Abstract
This study compares the effectiveness of context clue strategy instruction to wide reading practices in terms of their impact on the vocabulary knowledge of students who read at frustration level. The participants were 44 sixth-grade students from a middle grades school. Students were randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. The experimental condition students were trained to use context clues to infer meaning from context using a direct instruction method. A contextual vocabulary test consisting of 30 multiple-choice items was used to assess the students' understanding of the word meanings in context. The results indicated that the experimental condition demonstrated higher levels of improvement in the vocabulary knowledge than the control condition (which practiced a wide reading strategy. The findings suggest that a reading intervention focused on using context clues can have a worthwhile effect on the ways in which students who experience difficulties with comprehension increase their proficiency in learning from context and hence build their vocabularies.
Highlights
Range of words presented in a variety of textual contexts (Goswami, 2001 cited Graves, 2006; Nagy, 2005)
The results showed that the proportion of correct answers on the contextual vocabulary test (CVT) for students under both treatment conditions increased from the preto the posttest
The results indicated that the wide reading practices employed in the control condition made a significant contribution to students’ vocabulary
Summary
Research Design and Participants In this study, a pretest–posttest quasi-experimental design was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of context clue strategy instruction on vocabulary development. To identify the reading level of participants, the Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 (QRI-5) was used to determine student’s initial reading proficiency with regard to word identification and comprehension rate (Leslie & Caldwell, 2011). It is used to estimate students’ reading levels—independent, instructional, or frustration—for word identification in context and for comprehension and to determine if materials are appropriate for student use. Frustration level indicates that students struggle with word identification when they are reading or are unable to comprehend the material satisfactorily (Leslie & Caldwell, 2011). Implicit questions require the reader to use context clues in the passage to infer meanings in order to answer correctly. These questions assess the reader’s inferring abilities in context (Leslie & Caldwell, 2011). Fifteen of the 95 students scored above 90% for comprehension and above 99% for the word
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