A micro-experimental analysis of silent reading in small-group guided reading lessons

The purpose of this study was to test a social-organizational hypothesis concerning the way silent reading in small-group lessons influences students' end-of-lesson performance. It was hypothesized that positive effects of silent reading may not be found solely in direct cognitive consequences for individual students but in the dynamics of the small-group lesson. The principal test of the hypothesis was whether group processes of pacing, student attention, and emphasis on story meaning could be placed on the causal path between the silent reading lesson and students' end-of-lesson performance.One hundred children in four third-grade classes, each divided into three ability groups, participated in the study. Each group received two silent and two oral reading lessons. Type of lesson was counterbalanced for lesson order and stories. A feature of the study was a three-week "socialization" period prior to each pair of lessons. Group processes were measured from videotapes of the lessons. End-of-lesson performance was measured by children's story recall and passage and word reading.Results showed that positive effects of silent reading were mediated by students' attention and teacher-student discussion. Students were more attentive during silent reading than they were during oral reading and they reinstated more story information in discussion. However, there was no net benefit of silent reading on children's end-of-lesson performance. The probable reason was the blank, unproductive time when students had to wait for others to finish reading before discussion could resume. This slowed the pace of the lessons and seemed to offset benefits accruing from attention and discussion.These results are consistent with the social-organizational hypothesis that positive effects of silent reading are socially constructed. While silent reading establishes favorable conditions for learning, benefits may be realized only if teachers organize their lessons to make best use of available time and adapt their instruction to capitalize on students' increased attention during silent reading and their responsiveness to story content during discussion.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio