Effects of Repeated Reading on Second-Grade Transitional Readers' Fluency and Comprehension

THE STUDY was designed to investigate the effect of two repeated reading procedures on second-grade transitional readers' (Chall, 1983) oral reading performance with practiced and unpracticed passages. Seventeen transitional readers were selected on the basis of average or better decoding ability but below-average reading rate and were assigned to one of two types of repeated reading training, using either a read-along procedure or independent practice. Results showed that transitional readers' rate, accuracy, comprehension, and prosodic reading (reading in meaningful phrases) were significantly improved by repeated reading practice regardless of the training procedure employed. Gains in repeated reading of practiced passages transferred to unpracticed, similar passages; however, practice on a single passage was not as effective as practice on a series of passages. Prosodic reading was most facilitated by the read-along procedure.