Developmental Reading Courses Research Articles

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Hybrid Developmental Reading Course at One Urban Community College: A Quasi-Experimental Comparative Study


 
 
 Based on the response for the need to engage students in developmental reading, the purpose of this study was to examine whether a hybrid method of instruction has an impact on student reading achievement. To measure reading achievement, quantitative data in the form of student grades on end of the semester exit exams was collected. Data was analysed using dependent-samples paired t-test and the results indicated a significant impact on reading achievement: t=.360, p=0.011. Future research is needed to determine the impact of the hybrid method of instruction on developmental reading students in differing socioeconomic backgrounds and geographic locations.
 
 

AN ANALYSIS ON “DEVELOPMENTAL READING AND NURSING PROGRAM PARTNERSHIPS: HELPING STUDENTS SUCCEED IN READING-INTENSIVE COURSEWORK”

Reading skill is one of the foundations to build critical thinking ability. The improvement of reading ability will help to cultivate students critical thinking and understanding ability. This paper focuses on the relationship between reading skills and critical thinking skills, and further analyzes and discusses the effectiveness of seventeen targeted strategies that are helpful to improve students learning ability and reading skills. Through the test on students from Mount Aloysius College, the researchers found out that there is a positive relationship between improving reading skills and critical thinking ability. Because of the importance of reading ability to critical thinking, the author suggests introducing effective developmental reading courses to help nursing students improve their learning ability. At the end of the article, the author gives some suggestions on the future research direction, such as expanding the experimental samples and changing the teaching methods. KEY WORDS: Critical thinking skills; Reading skills; Nursing students; Study strategies.

What Does It Mean to Be College-Ready for Career Technical Education?

Objective/Research Question: Surprisingly, little research explores the literacy practices specific to career technical education (CTE) courses at the postsecondary level, yet the number of students coming to college needing literacy support continues to increase. There is a need for focused research on what constitutes college-readiness. The study described in this article addresses this overarching issue by exploring the text expectations, including text types, tasks, and goals in both CTE courses and developmental reading (DR) courses to determine whether, how, and to what extent text expectations align across the DR and CTE courses. Methods: This multisite research project involved three community colleges in one Midwestern state. Data sources included surveys, focus groups, and textbooks for all courses. Data collection procedures were comparable for each type of data, across all study sites, focal tracks, and constituency groups. Results: This study’s findings suggest a lack of alignment between the DR courses and the introductory-level CTE courses, on a number of levels. Conclusions/Contributions: This study’s findings suggest a need to continue investigating what constitutes college-ready for reading, across multiple disciplinary and career technical areas.

Integrating Service-Learning Pedagogy Into Community College Coursework

Developmental students face significant academic and life challenges as they pursue a college degree. As students in developmental studies often struggle to complete their courses, research focused on innovative pedagogy that engages students while developing skills is needed. This project sought to investigate implementing an on-campus, service-learning (SL) component into developmental reading courses. Students participated in SL by reading to children at the on-campus Early Childhood Center (ECC) one time per week, during scheduled class, with time provided for structured metacognition through reflective journals. A phenomenological approach was used for this study, and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to examine responses and note trends in data. It was found that students who participated in SL as part of their developmental reading course reported multiple positive effects such as developing a positive academic mindset, improving self-efficacy, and increasing motivation to read.

Perceptions of undergraduates on the relationship between exposure to blended learning and online critical literacy skills

Background: Exposure to a blended experience has the potential to heighten students’ online critical literacy skills, and prepare them to participate in the new online communities that emerge within a networked society. Objectives: This article considered the perceptions of a cohort of third-year undergraduates of the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, on the relationship between exposure to blended learning (BL) and the development of online critical literacy skills. Method: A BL mode, which took the form of a face-to-face approach and the use of a virtual learning environment, was employed in teaching Critical Literacy, a component of the Developmental Reading Skills course designed for undergraduates of English as a second language. For 4 weeks, 80 students were trained to read web-based information critically and evaluate web pages in the Developmental Reading course, after which their perception of the relationship between exposure to BL and the development of online critical literacy skills was investigated. This work, for which data were obtained through focus group discussion and administration of a structured questionnaire, is grounded in both critical literacy (Janks 2013) and social constructivist theories (McInerney & McInerney 2002). Frequency distribution and Pearson correlation coefficient were employed in analysing the data collected. Results: The results revealed that the students perceived a positive relationship between exposure to BL and the development of online critical literacy skills. Conclusion: Many of the respondents showed a preference for the BL mode, and the benefits they derived from it include: the improvement of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills, the acquisition of more knowledge after the class, convenient time to work and ease with self-expression.

Impact of Literature Circles in the Developmental College Classroom

This article describes a mixed-methods study that examines the effects of literature circles (peer-led small group discussion of an assigned reading) on the reading achievement of college students taking developmental reading courses. The researcher-developed intervention was comprised of three connected activities (collaborative oral re-tell, short written response, and open discussion). Quantitative methods were used to measure the effectiveness of the intervention, and qualitative methods were used to analyze reading attitude/motivation and textual engagement. Thirty-eight college students in required reading courses participated in the five-week study, randomly assigned to either the treatment (participation in literature circle) or control (independent reading) condition. Comprehension was assessed through an oral re-tell of the novel, a researcher-developed book-specific assessment, and a pre-existing assessment on an unfamiliar passage. Quantitative analysis, which is the focus of this article, revealed that the students assigned to literature circles outperformed the control group students (significant main effect). While the qualitative findings are not discussed herein, analysis revealed that literature circles not only improve reading comprehension and depth of textual engagement but also provide an opportunity for discourse, collaboration, and social interaction. These findings suggest that literature circles would be an effective addition to a postsecondary developmental reading curriculum.

USING MULTIPLE TEXTS TO TEACH CRITICAL READING SKILLS TO LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE STUDENTS

Mastery of developmental reading courses offers both an opportunity for academic enrichment and a barrier to college completion. We examine what it means to use multiple texts in college developmental reading courses, the benefits of using them, and considerations that instructors may employ in their instructions. A review of the literature indicates Linguistically Diverse students (LDs) often lack the required critical thinking skills needed to tackle the rigor and demand of their college level courses. We conducted a study to tests whether using multiple texts improved LDs critical reading skills.� Participants of 30 undergraduate students taking RDL 500 course were analyzed using pre and posttest results. Findings indicated that integrated use of multiple texts is a practical teaching approach for LDs improved their critical reading skills and their navigation of unfamiliar texts. This implies the use of the one size-fits-all approach may not be an effective pedagogical practice by instructors who teach the LD student.Keywords:�community college; critical literacy; cultural capital; developmental reading; language minority students; linguistically diverse students; multiple texts; sociocultural literacy.

Transforming Developmental Reading Through Information Literacy: Developing A Contextualized Course Curriculum

ABSTRACTSkill and drill remediation in developmental reading courses do not prepare students for reading tasks in future college-level courses. When a skill and drill model is replaced with a model that utilizes contextualization, students engage in relevant activities with authentic texts to prepare students for college-level activities. The reading department at Chandler-Gilbert Community College (CGCC) eliminated the skill and drill textbook from its courses and teamed with library faculty to create a curriculum integrated with information literacy. Reading and library faculty provided students contextualized project-based activities that integrated reading and information literacy strategies. The development, redesign, and implementation of CGCC’s reading program that eliminated textbooks and contextualized information literacy and reading strategies through project-based activities are described in the present study. This study further addresses gaps in the literature regarding a fully contextualized reading course that can be implemented for no more cost than the cost of a traditional curriculum.

The Continued Need for Strategy Investigations: College Readers’ Use of PILLAR

AbstractThe authors report on a think‐aloud study of college students placed into developmental reading courses as they learned and implemented a new strategy device. The purpose was to investigate the device's potential utility for students, especially given the current practical trends in the field to move away from strategy instruction. Findings suggest that while reading textbook chapters in biology and history, the participants drew on existing text knowledge, awareness of disciplinary text differences, and awareness of metacognitive processes. The participants demonstrated that they were aware of their reliance on prior knowledge (of text structure and organization, of disciplinary differences, and of content knowledge) and also of gaps in their prior knowledge. This speaks to the need for empirical research on strategy devices, such as PILLAR, for new‐to‐college learners.

Use of an Online Reading Intervention to Enhance the Basic Reading Skills of Community College Students

ABSTRACTApproximately two-thirds of community college students nationwide are considered to not be ready for the demands of college and are therefore required to enroll in at least one developmental education course. Unfortunately, researchers have found that enrollment in developmental classes often has adverse effects on community college students and that developmental courses are time-consuming and often result in delay or prevent the completion of a degree. With a significant number of underprepared community college students, it is important to develop effective methodologies to help students acquire the skills that they will need to succeed in college and future employment. It is also important to determine how a student’s experience impacts academic progress, as well as motivation to continue in college credit courses. Unfortunately, a limited amount of research exists on the use of Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) in developmental reading courses at the community college level. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of a computer-based reading intervention, MindPlay Virtual Reading Coach, on the reading and spelling achievement of community college students, and to explore whether or not students’ perceptions and attitudes changed after participation in this program. Findings demonstrated statistically significant results in both reading and spelling, as well as an increase in reading enjoyment.

Building Better Bridges: Understanding Academic Text Readiness at One Community College

ABSTRACTThe multipronged study described in this manuscript was designed to determine the implicit definition of college-text ready at one community college. The impetus for this study is a need to fully understand what it means to be college-text ready based on the literacy demands, practices, and expectations in introductory-level (or entry-level) general-education courses. Only with this deeper understanding of college-text readiness can college reading professionals begin to design effective literacy interventions to help students who may not be considered college-text ready. Thus, another major goal of this study is to provide information on whether, how, and to what extent, current developmental reading courses are adequately preparing students for the reading expectations of the introductory-level courses that follow. Three component investigations were conducted: one on the text practices and expectations as observed, one on the faculty perspectives, and one on the student perspectives. Data sources included text analyses, classroom observations, faculty surveys and focus groups, and student surveys and focus groups. Findings included a mismatch between developmental reading and general-education courses in terms of the text types and difficulty levels, the purpose for the text, and the text-associated tasks and learning foci. Another major finding was that general-education faculty in this study do not provide explicit instruction on text-navigation. Instead faculty tend to use text-alternatives to deliver content. Finally, in response to the original driving question, the findings of this study suggested that there is not any widely accepted definition of college-text ready at this institution.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of remedial reading courses at community colleges

ABSTRACTLimited research is available on the effectiveness of remedial college courses. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of two instructional approaches for developmental reading courses at a community college in the southwestern United States. The instructional approaches were traditional textbook-based instruction and strategic-reading instruction. The sample consisted of 64 participants. Half (n = 32) of the participants were in the control group (n = 32) and received traditional textbook-based instruction; the other half (n = 32) were in the experimental group and received strategic-reading instruction. All participants completed the Nelson-Denny Reading Form G at the beginning of the semester and then again 12 weeks later, at the end of the semester. The data were then statistically analyzed to identify any relationships between the type of instruction and the differences between the students’ pretest and posttest scores. The null hypotheses for H1 and H2 were rejected because the results of the paired t tests indicated that both traditional textbook-based instruction and strategic-reading instruction have a statistically significant positive effect on students’ performance on the test. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to determine whether the pretest/posttest difference scores varied based on the type of instruction. The findings showed that both methods of instruction were equally effective in improving the reading comprehension skills of community college students in a developmental reading course. Based on the findings, community college leaders are encouraged to assess the effectiveness of the instructional methods used in developmental courses to ensure at-risk community college students are receiving the most beneficial instruction.

Reading Fluency and Comprehension Instruction for Pre-Service Teacher Candidates

INTRODUCTIONLying outside the field's traditional focus on students placed in developmental reading courses is a group of college students who experience reading comprehension difficulty despite having completed the majority of their course-based requirements for an undergraduate degree. Referred to as by some (Jackson & Doellinger, 2002; Welcome, Chiarello, Halderman, & Leonard, 2009) because of their ability to compensate for reading difficulties by using effective strategies (Walczyk, 1995), the focus on these students and their struggles in reading is not frequent in the field. In order to address the paucity of discussion of support structures for resilient readers, I share, in this article, preliminary findings from my work with four reading teacher candidates who, although successfully completing the requirements of their major, repeatedly failed the reading portion of a Praxis-type teacher certification test. The goal of this manuscript is to provide a framework for tutoring and support for resilient readers based on a combination of implications from previous research and my own practical experience.THE READING ABILITY TESTEvery teacher candidate at the university in Pennsylvania where I previously taught must meet an eligibility requirement by performing above the designated cutoff scores for reading, writing, and mathematics. This requirement must be satisfied prior to the candidate's senior year of college, which is devoted primarily to the practicum experience. If not satisfied by then, this requirement may be used as a basis for denying the candidate the opportunity to complete the practicum and might lead to the candidate's removal from the program without the fulfillment of teacher licensure requirements. Candidates are allowed to take the test as many times as they wish prior to their senior year. The reading portion of this test is a timed reading comprehension test (10 passages and 36 comprehension questions within 45 minutes) similar in format to the SAT verbal test.TUTORIAL SESSIONSEarly in fall 2013,1 was contacted by four juniors hoping to become teachers of reading and seeking my help in passing the test. Although some had successfully passed the writing and/or math segments of the test, these students had taken the test multiple times without obtaining the minimum required score on the reading portion. Initially, I collected diagnostic data by administering a spelling test and an informal reading inventory (IRI) to these students. The spelling assessment (Flanigan et al., 2011), is known to be a good indicator of the mental representation of words in the lexicon (Perfetti, 2007 ; Perfetti & Hart, 2002) because it provides important insight into readers' decoding knowledge and word recognition ability. For this assessment, I used Upper-Level Spelling Inventory (USI; Flanigan et al., 2011). USI is a list of 31 words of increasing length and difficulty with a coverage of a wide range of orthographic patterns in English (consonant blends/digraphs, short vs. long vowel patterns, consonant doubling, e-drop, derivational spelling relations, etc.). To administer the USI, I first called out the spelling word, read aloud the sentence context provided for the word, and called out the word one more time.On the IRI assessment, students read aloud a 400-word passage from Timed Readings (Spargo & Williston, 1975) as I followed along and marked the miscues they made. (The read-aloud was also tape recorded in order for the students to listen to their own reading after the assessment.) The read-aloud was timed in order to derive students' reading rate score, and immediately after the read-aloud, students were asked to answer 10 comprehension questions without looking back at the passage. For half of the questions, literal comprehension of the passage was required. For the other half, students had to make accurate inferences from the passage. …

Locating agency in the classroom: A metaphor analysis of teacher talk in a college developmental reading class

This study employed a metaphor analysis approach to investigate instructor language as it relates to the positioning of agency within a college developmental reading course context. Agency, or the socioculturally mediated potential to act, is a crucial part of self-regulated, self-efficacious learning and contributes to identity formation and affirmation. Understanding where agency is being positioned via classroom discourse can have important implications for the teaching and learning transaction, including the construction of students’ implicit theories about their literacy practices and their roles as active learners. As a type of discourse analysis, metaphor analysis allows for an unobtrusive, highly ecologically valid method of determining the underlying conceptualisations about a given topic that are held by participants in discourse communities. The article concludes with pedagogical implications.

Using word study instruction with developmental college students

This study investigates the effect of word study instruction on the orthographic knowledge of college students enrolled in a developmental reading course. Results revealed significantly greater improvement in orthographic knowledge in students who received word study instruction when compared with those in a control group, suggesting that the word study approach was effective for these students. Because of the influence of orthographic knowledge on spelling, writing and reading, additional research is merited to examine how word study intervention impacts the reading behaviours and academic achievement of college students enrolled in developmental education courses.

Patterns of Self-Efficacy among College Students in Developmental Reading

In this study, we investigated the self-efficacy beliefs and sources of self-efficacy among first-year college students placed in developmental reading courses. Students enrolled in developmental reading were compared to students who were not placed in developmental reading courses in terms of self-efficacy in various contexts and sources of self-efficacy. Results indicated that students in developmental reading courses had significantly lower levels of self-efficacy in academic and personal contexts than students in credit-bearing English courses. Differences for sources of self-efficacy were not statistically significant between groups when we controlled for sex and ethnicity. Students in both groups reported mastery experiences as most influential on reading self-confidence.

Representations of the Racialized Experiences of African Americans in Developmental Reading Textbooks

Race plays a major role in the lived experiences of African Americans. Consequently, race significantly impacts the identities and educational experiences of African American college students—many of whom require developmental reading courses. These courses, which are gateway courses in higher education, should address race along with reading skill development to increase engagement and success among African American students. This study investigates developmental reading curriculum, as exemplified by developmental reading textbooks, to determine how African Americans and their experiences related to race are represented and framed. Using Critical Race Theory as the theoretical framework, I conducted a qualitative content analysis of reading selections in a sample of five of the most recently published, top-selling developmental reading textbooks. Along with the findings of this study, the implications for developmental reading pedagogy and African American student engagement and success are discussed.

Digital Literacies in Multiuser Virtual Environments among College-Level Developmental Readers

As the rate of developmental reading students continues to climb, so does the surge in digital platforms as a means to deliver postsecondary instruction. Students enrolled in developmental reading courses should not be assumed to have digital literacy skills simply because they have been termed a “digitally literate generation.” In this study, one digital technology—multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs)— provided a platform that allowed students to engage in learning opportunities congruent with digital literacy. Examined in this study were (a) the digital literacy skills of developmental readers, (b) the differences in digital literacies between developmental reading students who used a MUVE and those who did not, and (c) the behaviors exhibited by students indicating their degree of digital nativeness. Participants in the experimental group demonstrated digital literacy through reading activities and observations in the MUVE, Second Life, and made higher reading achievement gains over the control group.

Assessment of Tutoring Laboratories in a Learning Assistance Center

The Learning Resource Center at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, provides tutoring laboratories that are required for developmental reading, writing, and math courses. This article reviews the processes used to plan and determine the effectiveness of the tutoring laboratories, including logic models, student learning outcomes, and the results of an analysis of the differences between pretest and posttest scores using a t test and eta2 (measure of effect). The pretest and posttest scores of students who attended at least six lab sessions were examined. The t test results indicated a high level of significance and the eta2 score indicated a moderate to strong effect. Students in the tutoring laboratories showed gains in academic skills from the pretest to the posttest, supporting the effectiveness of the tutoring laboratories, and the assessment process provided accessible information that was used to improve the tutoring laboratory program.

Optimal Experience in Virtual Environments among College Level Developmental Readers

In this study, we examined optimal experience and the antecedents of flow as reported by college-level developmental reading students using Second Life, a multi-user virtual environment. In an educational context, Second Life provided a space for demonstrating 21st century skills including communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity. The researchers in this study examined optimal experience or flow, in particular, toward discovering the extent to which participants reported a prolonged, focused concentration during reading activities within Second Life that either preceded or paralleled the aforementioned 21st century skills. Participants were 42 students enrolled in two developmental reading courses in the fall 2009 semester. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed, yielding results that confirmed that optimal experience was attained and that further served as a catalyst toward demonstrated 21st century skills.