In this meta-analysis, research has been integrated to determine the strength of the relationship between print exposure and reading comprehension as well as reading attitude in primary and...Show moreIn this meta-analysis, research has been integrated to determine the strength of the relationship between print exposure and reading comprehension as well as reading attitude in primary and secondary school students. Furthermore, possible grade-level differences in this relationship were examined. The 26 included studies, which measured print exposure with an author- or title-recognition checklist and reading comprehension and/or reading attitude with various instruments, showed positive, large correlations between print exposure and reading comprehension. Positive, moderate correlations were found between print exposure and reading attitude. The heterogeneity was high in all analyses but could not be explained by the age-groups of the participants. The relationships appeared to be comparable between primary and secondary school students aged 7-16 years. It should be noted that conclusions about the direction of the relationships cannot be indicated. Further research about this direction would be recommended along with more research including different variables that could explain the heterogeneity. Besides the need for more extensive research about the relationship between print exposure and reading comprehension as well as reading attitude it is clear that stimulating children to read more is helpful.Show less
Leisure time reading is often stimulated in primary and secondary school, because of its expected benefits in language and reading development. In this thesis, a meta-analysis was performed to...Show moreLeisure time reading is often stimulated in primary and secondary school, because of its expected benefits in language and reading development. In this thesis, a meta-analysis was performed to examine the relationship between reading behaviour and receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, combined vocabulary and reading comprehension in primary and secondary school students. A total number of 30 studies (4.769 students) were included. As expected, a medium to large effect was found for all four outcome measures. This is in line with results from previous research. Since girls happen to read more and more often than boys, it was expected that gender would be a significant predictor of the effects. This hypothesis was not confirmed in this meta-analysis. This may be explained by the fact that the reported gender percentages in the respective studies were not similar to the actual gender distribution in the final analyses. Researchers sometimes reported that participants were excluded in the analysis of our variables of interest, without stating the exact number of boys and girls. Overall, this study confirms that reading plays a positive role in acquiring vocabulary and reading comprehension.Show less
The levels of reading and reading enjoyment of students in the Netherlands are decreasing compared to students in other European countries. Therefore, in the current study, research on the...Show moreThe levels of reading and reading enjoyment of students in the Netherlands are decreasing compared to students in other European countries. Therefore, in the current study, research on the effectiveness of reading interventions Systematic Teaching and Recording Tactic (S.T.A.R.T). and Repeated Reading is conducted. S.T.A.R.T. is a more extensive, but also more time-consuming intervention than Repeated Reading. Students in group six and seven of the Dutch primary education (similar to fourth and fifth grade in English schools) with below-average scores on their CITO-reading tests were asked to participate in the study. In two groups, they either read a difficult text with S.T.A.R.T. and an easy text with Repeated Reading or vice versa. After each intervention their reading performance was tested via a MAZE-test. The text used for this test was an extended version of the text that was used in the intervention. Results showed that students scored better on their MAZE-test after being taught by the S.T.A.R.T.-intervention. This effect was bigger when the difficult text had been read Morover, students enjoyed reading a text more if they read it with S.T.A.R.T. Together, these findings suggest that S.T.A.R.T. is a more sufficient intervention than Repeated Reading. Implications for future research and use in schools are discussed.Show less
The Dutch government has called for a “reading offensive” to ensure a drastic change in the reading development of Dutch high school students. This urgent call is a response to the significant drop...Show moreThe Dutch government has called for a “reading offensive” to ensure a drastic change in the reading development of Dutch high school students. This urgent call is a response to the significant drop of students’ reading ability over the past years. The “reading offensive” focuses primarily on making sure that students will read more. However, previous research suggests that reading selfconcept is a crucial aspect of reading ability, next to reading behavior and gender. This research study therefore examined reading behavior and gender in the relationship between reading self-concept and reading ability. Students from the first two grades in high school (N = 158; Mage = 13.11 years; SD = .69) completed online questionnaires and read two maze-texts. To analyze the data several correlations, a Pearsons chi-square test and hierarchical multiple regressions were performed. The correlations showed a relationship between reading self-concept and reading ability, but no gender differences within these two variables. Girls did read more than boys, although this was a small effect. There was no moderating effect of gender on the relationship between reading self-concept and reading ability. However, the relationship between reading self-concept and reading ability was moderated by reading behavior. Students with a low self-concept who considered themselves as ‘leisure readers’ had lower reading ability scores than students with a low self-concept who considered themselves as ‘non-leisure readers’. The difference between leisure and non-readers in regard to their reading abilities corresponds with a Matthew-effect and the “bad is stronger than good”-hypothesis, implying that negative experiences in reading have worse consequences than positive experiences, with self-concept being considered as a crucial counterpart of interventions improving reading ability, before improving reading ability and thereby improving reading behavior. Implications and suggestions for interventions and follow-up research are discussed.Show less