Acoustic Features of Oral Reading Prosody and the Relation With Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension in Taiwanese Children

Purpose: The study aimed to examine whether oral reading prosody—the use of acoustic features (e.g., pitch and duration variations) when reading passages aloud—predicts reading fluency and comprehension abilities. Method: We measured vocabulary, syntax, word reading, reading fluency (including rate and accuracy), reading comprehension (in Grades 3 and 4), and oral reading prosody in Taiwanese third-grade children ( N = 109). In the oral reading prosody task, children were asked to read aloud a passage designed for third graders and then to answer forced-choice questions. Their oral reading prosody was measured through acoustic analyses including the number of pause intrusions, intersentential pause duration, phrase-final comma pause duration, child–adult pitch match, and sentence-final pitch change. Results: Analyses of variance revealed that children's number of pause intrusions differed as a function of word reading. After controlling for age, vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, and word reading, we found that different dimensions of oral reading prosody contributed to reading rate. In contrast, the number of pause intrusions, phrase-final comma pause duration, and child–adult pitch match predicted reading accuracy and comprehension. Conclusions: Oral reading prosody plays an important role in children's reading fluency and reading comprehension in tone languages like Mandarin. Specifically, children need to read texts prosodically as evidenced by fewer pause intrusions, shorter phrase-final comma pause duration, and closer child–adult pitch match, which are early predictive makers of reading fluency and comprehension.

AN INVESTIGATION OF ORAL READING FLUENCY OF TENTH GRADE IN ONE OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS IN INDRAMAYU

The purpose of this study is to investigate students oral reading fluency of tenth grade in one of Senior High Schools in Indramayu. According to Zuhra (2015) the students faced difficulties in English because of their poor vocabulary. The students also faced difficulties when the texts were long and complicated with various different modifying phrases. There are three subskills to measure oral reading fluency. As stated by Pey, et al (2014) there are ‘accuracy’. ‘speed’, and ‘prosody’. Case study is chosen as a research method in this study. Two instruments were used to collect the data. The first is oral reading fluency test, this was used to measure students’ fluency in oral reading. The second is questionnaire. It was used to find out the students’ reading interest and reading habit. After the writers got the data. Then it will be analyzed qualitatively. The results showed that there were 36 students who took the oral reading fluency test. But, unfortunately that almost all students were not fluent in oral reading. The lowest score obtained by students in reading rate is 58 wpm. While for reading accuracy the lowest score obtained by students is 0,7 wc. And the lowest score obtained by students in reading prosody is 4. In reading prosody, almost all students get score of 4. It is because there are still many students who read only if they have to and they read not for own pleasure. Meanwhile, only two students out of thirty-six students who are almost fluent reading are able to do oral reading fluency. Have fluency in oral reading the students have practiced reading a lot. With reading rate 110 wpm and 127 wpm, reading accuracy 0,95 wc and 0,91 wc, and reading prosody are 9 of out 16.

The effects of fluency-oriented reading instruction on reading skills

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction on reading skills. The study group consisted of fifth-grade students. The quasi-experimental pretest-posttest comparison group design was used in the present study and a twenty-week study program was carried out. In the experimental intervention process, the Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction method, which is a classroom-based approach for students at different reading levels involving the collective use of multiple reading fluency methods and applications for the whole class, was applied to the experimental group. “Error Analysis Inventory”, “Reading Prosody Rubric”and, "Reading Comprehension Test" were used as data collection tools, "Personal Information Form" was used to determine demographic features, and “Self, Peer and Group Assessment Forms” were used for the students to assess themselves and their peers. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used in the analysis of the data obtained in the study. While the findings obtained revealed significant differences in favor of the experimental group in the students' narrative and informative text reading speed, reading prosody and reading comprehension scores, no significant difference was found between the experimental group and the control groups in terms of word recognition levels. The findings obtained from the present study have shown that Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction, which is carried out with reader’s theater, paired reading, model reading with audiobooks and home reading, affects the reading performances of students.

Prosodic reading and reading comprehension in university

This study was aimed at investigating the students’ English reading comprehension on the basis of the importance of prosodic reading in university level by first, measuring the levels of reading prosody and reading comprehension, characterizing the acoustic characteristics produced by the students, and at last associating the first variable to the second variable. Prosodic reading levels were measured by using Multidimensional Fluency Scale, containing four dimensions. To explore the six types of syntactically complex structures produced by the students orally, this study conducted a descriptive analysis, only focused on some features. The findings showed that the students experienced moderate level of reading prosody and reading comprehension. Also, it could be reported that a significant correlation was found between the two variables. The study reported that prosodic reading contributed to reading comprehension with r-obtained .538. A thorough analysis explained that some other related predictors influenced students’ comprehension, like difficulties in recognizing the vocabulary, lack of knowledge to review the four types of sentences, and the length of the passage. Among four dimensions, only pace and expression & volume did contribute to reading comprehension much. Different pause structures produced by the students and the native speakers were clearly identified. This was shown as many students had a long pause and sound hesitate due to their inability to decode the words. Moreover, most of them could not comprehend the sentence structure of the text, when to pause, which words were needed to be stressed, and the intonation used. As a result, they read in a two-three phrases and declined to notice where the endings of sentences and clauses were definitely stated. These results confirmed that pause structure commits as a pivotal factor in determining students’ reading comprehension.