Date of Award

8-1990

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

Two instructional methods of teaching remedial reading in a Chapter I (Education Consolidation and Improvement Act) setting were compared. One group of 20 remedial reading students received a traditional or isolated skills (IS) approach to reading and a group of 20 remedial reading students with similar ability and achievement levels received a whole language (WL) approach to reading for 7 months. A comparable control (C) group was selected from Chapter I classes in two other schools. All groups spent from 30-45 minutes in a small group (5-8) Chapter I setting with computers and a variety of reading materials available.

Group IS was taught using a typical remedial approach (phonics, sight words, vocabulary, main idea, and drawing conclusions were emphasized). This group participated in a writing project once a month which lasted for three or more days. Group WL, the whole language group, read children's literature, often with taped assistance, and wrote reactions to the text in dialogue journals each day. The instructor wrote back to them in their journals, maintaining a dialogue, modeling spelling and language patterns and encouraging further thought on the reading material. Little direct phonics instruction was undertaken with this group, but silent and oral reading, journal writing and sharing were stressed.

The reading subtest of the California Achievement Test, (CAT) was used to measure reading achievement from 1988 to 1989 for all groups. The Test of Written Language (TOWL) was used to measure written language skills from 1988 to 1989 for the experimental groups. Analysis of variance and analysis of covariance were used to measure differences among groups. Although all groups made significant reading and writing gains, there was no significant difference among groups as measured by the CAT and the TOWL. The primary conclusion of this study was that the instructional model may not be a critical factor in determining reading gains in a Chapter I setting; future research may explore other potential factors critical to reading gains. Ethnographic or qualitative evaluation of writing in response to literature and in exploring reading/writing connections is recommended for future research.

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