Associations Between Reading Skills, Interest in Reading, and Teaching Practices in First Grade

ABSTRACT

This study examined associations between classroom-level reading fluency, comprehension, interest in reading, and teaching practices. Participants were 466 children from 21 classrooms. Reading fluency and interest were assessed at the beginning and end of Grade 1, reading comprehension at the end of Grade 1. Teaching practices were observed with the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure (ECCOM). Teachers were more likely to use teacher-directed methods in classrooms where children had poorer initial reading fluency. In classrooms with mostly child-centered methods, children showed better reading fluency, comprehension, and higher interest, whereas in classrooms with predominately teacher-directed practices, children had lower reading comprehension at the end of Grade 1. Findings highlight the need for teacher education programs to incorporate discussions about the benefits and disadvantages of different teaching methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Student characteristics
• reading fluency
• reading comprehension
• interest in reading
• teaching practices
• primary school

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Although we used the Early Childhood Classroom Observational Measure (ECCOM; *Stipek & Byler, 2004), we refer also to studies carried out with other observational measures and questionnaires. We have now marked those studies that have used the ECCOM measure with an asterisk in the References section.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by institutional research funding IUT (3-3) of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, European Social Fund Program Eduko (via Archimedes Foundation [grant 30.2-4/549]) and grants from the Academy of Finland [No. 268586 for 2013–2017, No. 292466 for 2015–2019 and No. 277299 for 2015–2017 for the second author].