Teaching reading strategies is a promising attempt to foster reading comprehension. During the last 20 years several instructional programs have been implemented successfully into regular classroom settings and in most of the studies children’s knowledge of reading strategies and achievement in reading comprehension increased. However, long-term effects of strategy-oriented reading programs have been evaluated very rarely. The aim of our study was to analyse, if a strategy-oriented program would bring about long-lasting effects over the period of two school years.

Eight fifth grade classrooms with 207 students participated in the study. The reading strategy program “Becoming a text-detective” which consists of 25 reading lessons was administered to six classes during the first half of the grade five school year. The other two classes served as the control group. Pre- and posttest data were collected immediately before and after the program. Retention tests were run at the end of the sixth grade school year. Competence in understanding the use of reading strategies, reading comprehension, and self-efficacy related to reading were assessed. Additionally, teachers completed a questionnaire concerning further use of strategy-oriented reading instruction.

With respect to all three criteria, the text-detective group showed significantly higher long-term gains than did the control group. Effect-sizes varied from d=.31 (self-efficacy) over d=.37 (strategy knowledge) to d=.46 (reading comprehension). Short term effects turned out to be quite comparable to the retention effects, underlining the high stability of gains in the treatment group. Teachers declared that they were going to continue teaching reading strategies and that they would use the program again.

The results underline that teaching reading strategies offers a high impact on the development of reading competence. A necessary condition for this result may have been that teachers were convinced by the program and stated to make further use of the programs’ principles.

Theoretical background

Teaching reading strategies is a promising attempt to foster reading comprehension. During the last 20 years there has been a shift from ‘pure’ strategic and metastrategic programs (e.g., Paris, Cross & Wixson, 1983) to more complex concepts, where an integrative use of instructional approaches like explicit strategy instruction and peer-tutoring is combined with elements to foster reading motivation and teaching of reading strategies (e.g., Guthrie, Wigfield & Perencevich, 2004). However, most of these approaches have been implemented successfully into regular classroom settings. Furthermore, children’s knowledge of reading strategies and achievement in reading comprehension increased in most of the studies.

The implementation of strategy-oriented programs usually is associated with two goals. First, students are expected to benefit from this alternative approach of teaching. Secondly, giving worked-out programs to teachers is accompanied by the aim of changing teachers’ behaviour. It is expected that principles of strategy-oriented instruction are moved into the classroom this way. As a result, effects of strategy programs should prove to be stable over time.

The question of long-term effects of strategy-oriented reading programs has been evaluated very rarely. The longest retention-test intervals lasted about five months (Souvignier & Mokhlesgerami, 2006; van Keer, 2004).

Aims

The main question of our study was to analyse, if the strategy-oriented program “Becoming a text-detective” would bring about long-lasting effects over the period of two school years. Since the concept of reading competence covers aspects as reading motivation and knowledge about reading strategies, these two criteria were considered as well as reading comprehension. Two additional questions which were addressed in our study covered the aspects of immediate effects of the program and teachers’ statements on whether they kept on using strategy-oriented elements in their daily classroom routines.

Methodology

Eight fifth grade classrooms with 207 students participated in the study. The mean age of the students was 11 years. The reading strategy program which consisted of an instructional script for 25 reading lessons was administered to six of these classes during the first half of the grade five school year. The other two classes took their regular reading courses and served as the control group. Pretest data were collected at the beginning of the school year prior to the intervention (October 03). Post-tests were carried out after finishing the program (February 2004). Retention test data were collected at the end of the sixth grade school year (July 2005).

We used three tests to evaluate changes in achievement: To assess students’ competence in understanding the use of reading strategies a scale with ten items was administered (Cronbach’s Alpha = .60) (Mokhlesgerami, 2004). The reading comprehension inventory consisted of a narrative text and an expository text with 17 multiple choice questions each. While the easier questions asked for text-based understanding, some more demanding questions needed reasoning and inferences from text (Cronbach’s Alpha = .87) (Trenk-Hinterberger, 2006). To measure self-efficacy related to reading an eleven-item-scale based on an inventory of Jerusalem and Satow (1999) was used (Cronbach’s Alpha = .80). Additionally, teachers were asked to complete a short questionnaire concerning the acceptance of the program and further use of principles of strategy-oriented reading instruction. Since the sample of six text-detective teachers was quite small, data from 14 teachers from another evaluation of the text-detective program were added to get a more substantial picture of the continuity of strategy instruction.

Findings

With respect to all three criteria, the text-detective group showed significantly higher long-term gains than did the control group. Effect-sizes varied from d=.31 (self-efficacy) over d=.37 (strategy knowledge) to d=.46 (reading comprehension). Short term effects turned out to be quite comparable to the retention effects, underlining the high stability of gains in the treatment group. Only one out of 20 teachers declared that he did not continue teaching reading strategies and only three teachers said that they would not use the program again.

Theoretical and educational significance of the research

The main finding is that – even over the period of two school years – the effects of teaching the self-regulated use of reading strategies proves to be stable. This is not only true for the criterion of reading comprehension, but also for reading strategy knowledge and self-efficacy related to reading. Hence, the results of our study underline that the process oriented instruction of teaching reading strategies offers a high impact on the development of reading competence. An interesting finding is that explicit instruction of reading strategies results in higher self-efficacy. This underlines that motivational aspects, which are difficult to enhance, can be addressed by fostering specific competencies. Teachers’ statements endorse this point of view. They were convinced by the positive results of the strategy-oriented program and stated to make further use of the programs’ principles.

References

Guthrie, J.T., Wigfield, A. & Perencevich, K.C. (2004). Motivating reading comprehension: Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction. Mahwah: Erlbaum.

Jerusalem, M. & Satow, L. (1999). Schulbezogene Selbstwirksamkeitserwartungen [School-related self-efficacy beliefs]. In R. Schwarzer & M. Jerusalem (Eds.), Dokumentation des psychometrischen Verfahrens im Modellversuch „Selbstwirksame Schulen“ (pp. 15-16). Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin.

Mokhlesgerami, J. (2004). Förderung der Lesekompetenz [Fostering reading competence]. Hamburg: Kovac.

Paris, S.G., Cross, D.R. & Wixson, K.K. (1983). Becoming a strategic reader. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8, 293-316.

Souvignier, E. & Mokhlesgerami, J. (2006). Using self-regulation as a framework for implementing strategy instruction to foster reading comprehension. Learning and Instruction, 16, 57-71.

Trenk-Hinterberger, I. (2006). Lesekompetenz im Schulunterricht. [Reading competence in the classroom]. Hamburg: Kovac.

Van Keer, H. (2004). Fostering reading comprehension in fifth grade by explicit instruction in reading strategies and peer tutoring. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 37-70.