Underlying Changes in Repeated Reading: An Eye Movement Study

Abstract

.Past research supports the use of repeated reading but does not provide conclusive evidence as to the mechanisms through which RR takes effect. Eye movement studies allow for precise examination of intervention effects. The current study examined underlying changes in elementary students' (N = 43) reading behavior across four consecutive readings of the same passage. Passage-level analyses revealed that rereading yielded significant decreases in measures thought to reflect early processing (i.e., first fixation duration, gaze duration) and higher level processing (i.e., total fixation time, number of regressions, average number of fixations per word). Analyses based on embedded high- and low-frequency target words suggested that repeated reading mainly facilitates reading of low-frequency words, but that children remain sensitive to word frequency after rereading. Finally, results indicated that children who have completed repeated reading continue to focus on word-level (vs. passage-level) reading but devote less overall attention to individual words with repeated practice.