Improving Students' Reading

Abstract

W HEN left to their own devices, college Freshmen, in general do not improve their reading abilities. Robb and Robinson found the average gains of untrained students on the Iowa Comprehension Test over a period of months to be negligible (7, 8). The 235 Freshmen studied by Thompson showed a slight loss in their scores on the Whipple Reading Test during a semester in which they had had no special practice in reading (iO). A stimulating educational environment may spur certain individuals to acquire greater efficiency in reading, but the majority of college students seem to require strongly motivated intelligent practice before they change from lower orders of perceptual habits to more efficient ways of reading. There is abundant experimental evidence that college students improve in certain reading abilities as the result of individualized instruction in some aspects of reading. More than ten years ago Stone reported cases of students who increased their rate of silent reading So to ioo per cent, largely as a result of practice in reading as rapidly as possible with adequate comprehension (9). Pressey was convinced by the results of her experience with 422 Freshmen who scored in the lowest quarter on reading tests given during Freshman Week that students can be trained to read effectively (5). Eurich found formal drill efficacious only in increasing the students' scores on a vocabulary test which included many of the words which they had practiced (2). Robinson's group of 2I students who were given individual training with special emphasis on spaced phrases over a period of about ten weeks increased their scores on the paragraph-comprehension section of the Iowa Silent Reading Test from the i8th-percentile to the 55thpercentile; on the Iowa Silent Reading Rate Test from the 28thto the 97th-percentile; and on the Minnesota Speed of Reading Test from the 9thto the 39th-percentile (2). There are four main types of practice material which have been used in improving the reading abilities of college students: selections from the student's required or recreational reading, specially prepared paragraphs with questions or other exercises to check comprehension, vocabulary drill, and devices for increasing the number of words which can be comprehended at a single fixation.