Increasing reading rate and comprehension: The effects of repeated readings, sentence segmentation, and intonation training

Abstract

Thirty fourth and fifth graders, reading below grade level, participated in a study to investigate the effects of repeated readings, intonation training and segmentation training on reading rate and reading comprehension. The dependent variables were reading rate and comprehension. These measures were collected for passages read under each level of the repeated reading variable. A 2 x 3 mixed design with one between and one within group factor was used and two separate ANOVA's, one for each dependent variable were calculated. A significant increase in reading rate was noted as the number of repeated readings increased from one to three to seven. Comprehension also significantly increased when the students read the passage three times instead of one time and seven times instead of one time. Students trained to segment sentences did read at a faster rate and scored higher in comprehension than those students given intonation training, but not to a statistically significant degree. No interaction was found between repeated readings and comprehension training on either reading rate or the comprehension measure.