A literacy exercise: An extracurricular reading program as an intervention to develop student reading habits in Qatar

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation of a two-month reading extracurricular activity designed for fourth grade students. The resulting data and analysis detailed primary students attitudes towards reading, teacher self-efficacy, teacher instructional behavior and home literacy measures. The reading program was designed through a Qatar University partnership with the Childhood Cultural Center, both non-governmental organizations. The program was run in four schools selected randomly. The program was announced to each school and students in the four schools were asked if they wished to enroll after receiving parental consent. In total there were 248 in the treatment group (students who enrolled in the reading program in the English and Arabic) and 176 students who were recruited in the control group (did not enroll in the program). The main analytical design was a split-plot analysis of variance (ANOVA) design. The findings of this study suggested that students in the reading program were prone to have higher interest than those who did not enroll in the reading program, even when factoring out parental and home environment effects. This paper begins by providing background information on the importance of reading. An overview is presented of existing evidence on the effectiveness of an after-school setting and a description of the reading program tested to support the implementation of these models in school sites. The results from this study provide an impact evaluation and recommendations for further implementation.