What is the effect of reading aloud to children on a comprehension test compared to reading silently

THE EFFECTS OF ORAL AND SILENT READING TO CHILDREN

Reading fluency is recognized as an essential requirement for reading competency among students . It has been described that the capacity to efficiently and effectively read is necessary in reading comprehension Recent surveys among 4th grade children revealed that less than half of the students assessed showed difficulty in reading and comprehension (NRP , 2000 . It has thus been determined that children need to learn methods in reading fluency , regardless of how intelligent a child is , or else these students will remain reading at a slow

pace and will keep on experiencing hardship during reading sessions for the rest of their lives

Fluency in reading is described as the capacity to read with continuous attention and focus , as well as simplicity and relaxation at tolerable reading speed , mainly depending on the grade level of the student . More importantly , fluency in reading is strongly associated with an excellent grasp or comprehension of the reading material . It is therefore interesting to determine whether oral reading results in a different degree of reading fluency among children , from that of silent reading Such investigation may provide information that is essential for the understanding of mechanisms for reading comprehension among young students . The study will also provide specifics on the role of both oral and silent reading in the development of a child 's reading comprehension

Oral reading involves reading with expression to the listener and , in terms of grade school children , involves a teacher reading with different pitches or tones , representing each character in the storybook . Oral reading directly shows that the words that are printed in books and other reading material are the major media of language and communication among individuals . Though oral reading may be the best method of telling stories to very young children , there are also consequences that are related to this type of reading . Hence educational institutions campaign for a balance between oral and silent reading in to generate a well-formed reading capability in the developing child . Significant differences are observed between oral and silent reading . In oral reading , the reader 's attention is focused on the words that are printed in the material , instead of on understanding the story or message of the material . In addition , oral reading is generally associated with rapid eye or oculo-motor movements , more than the observed amount of eye movement during silent reading (Solan , 2001 Such difference in the amount of eye movement results in a greater susceptibility for children to experience wandering eyes during oral reading . Such feature is not beneficial in any type of reading fluency and is actually a disadvantage to a child (Orfield , 2001

Recently , it has been observed that students show a significant decrease in binocular coordination and visual acuity when they perform oral reading . This was not observed among students who followed a silent reading exercise . Such difference in visual performance affects the children 's reading comprehension because oral reading commonly results in eye fixations which may be simply...