Language Teaching Strategies’ Impact on Third-Grade Students’ Reading Outcomes and Reading Interest

Primary school students have difficulties with text comprehension, and therefore support from teachers via proper language teaching strate-gies is needed. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of language teaching strategies on students’ reading outcomes and reading interest. In the curre...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Maile Käsper, Krista Uibu, Jaan Mikk
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Kura Publishing 2018-06-01
Series:International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.iejee.com/index.php/IEJEE/article/view/509/361
Description
Summary:Primary school students have difficulties with text comprehension, and therefore support from teachers via proper language teaching strate-gies is needed. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of language teaching strategies on students’ reading outcomes and reading interest. In the current paper, two reading outcomes – vocabulary knowledge and understanding text – and students’ interest in reading were considered. In the study, 220 Estonian-speaking primary school students and their native language teachers (N = 12) from 12 schools partici-pated. The results revealed that interest in reading, vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension were positively correlated. Path analysis indicated that the strategy of developing reading interest had the strongest impact on both reading outcomes and students’ reading interest. In addition, the strategy of developing vocabulary had a positive effect on students’ vocabulary knowledge. Surprisingly, the strategies of teaching text comprehension and teaching grammar rules had negative effects on students’ reading outcomes and reading interest. The findings em-phasise the importance of proper usage of teaching strategies in primary school language lessons.
ISSN:1307-9298
1307-9298