Abstract
The current study investigated the effects of interactive picture-book read-alouds on middle school EFL students’ word inference ability and attitudes toward reading in English. To this end, two classes of seventh-grade students from a public middle school in Taiwan participated and were randomly divided into two groups: an interactive picture-book read-aloud (IPBRA) group and a control group. The intervention took place in a 40-minute morning study hall per week over a period of 10 weeks. The two groups were tested using Reading Attitude Survey (RAS) and Word Inference Assessment (WIA) two weeks before and then two weeks after the intervention was implemented to assess improvement. Results indicated that interactive picture-book read-alouds had a positive impact on EFL middle schoolers’ reading attitudes and use of text and prior knowledge to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words. This study suggests that the motivating learning atmosphere of interactive picture-book read-alouds provided positive classroom environment and enabled students to have fun while interacting freely with one another, which, in turn, facilitated reading attitude changes, leading to better learning and better performance on word inference in subsequent reading activities.
Highlights
Often when English teachers announce reading time, young students past the elementary grades mutter and make faces
Paired-samples t-tests for changes of reading attitudes by each group indicated that the interactive picture-book read-aloud (IPBRA) group showed significantly better reading attitudes in all three domains after the read-aloud intervention, whereas for the control group no significant differences were found in the three domains and the overall reading attitudes
The current study investigated the effects of interactive picture-book read-alouds on middle school English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ attitudes toward reading in English and ability to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words from context and illustrations
Summary
Often when English teachers announce reading time, young students past the elementary grades mutter and make faces. Middle school students have often been characterized as apathetic readers (Warren, 2012) This trend of negative attitudes toward recreational and academic reading was found among teenage learners in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts (Chen & Chen, 2015). My own survey of 687 eighth graders in Taiwan (365 in 2017 and 322 in 2018), for example, showed that only 2% often (once every 1-2 weeks) did outside reading in English, 5% sometimes (once every 1-2 months), 48% seldom (once or twice every year), and 45% never.
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