Deeper reading of poetry and prose: Effects of a reading process-focused intervention on the text comprehension of 10thgrade students in the Netherlands

Abstract

The main result of this effectiveness study is that a reading program with a focus on students’ poetry reading processes, based on observational learning via eye movement modeling examples, can improve students’ reading comprehension for different text types. In a pretest-posttest design with an experimental group (ten classes) and a control group (five classes), students’ self-efficacy regarding their own reading process and their reading comprehension were measured. Over a six-week period, teachers of Dutch and their students worked with the six experimental lessons, instead of the regular reading program: students observed and evaluated contrasting peer reading processes, reflected on differences with their own reading process, and then they practiced aspects of a deep reading process. The program resulted in significant progress in the reading comprehension of “expository texts” (ES = .66), “short stories” (ES = .66), and especially “poetry” (ES = .81). Furthermore, the self-efficacy test results show that students in the experimental condition experienced significantly more learning effect after the intervention period than those in the control group. Moreover, based on the learning reports, evaluation tasks and interviews, it appears that the participants in the innovative program have become aware of their reading and how they improved their performance.