Section 1: Introduction to the Study

Introduction

One of the most commonly used methods to teach reading is repeated reading that incorporates oral-reading scripts. Oral-reading scripts involve an interpretive activity wherein students practice repeated reading, alternate scripts, and perform a written script. This approach has been shown to improve reading fluency, word recognition, reading speed, and accuracy (Griffith & Rasinski, 2004). However, repeated reading by itself in the absence of content that captures the reader's interest does not take full advantage of this approach. This study integrated African American-based ethnic scripts into a widely used repeated-reading approach to teaching reading that heretofore has not included these focused-type scripts. The approach was used on a sample of 10th-grade secondary school readers. The purpose of the study was to determine if the focused scripts resulted in improved fluency and reading comprehension.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP; U.S. Department of Education, 2011), 64% of students with learning disabilities in the eighth grade were below basic reading-achievement level for reading; in comparison to all students, the percentage of those reading below basic was 25%. For African American students, 42% of students scored below the basic reading-achievement level; in comparison, White students scored 16%. Students need explicit instruction, modeling, and practice in vocabulary and reading comprehension (Fletcher, 2007). Also, many students who experience reading problems need instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, and word study, even when they are in the upper elementary and secondary grades. Although reading instruction has been placed at the forefront of educational-reform policy (Carnegie Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, 2010; Lewis, 2007), most educational reforms have failed to make substantial differences in the academic performance of the large majority of students, particularly ethnic minorities (Houston, 2001).

Research on reading that includes oral reading has shown that oral reading improves phonemic awareness, comprehension, and vocabulary (Duane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, & Oranje, 2005). Oral reading is a form of scaffolded learning; question answering is one of the direct reading-comprehension measures. Clark (2000) examined the effects of first-grade students' responses as students read Krauss's The Carrot Seed. Clark explored the effects of oral reading — question answering — as one of the direct reading-comprehension measures and discovered that oral reading increases students' reading comprehension. Students need opportunities to practice reading, writing, and talking about different content areas to learn skills to successfully communicate (Pearson, Cervetti, & Tilson, 2008). Oral-reading instruction improves students' reading, and when students generate and investigate their own questions, wonderings, and connections, they move into a reading process that gives insight to their abilities to decode word meanings, as well as semantic understandings (K. Meyer, 2010).

For secondary school readers, oral repeated reading alone may not provide sufficient incentive to increase interest or motivation to read. Readers' theater scripts are a widely used reading model that employs several forms of lessons including repeated oral reading. Free scripts are the primary teaching materials used; they include a variety of topics and cultures to make the learning experience more interesting and successful.

The urban community district of interest in this study has a racially mixed population with Whites comprising 85% of approximately 11,435,798 people, Blacks 11.5%, Hispanics 1.9%, Asians 1.2%, and American Indians 2%. The local school district of interest of this study had a dropout rate of 2% from Grades 9 to 12 in 2009. In that local school district, 12% of students have an individualized education program, a written plan for students who are eligible with special needs (Infoplease, 2013). The school setting and students are described in detail in Section 3.

Problem Statement

Improving reading is one of the central topics in educational research. Much progress has been made, but significant numbers of students are substantially below acceptable performance in reading fluency (Rasinski, Rikli, & Johnston, 2009). Reading instruction that includes oral reading has a positive effect and can increase the likelihood of substantive reading improvement (K. Meyer, 2010). Although the readers' theater model is promising, I found a lack of research on the impact of the method used with secondary school readers. Further, I found no ethnic-oriented scripts for this population of readers.

Nature of the Study

I used a quasi-experimental design to determine the effect of a treatment by comparing an experimental group with a control group on a variable of interest (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2005). The objective was to determine if an independent variable (the treatment) had an effect on a dependent variable. For this study, reading instruction using the readers' theater model was the independent variable represented by an experimental and control group. The experimental group used the readers' theater method and used scripts that were oriented to a particular ethnicity. I conducted the study for 6 weeks. The control group used scripts that were not ethnic specific. The primary dependent variable was reading fluency. However, I also measured comprehension, because the nature of the ethnic-oriented scripts may have increased this important reading component. A view of Vygotskian (1978b) theory supported this research concept: Vygotskian sociocultural theory includes three principles: (a) higher psychological functions are social, (b) knowledge is constructed from individuals' interactions in social contexts, and (c) learning is facilitated by more knowledgeable community members' assistance (Boyd, 2002). The tenets of Vygotskian theory provided an opportunity for students to interact in the class culture, thereby strengthening students' confidence and motivation.

Wexler, Vaughn, Edmonds, and Reutebuch (2008) recommended that the greatest effect of an intervention among high school students included at least 25 sessions of at least 15 minutes in duration. The present study was conducted over approximately 20 sessions. However, the time per session was decided by the classroom teacher (CT). A total of 81 students participated with 54 students receiving the ethnic-oriented scripts and 27 using scripts that were not ethnically oriented. I used analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test for statistical differences between the two groups at the .05 level of probability (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2005). In addition, I determined effect sizes and confidence intervals (American Psychological Association, 2010).

Research Questions and Hypotheses

The guiding research question concerned whether oral-reading instruction that includes ethnic-oriented scripts would improve students' reading fluency and reading comprehension. Specifically, the research questions and hypotheses follow:

Q1. To what extent does the use of readers' theater with ethnic-oriented scripts increase the reading fluency of secondary school reading students?

H01: There will be no statistically significant difference in reading fluency between secondary school reading students who participate in ethnic-oriented readers' theater and secondary school students who use readers' theater with nonethnic-oriented scripts.

Ha1: Secondary school reading students who participate in ethnica oriented readers' theater will perform statistically significantly higher in reading fluency than secondary school students who use nonethnic-oriented readers' theater. Oral fluency was measured using the oral-reading fluency (ORF) part of the Ohio Literacy Alliance (OLA) test (Rasinski, n.d.).

Q2. To what extent does the use of readers' theater with ethnic-oriented scripts increase the reading comprehension of secondary school reading students?

H01 There will be no statistically significant difference in reading comprehension between secondary school reading students who participate in ethnic-oriented readers' theater and secondary school students who use readers' theater with nonethnic-oriented scripts.

Ha1 Secondary school reading students who participate in ethnica oriented readers' theater will perform statistically significantly higher in reading comprehension than secondary school students who use readers' theater with nonethnic-oriented scripts. Reading comprehension was measured by the OLA reading assessments (Rasinski, n.d.).

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of oral-reading instruction on secondary school students' reading fluency and comprehension. Reading fluency is essential for students to understand different literary structures, differentiating between that prose that describes and that that interprets (Duke, 2010; Duke & Pearson, 2002). Reading comprehension necessitates using higher order thinking skills to analyze, critique, evaluate, and link texts with other texts to discern knowledge, and experiences from those texts (National Assessment Governing Board, 2008). When learning to read, the act of oral reading per se is not comprehension. However, it may improve one's ability to comprehend better than instruction based primarily on silent reading alone. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of oral-reading instruction on secondary school students' reading fluency and comprehension.

Theoretical Foundation

The sample of this study was drawn from a middle school/high school located west of a city in the Midwestern part of the United States. A total of 81 students participated in the study with 54 students receiving the ethnic-oriented scripts and 27 using nonethnic-oriented scripts. The CT implemented the scripts with three classrooms of 10th-grade students. The purpose was to determine if the ethnic-oriented scripts resulted in greater improvement in reading fluency and reading comprehension, measured by posttests. Reader's theater was the approach used in this teaching model. Through reader's theater, theoretically one's own language could be read more fluently. Reader's theater is a widely used oral-reading approach that heretofore did not include ethnic-focused scripts.

The theoretical basis of oral reading is consistent with a Vygotskian teaching approach (McLoughlin, 2002). The most important part of Vygotskian theory (1978a) is social development emphasizing scaffolded learning, which played a very important role in this study. Not only is scaffolded learning an important concept for constructivist learning, it is also an important method to guide learners from what they know to what is to be known. This method plays a fundamental role in the process of a child's cognitive development.

Vygotsky's (1978a) other component — the zone of proximal development (ZPD) — influenced this study. This component explains that as learners move from the known to the unknown, their ability to perform a task increases under the guidance of the teacher or another guide. Thus, the students' ability to solve a problem independently also increases their ZPD. The ZPD is an area that lies between the learners' present ability level and their future development. The interactions that take place in the ZPD are essential to learners' cognitive and cultural development. The ZPD is critical when providing scaffolded learning. For example, some tasks may appear difficult even if the learner is capable of success; the learner experiences failure before even trying. It is the middle zone that is open for learning and where optimal instruction and learning occur. For example, a parent who is teaching a child to swim will find the middle zone. The parent might divide the parts of swimming into smaller parts, such as kicking with the help of a kickboard, breathing while holding the side of a pool, and practicing arm strokes while supported by the parent. Eventually, the child masters all the parts individually with the support of the parent. Similarly, in teaching reading skills the instructor can break the task into small parts, such as word identification, phonics, diphthongs, and phrases. Teachers applied these components in this study.

Labov's (1972) theory was also important in this study. Labov explained that social identity plays an important role in a person's pronunciation, and internal and external variables point to the use of syntax, semantics, and the perception of language in social contexts. The social-identity component involved reading strategies leading to students' increased word recognition and improvement in identifying the relationship between words and ideas. Then, the internal and external variables addressed instructional strategies by having students point to a variety of language usages, such as phonics and diphthongs. Students linked components by creating graphic organizers, semantic webs, and other tools to develop inquiry-based learning experiences. Researchers found that word recognition plays an essential role in reading ability (Labov, 1972). Also, readers' ORF total word and word-error rates can be used to identify instructional frameworks that might improve reading proficiency (Hoover & Gough, 1990; Vadasy, Sanders, & Peyton, 2005). Oral-reading activity provides students with a widely structured silent-reading practice to build fluency in a valued reading experience where students read for meaning.

During oral-reading sessions, students develop interest by reading texts drawn from a wide collection of genres, including narrative and expository pieces at the students' instructional level. Allington (2006) reported that lessons using texts matched to the instructional levels of struggling readers were highly successful. Leslie and Caldwell (2006) selected a grade-appropriate reading passage. The passage, chosen randomly from the fourth edition of the Qualitative Reading Inventory, included 197 words and eight comprehension questions — four literal and explicit and four inferential and implicit questions. Six of seven questions had to be answered correctly to acquire the appropriate instructional level. The difficulties of the passages were computed by the test makers using vocabulary, word fluency, number of syllables, and average length of sentences. Comprehension questions addressed the goal of the protagonist. The remaining questions focused on the details of the story. The authors decided on explicit and implicit questions. The passage was further modified to involve scrambled words. They found that students had a greater chance of knowing a word's meaning if it were from a grade-appropriate reading level, and students may not know the meaning of words upon decoding, which would compromise comprehension when reading the passage.

Neddenriep, Fritz, and Carrier (2010) viewed the results of a brief intervention study involving five fourth-grade at-risk students. The researchers used empirical single-case study designs to determine which components would impact improvements in reading comprehension. The study included oral reading, performance feedback, and error correction using instructional-level reading materials twice per week for 30-minute sessions. Students' progress was monitored weekly using the Aimsweb (2014) measures of ORF and comprehension. Results showed an increased rate of words read correctly per minute with improvement of comprehension for four of five students. The authors recommended further research.

The constructivist method provides a good basis for school-improvement efforts aimed at supporting students to become better thinkers. An important aspect of constructivist learning is that it necessitates active involvement by the learner. Constructivist approaches to learning allow learners to use what they know to interpret new information and construct new knowledge (D. Walker, 2002). For example, learners create their own interpretations, reflect on their own understanding, and apply new information. They do not learn through rote memorization. When people reflect on experiences or new information they have received, they may change their way of thinking, perhaps dispensing with the new information, if necessary. In the classroom, the constructivist view of instruction can incorporate various strategies to individualize instruction. Labov (1972) concurred that social identity is a very important element in a person's pronunciation, syntax, semantics, and view of language in a social context. The present study used the readers' theater method with ethnic-specific scripts for secondary school students. This study involved oral-reading scripts that students practiced repeatedly, alternated, and performed. This study also addressed the implementation of oral-reading instruction as a possible strategy to improve reading comprehension and reading fluency.