The relationship among reading comprehension, a guided reading approach, and achievement in high school biology

Introduction. Many secondary students experience difficulty in understanding biology at the secondary level. The back to the basics movement and minimum competency standards are quickly making reading instruction necessary in the nation's secondary schools. Classroom techniques must focus on helping the students to successfully read their text assignments. There is often a failure on the part of teachers to deal with the specific factors which make reading of science materials difficult. Nothing can be more frustrating to a student than giving him a textbook that he/she cannot read. Many teachers are not aware of this fact nor do they know how to deal with it. Purpose. This study investigated the effects of reading comprehension and guided reading instruction on achievement in tenth grade biology. This set of relationships addressed two components: (1) The learner's intellectual competence, and (2) the effects of guided reading instruction on achievement in secondary biology. Subjects. The subjects selected for this study were tenth grade students enrolled in a senior high school in the south central part of the United States. The subjects were predominantly white and from lower and middle socio-economic classes. Two teachers were used in this study. Treatment. There were two treatment groups in the study, a conventional lecture group and a guided reading treatment. Each teacher was assigned to teach one of each of the treatment groups. The guided reading treatment required the teachers to give the students a readiness activity and have the students survey the chapter headings before the lecture began. In addition, the students were given a general outline of the chapter to be discussed before the lecture began. A study guide was used to direct the reading activity of the students. The conventional lecture group received the normal lecture given by the teachers without the use of study guides or having the students conduct chapter surveys. Results Reading comprehension and a guided reading treatment did have a significant effect on achievement in biology. There was an interaction effect between the teachers and the guided reading treatment. Guided reading accounted for a significant portion of the variance. Conclusions. The results of this study indicate that the guided reading approach is a useful strategy in improving the subject matter knowledge of students enrolled in high school biology. The guided reading treatment improved achievement when the teacher followed the outlined procedures for the conventional and guided reading treatments. The improvement in achievement was both statistically and practically significant, suggesting that the guided reading technique ought to be investigated further as a promising instructional strategy for the biology classroom.Education, College o