Victoria Rodrigo

A Randomized Control Study of Instructional Approaches for Struggling Adult Readers

Abstract This study measured the effectiveness of various instructional approaches on the reading outcomes of 198 adults who read single words at the 3.0 through 5.9 grade equivalency levels. The students were randomly assigned to one of the following interventions: Decoding and Fluency; Decoding, Comprehension, and Fluency; Decoding, Comprehension, Fluency, and Extensive Reading; Extensive Reading; and a Control/Comparison approach. The Control/Comparison approach employed a curriculum common to community-based adult literacy programs, and the Extensive Reading approach focused on wide exposure to literature. The Fluency component was a guided repeated oral reading approach, and the Decoding/Comprehension components were SRA/McGraw-Hill Direct Instruction Corrective Reading Programs. Results indicated continued weaknesses in and poor integration of participants’ skills. Although students made significant gains independent of reading instruction group, all improvements were associated with small effect sizes. When reading instruction group was considered, only one significant finding was detected, with the Comparison/Control group, the Decoding and Fluency group, and the Decoding, Comprehension, Extensive Reading, and Fluency group showing stronger word attack outcomes than the Extensive Reading group.

Son conscientes los estudiantes de español intermedio de los beneficios que les brinda la lectura

Se aborda la relacion lectura-adquisicion desde la perspectiva del estudiante, presentando algunas consideraciones practicas para la implementacion de programas de lectura. Se analiza lo que el estudiante experimenta cuando lee y como valora el hecho de utilizar diverso material de lectura (cuentos, relatos, novelas, etc.) como herramienta basica de trabajo en las clases de espanol. Del estudio se desprende que los estudiantes si son conscientes de los beneficios que les brinda la lectura. Las cifras y testimonios de estudiantes comprueban que la lectura les ayuda a desarrollar su competencia linguistica, y que es placentera, estimula el interes por la lengua y les da confianza en si mismos. Tambien se presentan factores que dificultan la comprension de un texto, criterios de seleccion y temas de mayor interes.

Graded Readers: Validating Reading Levels across Publishers.

Graded readers can be an optimal resource to help language students improve and personalize their learning experience. An extensive reading library with graded readers and well-defined levels of reading difficulty increases language students’ chances of having a successful reading experience and become independent readers. However, when it comes to implementing such a library, there is a practical issue. A review of the graded readers available in Spanish reveals different proficiency levels and a lack of a uniform set of criteria for establishing levels of reading difficulty. Through the analysis of 203 titles by 12 publishers (from Spain, England, Italy, and the United States) complemented by an objective and uniform tool—a readability test—the present study validates and suggests alignment among reading levels across publishers. The ultimate goal of this study is to provide language teachers and program administrators with a uniform system of cataloging graded readers under the premise that a well-established library fosters independent language learning.

Aproximación teórica y respuestas pedagógicas al desarrollo de la audición a nivel intermedio

Este articulo plantea la necesidad de la practica explicita de la destreza auditiva en el nivel intermedio de L2, debiendo reconocerse una etapa intermedia, de transicion, entre el material pedagogico (etapa inicial) y el autentico (etapa final) en el desarrollo de la audicion. Se establecio la hipotesis de que un tratamiento eficaz de la audicion en el nivel intermedio se alcanzaria con la aplicacion de la nocion de audicion extensiva y enfocada (AEE) y los principios de autenticidad del mensaje, familiaridad con el tema y exposicion repetida del input. Para analizar el efecto de la practica explicita en la comprension auditiva a traves de la AEE se trabajo con 182 estudiantes de espanol intermedio (112 experimentales y 70 control) que usaron la AEE. Los resultados muestran que los estudiantes en el grupo experimental desarrollaron la comprension auditiva en mayor medida que los del grupo control, encontrandose diferencias significativas segun el modelo de instruccion curricular.

Quantifying comprehension gains after repeated listening by students of Spanish with different listening ability: an exploratory study

ABSTRACTRepeated listening—listening to a passage several times for content and information—is considered an effective strategy to improve listening comprehension, but so far, no study has reported how much understanding increases with each repetition. This study is exploratory in nature and analyzes quantitatively how much 48 students with different degrees of listening ability understand after each repeated listening. The study shows that although the amount of total comprehension relates to learners’ listening ability (low, medium, high), comprehension gains—new information understood after the first and second repetition—do not relate to learners’ listening ability. The data indicate that understanding increased at a similar rate after the first repetition, 14% more, and after the second repetition, 9.3% more, in the three groups. These results suggest that there is benefit in repeated listening and propose its use as an independent learning tool that works at different levels of listening ability.