud sessions as part
of the After-School Alternative Program. We hope well-structured read-alouds that occur during the additional instructional time can provide potential opportunities to foster reading experience and to allow extended time for children to sit and read while obtaining support from educators to approach more English texts. "Good Books, Good Times" is named after a famous poem by Lee Bennet Hopkins (1938– ), noted poet and anthologist in the United States. The reading project is named for the fact that that Hopkins dedicated himself to bringing children and books together, and that his most famous poem is "Good Books, Good Times."
The study reported here is an initial investigation into the potential effectiveness of GBGT with intermediate and upper grade children who participated in the After-School Alternative Program. The specific research questions were as follows:
1)Do the instructional methods used in GBGT have an effect on the reading performance of children who participated in the After-School Alternative Program?
2) Is the effect of the instructional methods used in GBGT significantly greater than that of homework assistance methods on the reading performance of children who participated in the After-School Alternative Program?