The Effect of Supplementing Guided Reading Interventions with Pre- and During Reading Discussion Strategies on First Grader's Reading Comprehension

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether supplementing regular guided reading instruction, which included post-reading discussions, with pre-and during reading discussions would improve students’ reading comprehension. The Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment (Fountas & Pinnell, 2012) was used to determine the students’ comprehension levels. Students were asked “in the text” and “beyond the text” questions to determine their total comprehension scores and then grouped into closely matched treatment and comparison groups comprised of students with mixed reading comprehension levels. The treatment group received the supplemented guided reading instruction, while the control group did not. After the four-week intervention, the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment was used again to determine their posttest comprehension scores. While the control group outperformed the treatment group on each of the pre-intervention comprehension measures (statistically significantly on two of the measures), the treatment group’s scores were statistically significantly higher than those of the control group on all three post-intervention comprehension measures (in the text, beyond the text and total scores). Therefore, the null hypothesis, that the two groups’ reading comprehension scores would be the same after the intervention, was rejected. These results suggested that the addition of pre-reading and during reading discussion strategies to the regular guided reading lessons benefitted the participants’ comprehension and warrants further study.