A Study of the Relation of Interest and Incentive to the Reading Comprehension of Average and Below-Average Readers [microform] / Shirley Feldmann and Doke E. Blom.
A study explored the relationship of interest in story content, external incentives, and reading level to elementary school children's reading performance. The subjects, 75 fifth grade students who were either average or below-average readers, were asked to rate the content of five stories from...
Saved in:
| Online Access: |
Request ERIC Document |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Microfilm Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[S.l.] :
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse,
1981.
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | A study explored the relationship of interest in story content, external incentives, and reading level to elementary school children's reading performance. The subjects, 75 fifth grade students who were either average or below-average readers, were asked to rate the content of five stories from "most" to "least" interesting and were then assigned to a group in which they read stories with their most or least interesting content choice. The subjects' reading comprehension was measured by a cloze procedure. Two incentive conditions were used. In the first, a criterion contingency, each subject was told that he or she would receive a reward after reading each paragraph of the story if he or she had as many or more correct answers than the announced criterion for that paragraph. In the second condition, the control, the subject received a reward after reading the entire story, but no criterion for correct answers was used. Results showed that external incentives enhanced reading performance for average as well as below-average readers, while interest in story content did not appear to be a significant factor in the study. All below-average readers had higher comprehension scores than did the average readers. (FL) |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | ERIC Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Educational Research Association (12th, Ellenville, NY, October 1981). ERIC Document Number: ED210623. |
| Physical Description: | 10 p. |
| Reproduction Note: | Microfiche. |
| Action Note: | committed to retain |