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A Study on the Effectiveness of Shared Storybook Reading on College
Sophomores’ Reading Performance
Chien-Hui Hung
1,*Abstract
This study investigated the effectiveness of classroom-based, large-group shared storybook reading on college students. The participants were 108 non-English major technological college sophomores from two classes. The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of shared reading by assessing changes in students’ reading performances and by observing students’ reactions and participation through shared reading. Storybooks were used as the primary reading materials. In terms of quantitative method, oral reading fluency performance was compared before and after the shared reading activity by calculating WCPM. Qualitative data included the researcher’s observation and students’ feedback. Each classroom was observed for a total of five times. Students’ feedback was gathered both during and at the end of the course. The results of the study indicate that students performed better after this shared-reading activity in terms of oral reading fluency. Shared reading created a positive classroom atmosphere and high levels of participation and teacher-student interactions.
Keywords: Shared Reading, College English Teaching, Reading Fluency, English Storybooks
I. Introduction
Due to the global spread of English, the importance of the English subject has been gradually emphasized in Taiwan. Accordingly, the Taiwanese government has included English in elementary school curriculum since 2001 (Chen, 2013; Lin & Wu, 2015). Although college students nowadays have studied English for so many years before they enter colleges, however, not every student has good English skills upon college entrance. Take the students in the author’s school for example. According to the test report in 2012, at least 40% of students have English levels lower than “CEFR1 A2 level.” In addition, these low-achieving students have low motivation in learning English. They don’t like English. They skip English classes. Even if they come to English classes, they don’t pay attention. Most of them play with their cellphones; some even fall asleep in class. For most colleges and universities in Taiwan, unfortunately,
1
Oriental Institute of Technology
*
Correspondence author: Chien-Hui Hung E-mail：fb061@mail.oit.edu.tw
1
CEFR= Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Cadre1_en.asp
there is an English proficiency graduation requirement for everyone, including these low-motivation and low-achieving students. Accordingly, for us, the English teachers, what we could do is to try to find a way to help these disadvantaged students improve English in order to pass the graduation requirement.
In the literature, English storybooks and the shared reading method2 were widely used for younger children to attract interest and to promote motivation (Mooney, 1994; Justice & Kaderavek, 2002). The benefits of the shared reading activities also include the vocabulary growth (Senechal & Cornell, 1993; Coyne, M. D. et al, 2004; Gonzalez, J. E. et al, 2014) and the development of phonological awareness (Burgess, 1997; Gill, 2006). In addition, the effectiveness of the shared reading activity was also proved on disadvantaged children and on children with special needs (Scher, 1998; Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Zevenbergen, A. A. et al, 2003).
Although technological college students are not children, but according to the author’s observation, many students have English abilities lower than some children nowadays. Furthermore, according to the test reports3 in the author’s school in recent years, students’ English reading abilities were much poorer than their English listening abilities. In order to help these low-achieving students pass English graduation requirement, the focus of the teaching should be put on improving the reading skill. Accordingly, the author decided to apply the above-mentioned shared reading method on students in the technological college and to use English storybooks as the teaching material. As a result, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of shared storybooks reading by assessing changes in students’ reading performances and by observing students’ reactions and participation through shared reading.
II. Research Methods
In this study, the author served as the teacher, the classroom observer and the researcher. First, the lab classroom was used to serve as the teaching facility to carry out this shared reading activity. Both of the teacher and students used headphones during this activity. With the help of the equipment in the lab classroom, everyone was able to hear everyone’s reading clearly without having to shout. By shared reading, everyone took turns reading by sentence until a story was finished. Students’ reading was recorded and the teacher made prompt corrections for pronunciation, stress and intonation.
Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to assess the effectiveness of this shared reading activity. In terms of the quantitative method, this research used “one-minute oral reading assessment” method adopted in previous researches (Chou, 2013; Hasbrouck & Tindal, 1992, 2006). In order to compare oral reading fluency performances before and after the shared reading activity, a pre-test and two post-tests were conducted. Then, the number of the words students read correctly per minute (WCPM)4 was compared to study the improvement if there was any. Qualitative methods included classroom observations and questionnaires. Classroom observations were implemented for a total of five times. Then, the students were asked to fill in questionnaires to express their opinions on
2
The shared reading approach was initiated by Holdaway (1979).
3
TOEIC and CSEPT test reports.
4
WCPM is used to measure fluency.
English storybooks and on the shared reading activity. Seven different English storybooks were read in this study. The stories that were used include “Cinderella (internet resource)”, “Prince Cinders5 (Cole, 1987)”, “Princess Smartypants6 (Cole, 1986 )”, “Frozen (Disney, 2013)”, “Three Little Pigs (Disney, 2004)”, “The true story of the three little pigs (Scieszka, 1989)” and “Six Dinner Sid (Moore, 1991)”.
III. Research Participants
As shown in Table One presented below, there were a total of 108 participants in this study. Male students outnumbered female students. There were 87 male students and 21 female students. Most students were from the engineering-related department. Eighty-six students were from the Department of Engineering, including 80 male students and 6 female students. Twenty-two students were from the Department of Marketing, including 7 male students and 15 female students. All of them were non-English major college sophomores.
Table One Participants Statistics
Departments Male Female Total
Engineering 80 6 86
Marketing 7 15 22
Total 87 21 108
In order to understand student’s English proficiency levels, they were given a College Student English Proficient practice test (CSEPT) at the beginning of the class. Then their grades were compared and related to the CEFR proficiency level according to the standard from the LTTC7. Table Two presents these student’s English proficiency levels. Most students were at the A2 level. Sixty-one percent of students were at the A2 level; twenty percent of students were above the A2 level (B1); nineteen percent of students were below the A2 level (A1).
Table Two Participants’ English Levels
CEFR A1 CEFR A2 CEFR B1
# of Students 20 (19%) 66 (61%) 22 (20%)
IV. Quantitative Results
In order to understand if this shared-reading activity did improve student’s reading fluency. This paper conducted pre and post oral tests to assess students’ improvement. The pre-test included 16 reading passages8. These reading passages were between 110-140 words and each passage included the words and grammatical structures within the range of the elementary level of the General English proficiency Test (GEPT)9. Before the pre-test was given, student
5
Lee (2008) used this story of “Prince Cinders” on her teaching on technological students.
6
Lee (2008) used this story of “Princess Smartypants” on her teaching on technological students.
7
The Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC) https://www.lttc.ntu.edu.tw/CEFRbyLTTC_tests.htm
8
These reading passages were derived from http://www.ept-xp.com/?ID=220023
9
had never read these passages before. Students were randomly assigned to one of the reading passages. The shared-reading English storybooks were served as the post-test reading materials. We did two comparisons. The first one was the comparisons between the pre-reading test and the post- story test. The second one was the comparisons between the pre-reading test and the post-reading test.
Table Three presented below shows the comparisons between Pre-reading test and Post-story Test in terms of the number of the words students read correctly per minute (WCPM). From the table, we can see clearly that the average WCPM increased in the post test. The average WCPM increased from 114 words to 116 words per minute. However, this improvement was not significant.
Table Three WCPM Comparisons between Pre-Reading Test and Stories
WCPM Mean SD t p
Pre-Test 113.71 28.01 0.6161 0.54 Stories 115.78 29.26
In the second comparison, students were tested for the same level of GEPT reading passages twice, before and after the story shared-share activity. Because students were randomly assigned to the reading passages, they didn’t read exactly the same passage for two tests. The results are shown on Table Four below. Again, in the post-test, the average WCPM increased from 113 words per minute to 118 words per minute. But this improvement was still not significant.
Table Four WCPM Comparisons between Pre-Test and Post-Test
WCPM Mean SD t p
Pre-Test 112.54 27.87 1.406 0.17
Post-Test 117.79 25.28
Why were the improvements not significant? We believe it might due to this short period of time between the pre-test and the post-test. As it has been mentioned previously, the shared-reading activity was just carried out for five times so that the pre-test and the post-test were just 6 weeks away. It’s difficult for students to make a significant improvement in such a short period of time. Although the quantitative analysis didn’t provide significant evidence for this share-reading activity, this activity can still be seen as a success in terms of promoting student’s reading fluency from the evidence gathered from the teacher’s observation and from students’ comments about this activity.
V. Qualitative Results
As mentioned previously, the qualitative methods used in this study included classroom observations and questionnaires. Qualitative data were collected by the researcher to gain a deeper understanding of how the students related to the shared reading activity. During the researcher’s five-time observations, several advantages have been detected including a very positive classroom atmosphere, a high level of participation and a high level of interaction. In addition, teacher’s prompt corrections benefited students a lot. Following by weekly observations, the finding was that this shared reading activity did improve students’ reading fluency. However, one disadvantage was detected- when the
teacher spent too much time on correcting one student, other students got bored. During this activity, when the teacher heard the mistakes, the teacher always made the corrections right away by giving students the clues but not the correct answers. Thus, students would need to figure out the correct answers by themselves. It’s unavoidable that some students simply took longer to get the right answers. When this self-correction process got too long for a student, other students got bored and sometimes they complained and showed impatience. Furthermore, due to the attention span, students paid more attention on the first hour of this reading activity. Two-hour of shared-reading time without a break was found too much for them.
The other observations included that students paid more attention on the stories they have never read before. “Three little pigs” is a very popular children’s storybook and almost everyone had heard about it before. In that story, the wolf ate three little innocent pigs. Actually, the wolf didn’t eat only “pigs,” he also ate other innocent animals in other storybooks. Therefore, people called the wolf “the big bad wolf.” The story of “the true story of the three little pigs,” however, disagreed with this wolf stereotype and told the story from the viewpoint of the wolf. The wolf explained the reasons why he had to eat the pigs and blamed the reporter for making him the bad figure. The wolf further accused that it’s the reporters who jazzed up the story with all of that “Huff and puff and blow your house down,” and made the wolf “a big bad wolf.” Since the majority of the students had never heard the story from the wolf’s perspective, they were so eager to find out what the wolf would have to say and of course almost everyone concentrated on the story during the shared-reading activity.
After the shared-reading activity, students were asked to write down their comments. Most students had a very good experience and provided very positive comments. Students said shared reading was interesting and created a very happy classroom atmosphere. By reading together, they enjoyed the stories more. By listening to everyone’s reading with various voice performances, students found it very entertaining but at the same it has served as a great opportunity for students to learn from each other. In addition, this activity helped them stay focus and helped them improve reading fluency and build courage. They practiced pronunciation skills through this activity and got prompt feedback from the teacher’s corrections. Since everyone got a turn to read the story, they felt a sense of participation. Finally, they said this activity improved the relationships between the teacher and the students because there were a high level of interactions between the teacher and the students during this activity. There were just very few students who had a different opinion. For the students who dislike this activity, their biggest fear was that other classmates would laugh at them if they made mistakes or took too long to get the pronunciation or the interaction right.
VI. Discussions and Conclusions
This research investigated the effectiveness of classroom-based, large-group shared storybook reading on participant’s reading performances. Different from the previous studies which used this approach on younger children, this study applied the method of the shared storybook reading on college sophomores. A total of 108 college sophomores participated in this study. This research compared their average WCPM before and after the shared storybook reading activity to study the improvement in their oral reading fluency.
The quantitative results showed an increase in the average WCPM after the shared reading activity, but the empirical results were not significant. Although the quantitative results didn’t provide significant evidence for this shared-reading activity, this activity can still be seen as a success in terms of promoting students’ reading fluency from the evidence gathered from the teacher’s observation and from the students’ comments about this activity. According to the teacher’s observation, students performed better after this shared-reading activity in terms of oral reading fluency. It helped students in many ways, not just in improving their English abilities but also in helping improve students’ relationship with the teacher. Shared reading created a positive classroom atmosphere, a high level of participation and a high level of teacher-student interaction. However, the students were much more likely to enjoy shared reading if they had similar reading abilities. Some were found impatient if too much time was spent on one student in correcting that student’s mistake. In addition, shared reading activities were not suggested to take up the entire class time. The students showed the tiredness if the activity was too long. What’s more, reading material affected the effectiveness of shared reading. The students were found to concentrate more on the stories that interested them. Third, reading fluency needs time to improve. The more students practice in reading, the more fluent readers they would become.
This study has some limitations. First, the period of observation was too short. The shared reading activities were carried out for only five weeks in this study. Such a short period of study time was also considered as the reason for the insignificant improvement in students’ oral fluency. A longer study period, such as one semester or an academic year, is suggested to use in order to provide enough time to study the improvement. Second, most participants in this study were from the Engineering department and most participants were male students. It’s suggestible to include students from various departments to study the differences from different backgrounds. Finally, it’s the choice of the reading material. This research also agreed with the conclusion from previous research- Starting from storybooks is easier and work better in English teaching since English storybooks promote interest and increase motivation (Lee, 2008). However, college students are not children. It’s important to use storybooks which are meaningful to them and appropriate to their ages. It is suggested that more age-appropriate storybooks be used in the future study to further motivate technological college students to read in English.
References
Books
1. Cole, B. (1986). Princess Smartypants. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Son. 2. Cole, B. (1987). Prince Cinders. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Son. 3. Disney, RH (2004). The Three Little Pig. Golden/Disney. 4. Disney. (2013). Frozen. New York. Los Angeles: Disney Press. 5. Holdaway, D. (1979). The foundations of literacy. New York: Scholastic. 6. Moore, I. (1991). Six-Dinner Sid. New York: Aladdin.
Papers
8. Burgess, S. (1997). The role of shared reading in the development of phonological awareness: a longitudinal study of middle to upper class children. Early Child Development and Care, 127 (1), 191-199.
9. Chen, A. H. (2013). An evaluation on primary English education in Taiwan: From the perspective of language policy. English Language
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10. Chou, C. T. (2013). A study on the effectiveness of applying “Readers’ Theater” as English remedial instruction for underachievers.
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11. Coyne, M. D., Simmons, D. C., Kame’enui, E. J., & Stolmiller, M. (2004). Teaching vocabulary during shared storybook readings: An examination of differential effects. Exceptionality, 12(3), 145-162.
12. Gill, S. R. (2006). Teaching rimes wit shared reading. The Reading Teacher, 60(2), 191-193.
13. Gonzalez, J. E., Pollard-Durodola, S., Simmons, D. C., Taylor, A. B., Davis, M. J., Fogarty, M., & Simmons, L. (2014). Enhancing preschool children's vocabulary: Effects of teacher talk before, during and after shared reading. Early Childhood Research Quarterly,
29(2), 214-226.
14. Hasbrouck, J. E., & Tindal, G. (1992). Curriculum-based oral reading fluency norms for students in grades 2 through 5. Teaching
Exceptional Children, 24, 41-44.
15. Hasbrouck, J. E., & Tindal, G. (2006). Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for reading teachers. The Reading
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17. Lee, Z. Y. (2008). Creative English Teaching for Technology Colleges: Story Teaching. Fooyin University.
18. Lin, H. Y., & Wu, C. S. (2015). English, Competitiveness, and Deficiency: A Critical Discourse Analysis of English Education in Taiwan. International Journal of English and Education, 4(1), 160-175.
19. Lonigan, C. J., & Whitehurst, G. J. (1998). Relative efficacy of parent and teacher involvement in a shared-reading intervention for preschool children from low-income backgrounds. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 13(2), 263-290.
20. Mooney, M. (1994). Shared reading: Making it work for you and your children. Teaching PreK-8, 25, 70-72.
21. Scher, P. J. (1998). Practitioner’s perspective: shared-reading intervention. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 13(2), 291-292. 22. Senechal, M., & Cornell, E. H. (1993). Vocabulary acquisition through shared reading experiences. Reading Research Quarterly, 28,
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23. Zevenbergen, A. A., Whitehurst, G. J., & Zevenberge, J. A. (2003). Effects of a shared-reading intervention on the inclusion of evaluative devices in narratives of children from low-income families. Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 1-15.
Internet Resources
24. Cinderella Story:
www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/english/story_telling/cinderela/cinderella1.htm 25. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFF):
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Cadre1_en.asp 26. Fluency:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/fluency-norms-chart https://www.teachervision.com/skill-builder/reading/48606.html 27. Reading Test Passages:
http://www.ept-xp.com/?ID=220023
28. The Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC) https://www.lttc.ntu.edu.tw/CEFRbyLTTC_tests.htm
