scholarly journals Examining oral reading fluency among Grade 5 rural English Second Language (ESL) learners in South Africa? An analysis of NEEDU 2013

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Draper ◽  
Nic Spaull
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Fluency ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Oral Reading Fluency ◽  
Esl Students ◽  
Grade 5 ◽  
English Second Language

The ability to read for meaning and pleasure is arguably the most important skill children learn in primary school. One integral component of learning to read is Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), defined as the ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with meaningful expression. Although widely acknowledged in the literature as important, to date there have been no large-scale studies on ORF in English in South Africa, despite this being the language of learning and teaching for 80% of ESL students from Grade 4 onwards. We analyze data provided by the National Education and Evaluation Development Unit (NEEDU) of South Africa, which tested 4667 Grade 5 English Second Language (ESL) students from 214 schools across rural areas in South Africa in 2013. This included ORF and comprehension measures for a subset of 1772 students. We find that 41% of the sample were non-readers in English (<40 Words Correct Per Minute, WCPM) and only 6% achieved comprehension scores above 60%. By calibrating comprehension levels and WCPM rates we develop tentative benchmarks and argue that a range of 90-100 WCPM in English is acceptable for Grade 5 ESL students in South Africa. In addition we outline policy priorities for remedying the reading crisis in the country.

scholarly journals Examining oral reading fluency among Grade 5 rural English Second Language (ESL) learners in South Africa? An analysis of NEEDU 2013

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Draper ◽  
Nic Spaull
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Fluency ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Oral Reading Fluency ◽  
Esl Students ◽  
Grade 5 ◽  
English Second Language

The ability to read for meaning and pleasure is arguably the most important skill children learn in primary school. One integral component of learning to read is Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), defined as the ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with meaningful expression. Although widely acknowledged in the literature as important, to date there have been no large-scale studies on ORF in English in South Africa, despite this being the language of learning and teaching for 80% of ESL students from Grade 4 onwards. We analyze data provided by the National Education and Evaluation Development Unit (NEEDU) of South Africa, which tested 4667 Grade 5 English Second Language (ESL) students from 214 schools across rural areas in South Africa in 2013. This included ORF and comprehension measures for a subset of 1772 students. We find that 41% of the sample were non-readers in English (<40 Words Correct Per Minute, WCPM) and only 6% achieved comprehension scores above 60%. By calibrating comprehension levels and WCPM rates we develop tentative benchmarks and argue that a range of 90-100 WCPM in English is acceptable for Grade 5 ESL students in South Africa. In addition we outline policy priorities for remedying the reading crisis in the country.

scholarly journals Assessment of English Oral Reading Fluency Rates for Grade seven English Second Language Learners in Tanzania

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Sadiki Moshi Feruzi
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Reading Fluency ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Difficulty Level ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
English Second Language ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Study Context

This study aimed at assessing reading rates for learners in grade seven English second language (ESL) in Morogoro region, Tanzania. A total of 220 participants were randomly selected and assigned two grade appropriate English texts to read so as determine their reading rates. Fluency scale test was used to assess pupils’ reading fluency rates and the data was statistically analysed using SPSS software. It was necessary to asses pupils’ reading rates in the study context because there are no established fluency rate norms set for grade seven pupils in the country. In this case the current study serves as a reference for improvement. Results show that grade seven pupils in Morogoro region had an average reading fluency rate of 101words per minute (WPM) for fiction text and 95WPM for non-fiction text. The difference in the two texts can be due to the length of words and difficulty level in non-fiction text against fiction text. The scored rate is below the adopted benchmarks which implies that these pupils are at risk in reading fluency, consequently, calling for immediate interventions.  

A Framework for Large-Scale Automatic Fluency Assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 70-88
Author(s):  
Warley Almeida Silva ◽  
Luiz Carlos Carchedi ◽  
Jorão Gomes Junior ◽  
João Victor de Souza ◽  
Eduardo Barrere ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reading Fluency ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Oral Reading Fluency ◽  
Learning Assessment ◽  
Teaching Process ◽  
Large Scale Learning ◽  
Learning Assessments ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Hiring Costs

Learning assessments are important to monitor the progress of students throughout the teaching process. In the digital era, many local and large-scale learning assessments are conducted through technological tools. In this view, a large-scale learning assessment can be designed to tackle one or multiple parts of the teaching process. Oral reading fluency assessments evaluate the ability to read reference texts. However, even though the use of applications to collect the reading of the students avoids logistics costs and speeds up the process, the evaluation of recordings has become a challenging task. Therefore, this work presents a computational solution for large-scale precision-critical fluency assessment. The goal is to build an approach based on automatic speech recognition (ASR) for the automatic evaluation of the oral reading fluency of children and reduce hiring costs as much as possible.

scholarly journals Shouting in space: promoting oral reading fluency with Spaceteam ESL

2019 ◽  
pp. 69-74
Author(s):  
Walcir Cardoso ◽  
David Waddington ◽  
Enos Kiforo ◽  
Anne-Marie Sénécal
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Reading Fluency ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Oral Reading Fluency ◽  
Read Aloud ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
English Students

This study examined whether the pedagogical use of Spaceteam ESL (English as a Second Language), a digital shouting game, could contribute to the development of Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) among 71 English students in secondary schools in Mombasa, Kenya. Following a mixed-methods approach for data collection and analysis, we pre- and post-tested the participants on their ability to read aloud efficiently (speed) and accurately (accuracy) in three tasks: (1) phrases extracted from the game; (2) phrases not related to the game; and (3) an anecdote. Our findings indicate that participants who played Spaceteam ESL improved their ORF on all measures of speed, but no significant differences were observed in terms of accuracy. Overall, these findings corroborate our hypothesis that some of the affordances of Spaceteam ESL (e.g. speed reading) would contribute to the development of some aspects of ORF.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document