ERIC Number: EJ1458046
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jan
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0922-4777
EISSN: EISSN-1573-0905
Does the Reading Acceleration Program Improve Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Emergent Bilingual Children?
Miao Li; Yueming Xi; Esther Geva; Rong Yan; Wei Zhao
Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, v38 n1 p143-169 2025
It has been suggested that the reading acceleration program (RAP) (Breznitz et al. in Nature Communications 4: 1486, 2013), in which participants are forced to read at a rate faster than their normal reading fluency rate, improves reading fluency and comprehension in alphabetic languages. However, its effectiveness has never been examined in emergent bilingual children's reading. This study explored the impact of the RAP, administered over 12 sessions for 4 consecutive weeks on emergent bilingual children's reading in Chinese (L1) and English (L2). Participants were 97 Grade 5 students in Mainland China, randomly assigned to one of four groups: (1) a group with accelerated paradigm in English first followed by Chinese; (2) a group with accelerated paradigm in Chinese first followed by English; (3) a group with non-accelerated paradigm in English first followed by Chinese; and (4) a group with non-accelerated paradigm in Chinese first followed by English. The online test battery included reading fluency and comprehension in both Chinese and English. The offline standardized Chinese and English test battery included rapid automatized naming, word reading fluency, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Results showed pre-post improvement on both online and offline reading measures in the accelerated and non-accelerated groups. There was evidence of cross-linguistic transfer effect in the RAP intervention. Regardless of condition (accelerated or non-accelerated) children who received training in two languages outperformed those who received training in one language, who in turn outperformed those who did not receive any training targeting reading fluency. Results are discussed in terms of the RAP mechanism that improves reading fluency and reading comprehension in emergent bilingual children.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Grade 5, Reading Instruction, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Acceleration (Education), Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, Bilingual Students, Computer Assisted Testing, Paper and Pencil Tests, Reading Programs, Chinese
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Grade 5; Intermediate Grades; Middle Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A