From reading aloud to oral interpretation: Orality's effects on the narrative retellings of secondary school students

Jeanne A. Smith Muzzillo, Purdue University

Abstract

Although oral reading is common practice in classrooms at every grade level, research regarding the effects of oral reading on secondary students is rather rare. This study replaces traditional comprehension measures by employing trends and categories for analyzing written retellings. Designed to aid teachers in conscious matching of strategy, text, student, and outcomes, the oral interpretation strategy was assessed through analysis of student retellings of sample prose text. This study was conducted in a naturalistic setting: a mid-sized Midwestern High School, with sophomore students and teachers of world literature classes, under typical classroom circumstances. Randomly assigned groups either performed a prepared, purposeful oral interpretation of a short story, or discussed and wrote answers to text questions about the same story. All students, then, wrote a retelling of the story which was analyzed for trends and significant differences between groups and relationships among the categorical trends. It was found that the groups were only significantly different for five of eleven categories: conflict, ideas, plot, imagery, and a measure of empathy. For each of these categories, the students who orally interpreted the prose fared worse for recall. Since discussion/writing process is so entrenched in literature classrooms, for the oral interpreters to do almost as well is promising. This study still advocates for the use of orality in the classroom in a number of specified incarnations and for a number of theoretically-supported reasons.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Knoeller, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Language arts|Secondary education|Literacy|Reading instruction

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