The supporting effects of high luminous conditions on grade 3 oral reading fluency scores

Michael S Mott,Thea H Williams-Black,Susan S Mcclelland,Daniel H Robinson

doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-53

Michael S Mott, Thea H Williams-Black + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-53

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Journal: SpringerPlus	Publication Date: Jan 25, 2014
Citations: 12	License type: CC BY 2.0

Affiliation: University of Mississippi, Colorado State University

Abstract

The universality of the impact of daylight is a common thread that defines humanity. Day light affects us in a variety of ways –visually, psychologically and biologically. Artificial lighting research has explored ways in which artificial lighting may substitute for daylight and enhance human health and wellbeing. Recently, a study by Mott et al. 2011 found that the usage of high intensity, yet glare free lighting, (referred to as Focus light setting) during reading instruction increased grade 3 students’ oral reading fluency (ORF) scores, a key index of reading comprehension. The current study further explored the effect of Focus lighting during literacy instruction with at-risk grade 3 students (n = 172). Over the course of an academic year, the Focus lighting students increased their ORF scores at a greater rate than did the Normal lighting students. These findings, in combination with earlier lighting research, suggest that artificial lighting plays a key role in helping to create an effective learning environment to ensure children reach their full potential. More systematic research, however, is needed to understand the mechanisms by which artificial lighting may contribute to the learning environment: visually, biologically and/or psychologically.

Highlights

During childhood, children develop essential lifelong skills that will support them throughout their adult lives
The results showed differences among the three times for the both the Normal and Focus lighting groups in the separate repeated measures ANOVAs. This analysis was conducted to compare the three times within both the Focus and Normal lighting conditions. These results showed that in general, all students performed better on the ORF-test over time indicating the expected learning effect: Grade 3 children are supposed to improve their oral reading fluency over time
The paired-sample t-tests to search for differences among the times within each lighting condition revealed all statistical differences at data point 3 (83.44 to 73.52).) with an effect size of 0.34, which is between a medium (.25) and large (.40) effect. These findings suggest that the usage of the focus setting during literacy instruction has a positive influence on the gain in oral reading fluency after one year

Summary

Introduction

Children develop essential lifelong skills that will support them throughout their adult lives. Air quality and temperature (Fisk et al 2003; Shendell, et al 2004; Wargocki et al 2005), noise (Earthman 2004; Evans & Stecker 2004; Higgins et al 2005), music (Pawananon, et al 2009), plants (Bringslimark et al 2009), color (Engelbrecht 2003) and lighting (Dunn et al 1985; Boyce et al 2003) are all reported to influence children’s school performance and well-being. The researchers focused on the effects artificial lighting can have on the learning environment of grade 3 at-risk school children in a Mid-south regional public elementary school. The importance of daylight for mankind and knowing that nowadays children spend around 85cb of their time indoors (Boyce et al 2003; Dijk & Cajochen 1997) suggests that creating a ‘healthy’ learning environment will be key to children’s development and ensuring that their potential is unlocked. Just exactly what roles can artificial light play in creating an optimum-learning environment?

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