Repeated Reading compared to Wide Reading

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Repeated Reading compared to Wide Reading

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Thanks to Dr Kerry Hempenstall for flagging up this interesting research looking at the differences (if any) between 'repeated reading' compared to 'wide reading'. Please bear in mind that this is not for beginner readers who are just starting out with a systematic synthetic phonics programme of work which does involve repeated reading of code, word and text level material as stipulated in the specific programme and as required according to learners' needs. Please keep in mind that the abbreviations 'RR" in this piece refer to 'Repeated readings' and not to 'Reading Recovery':

Kerry said, "There was a discussion recently about the repeated reading strategy for promoting fluency growth. This recent study adds to the literature:"
“Repeated readings (RR) has garnered much attention as an evidence based intervention designed to improve all components of reading fluency (rate, accuracy, prosody, and comprehension). Despite this attention, there is not an abundance of research comparing its effectiveness to other potential interventions. The current study presents the findings from a randomized control trial study involving the assignment of 168 second grade students to a RR, wide reading (WR), or business as usual condition. Intervention students were provided with 9–10 weeks of intervention with sessions occurring four times per week. Pre- and post-testing were conducted using Woodcock-Johnson III reading achievement measures (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001, curriculum-based measurement (CBM) probes, measures of prosody, and measures of students' eye movements when reading.

Changes in fluency were also monitored using weekly CBM progress monitoring procedures. Data were collected on the amount of time students spent reading and the number of words read by students during each intervention session. Results indicate substantial gains made by students across conditions, with some measures indicating greater gains by students in the two intervention conditions. Analyses do not indicate that RR was superior to WR. In addition to expanding the RR literature, this study greatly expands research evaluating changes in reading behaviors that occur with improvements in reading fluency. Implications regarding whether schools should provide more opportunities to repeatedly practice the same text (i.e., RR) or practice a wide range of text (i.e., WR) are provided.” (p. 13)

“The most consistent finding across all of the measures employed within this study was that students indeed made huge improvements in reading behavior, as indicated by WJ-III performance, reading rate, reading expression, and eye movement patterns. A second consistent finding was that the magnitude of changes across assessment measures was not reliable across students' skill levels. For the majority of employed measures, the students in the lowest achievement group made the greatest gains across time. Although such great gains are highly favorable in potentially allowing these students to “catch up” to their higher-achieving peers, maximum growth for all students would seem to be a better outcome. … these results are generally consistent with past research suggesting that RR improves students' reading achievement (Therrien et al., 2006). However, it is interesting that RR failed to produce greater gains in students' achievement compared to WR. These results strongly suggest that previously observed improvements in students' reading achievement as a result of RR implementation were largely due to additional time spent reading as opposed to repeatedly reading text. … “Given the lack of differences in outcomes between the RR and WR conditions, practitioners should thoughtfully consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of each set of procedures when providing students with a fluency-based intervention.

Although results of this study would suggest that RR might not benefit students more than WR, there is strong evidence to suggest that RR improves students' fluency and comprehension on passages on which intervention is provided. Thus, if intervention will expose students to specific content and/or materials that they may need to read later in class, then RR may be the best set of procedures. However, a drawback of RR is that students may become annoyed with repeatedly reading passages more than once, especially if the material is not of interest to them. WR addresses this issue, as students read materials only once. Furthermore, WR exposes them to a significantly broader range of words. For example, students in the RR condition read an average of 9000 words comprising unique (i.e., non-repeated) text sequences across the 10 weeks of intervention, whereas students in the WR condition read an average of 28,815. One would expect that, by reading a greater variety of texts, students would be exposed to a greater breadth of vocabulary and contextual information. However, ensuring that passages are at an appropriate reading level might be of particular importance for WR intervention given that students are provided with only one opportunity to read words correctly and understand materials. Despite the wide use of RR-based intervention within elementary schools and its extensive literature base, there clearly remains much left unknown regarding RR as an intervention for improving elementary students' reading achievement. This study demonstrates the importance of employing multiple measures, including a true control group, and not assuming that an intervention deemed “empirically valid” will be of great benefit for all students regardless of age and skill level.” (p. 34-5)

Ardoin, S.P., Binder, K.S., Foster, T.E., & Zawoyskia, A.M. (2016). Repeated versus wide reading: A randomized control design study examining the impact of fluency interventions on underlying reading behaviour. Journal of School Psychology, 59, 13–38.
Dr Kerry Hempenstall is a member of IFERI's Advisory Group and he makes an enormous contribution to summarising and drawing attention to the research literature. You can read about his work here:

http://www.iferi.org/dr-kerry-hempenstall/
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