Encouraging Reading Outside of School through Literature Response

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover whether time spent in the classroom responding to literature read at home would encourage children to read at home. This study was based on the past research that states that good readers spend more time reading outside of school than weaker readers. Also, research states that giving a child time to respond to what has been read helps the reader gain better comprehension. Twenty-four third-grade students from a suburban school district participated in the study. During the first eight weeks, the children brought home a reading log, where time spent reading and the title of the book read was recorded. A parent initialed each entry. The logs were returned to school on Mondays and the teacher recorded the total time reading for each child. During the second eight weeks of the study, the subjects continued the same procedure of entering the time spent reading at home in the reading logs. The subjects were also given about fifteen minutes each day to respond to what was read the night before. The total number of minutes read during the first and second eight weeks was recorded. At test was used to check the statistical significance of any difference between the two totals. The results of the study indicate that when a child is given the chance to respond to what he or she has read, he or she will read more. There was a statistically significant increase in the amount of time the subjects spent reading at home during the second eight weeks of the study, when they were given the opportunity to respond.