Reading strategies of first grade children taught by a language experience approach and a basal approach

Abstract

This paper discusses reading strategies of first grade children taught by a language experience approach and a basal reader approach. Twenty‐one language‐experience‐taught subjects and twenty‐one basal‐reader‐taught subjects read a 140 word story from a basal reader not used in the classroom. A modified version of Goodman and Burke's mis‐cue analysis procedures was used to examine use of graphophonic, syntactic and semantic cues. Results showed no significant differences between these two groups in use of these cues. Twenty‐five words, randomly chosen from the Harris‐Jacobsen Core List, were presented one at a time to the subjects. No significant differences were found for number correct, number of non‐responses, number of real word substitutions, or number of nonsense word substitutions. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for further research.