The effects of reading to children on their reading development

Comparing performance and self-evaluations for reading and listening comprehension

Abstract

Children in the lower grades of elementary school both have books read to them by teachers and read aloud themselves to foster their reading abilities. However, it is doubtful whether reading lessons involving spoken language are also effective for later graders, because the dependence on spoken language may reduce as reading ability develops. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the developmental transition from a speech for superiority to written language in order to examine how spoken language can be effectively utilized in fostering reading ability. In Study 1,174 Japanese elementary-school children were asked to perform listening and reading comprehension tasks. The results indicate that first- and second-graders perform better on the listening task compared to the reading task. The difference between listening and reading comprehension was smaller for third -and fourth-graders, and disappeared for upper graders. In Study 2,360 Japanese elementary-school children were asked to evaluate the intelligibility of a text either when they listened to it, whey they read it aloud, or read it silently. The results indicate that first-graders prefer to listen than read themselves, while upper graders prefer reading to listening. Furthermore, first- graders prefer reading aloud more than reading silently, while upper graders prefer reading silently than reading aloud. The preferences for listening and reading aloud were correlated. These findings suggest that first- and second-graders comprehend speech better than written language, but that the superiority for speech disappears with the development of reading abilities. Moreover, reading lessons that utilize spoken language would seem to be more effective for first- and second-grade children.