The Effect Of Guided Reading And Word-mapping On Vocabulary, Comprehension And Fluency Of Struggling Adolescent Readers

Abstract

Educational research has demonstrated that there is a correlation between struggling readers and poor vocabulary knowledge skills. In this quasi-experimental study 53 fifth and sixth grade struggling reader in a low socioeconomic suburban school district were assigned to one of three treatments designed to improve their knowledge of 30 high frequency words by: 1) a word-mapping treatment in which students focused on the definition, synonyms, a sentence and drawing to illustrate the meaning of the targeted words; 2) a guided reading treatment in which students were presented with four different reading passages and asked to focus on and define the targeted words; and 3) a control treatment in which the district-wide use of flashcards drill and practice were used to learn words from the high frequency list. Students completed pre-tests and four week delayed post-tests after the treatment on each of five measures. Sentence construction was tested after the treatments were completed. Analysis of Covariance and correlated t-tests were done to investigate two questions: 1) Considering each treatment on its own, did word mapping, guided reading and flashcards treatments have a significant effect on vocabulary knowledge, comprehension, word recognition, fluency, sentence completion and sentence production; 2) Were there significant differences among the word mapping , guided reading and flashcard treatment groups? There were significant differences at the post-test among the three groups for word recognition and fluency.