Comparing comprehension following silent and aloud reading across elementary and secondary students: Implication for curriculum-based measurement.

Abstract

In the current study, 42 secondary students (10 th , 11 th , and 12 th grade students) and 51 elementary students (4 th and 5 th grade students) read 400 word passages silently and aloud. During aloud reading, words correct per minute (WCPM) were recorded. After reading each passage, students answered 10 multiple-choice comprehension questions. Results showed comprehension was significantly higher when students read passages aloud, as opposed to silently. No interaction was found between comprehension and grade level (elementary versus secondary). Discussion is focused on theories of reading comprehension and applied implications for assessing comprehension following the administration of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) reading probes.

Assessing reading fluency in Kenya: Oral or silent assessment?

“…Lynn Fuchs, Douglas Fuchs and Linn Maxwell (1988) found that when the reading levels of oral and silent passages were equated, the correlation between comprehension scores was generally high, a finding echoed in more recent studies (Hale et al 2011;McCallum et al 2004). However, among middle-school students (i.e., grades 6-8 or ages 11-14), Carolyn Denton et al (2011) found that ORF was more strongly related to reading comprehension than to scores on a silent task, results similar to those of a number of other studies (Ardoin et al 2004;Hale et al 2007;Jenkins and Jewell 1993). In contrast, among fifth-graders in Turkey, Kasim Yildirim and Seyit Ateş (2012) found that silent fluency was a better predictor of reading comprehension than oral reading fluency.…”

“…The gap between oral and silent reading performance may be larger for less skilled readers (Georgiou et al 2013;Kim et al 2011;Kim et al 2012;Kragler 1995;Smith 1985, 1990), although Hale et al (2007) did not find such a relationship. This question gains additional complexity when the issue of students being tested in second (or subsequent) languages is considered, as their developmental reading trajectories would vary widely in their second or additional language.…”

An investigation of silent versus aloud reading comprehension of elementary students using Maze assessment procedures

“…Some research studies have shown that students comprehend significantly more information when they read silently than they do when they read aloud (Jones & Lockhart, 1919;Mead, 1915Mead, , 1917Pinter, 1913). Other studies report findings indicating that students comprehend significantly more when they read aloud compared to when they read silently (Collins, 1961;Duffy & Durrell, 1935-36;Hale et al, 2007;Rowell, 1976). Evidence also exists indicating that there is no significant difference between silent and aloud reading comprehension (Jones, 1932;McCallum et al, 2004;Poulton & Brown, 1967).…”

Examining the Effects of Skill Level and Reading Modality on Reading Comprehension

“…oral versus silent) on reading comprehension is essentially equivocal (Hale et al, 2007). Some researchers have found that students comprehend better after reading orally (e.g., Elgart, 1978;Fletcher & Pumfrey, 1988), and others have reported comparable comprehension after oral and silent reading (e.g., McCallum, Sharp, Bell, & George, 2004).…”