Can Discussion Improve Reading Comprehension?
Sara White MLIS, MAT Youth Services Librarian, Seminole County Public Library 2012-2014 Graduate Intern and Researcher, Pioendmont Lakes Middle School
As educators, we are accustomed to promoting the value of reading. Yet there is sometimes a puzzling disconnect between some students’ inclination toward reading and their less than impressive performances on reading tests. Some low-scoring students are motivated, avid readers, but have difficulty comprehending, remembering, or answering questions about what they just read. Why might some of these willing readers be demonstrating low levels of reading comprehension? One theory to explain this disconnect was articulated many years ago by Dorothy Voigt Davis, who likened some young readers’ passivity to the passivity of watching television: [Young readers] might, for example, have followed the plot but never thought about the implications of the action. They weren’t asking themselves why a character acted the way he did or what might have happened if he had made other choices. They didn’t seem to be relating much of their reading to their own lives. Their reading seemed mechanical and almost passive rather than active and creative. . . . Just as one [television] program follows another, so one book follows another. Stopping to ponder before going on becomes an unfamiliar, almost resented intrusion. (Davis, 1975, p. 151)
Davis suggested that it was perfectly possible for some readers to consume and enjoy a book without truly engaging with it or the questions it may raise. Yet today’s students are asked to demonstrate their reading ability on standardized reading tests by answering questions. Students whose reading occurs at a passively superficial “surface level” may not be able to answer meaning-based questions about a text very easily, even if they have read every word of that text.
Over the course of the 2013-2014 school year, I led and studied a “Nook Book Club,” hoping to learn more about the link between engagement with text and reading test performance. The study took place at the Piedmont Lakes Middle School Media Center before school on Wednesday mornings. The club was funded by a generous grant from the Foundation for Orange County Public Schools. PLMS Media Specialist Ginger Carter had applied for this grant and pioneered Year 1 of Nook Book Club during the 2012-2013 school year. For Year 2, Mrs. Carter allowed me to step in as a MAT graduate researcher, lead the club, and conduct a study. My primary goal was to determine whether participation in the Nook Book Club had a statistically significant effect on participants’ FCAT 2.0 Reading scores. The basic structure of the Nook Book Club involved the purchase and lending of 15 Nook eReaders to 15 8th-graders whose FCAT 2.0 Reading scores were in the “3” range or lower. Random selection was attempted, but 6 self-selected students who met the study’s criteria also joined. The Nooks were pre-loaded with a variety of high-interest titles selected for their potential to provoke thoughtful group discussion. Participants agreed to attend the club on a weekly basis and read the club books on their Nooks at home, with 2-4 weeks’ time spent on each book. I also obtained consent of participants’ parents or guardians. Incentives included breakfast at every meeting, the use of a Nook for the duration of the school year, and the possibility of being able to improve their FCAT 2.0 Reading scores.
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