Secondary Students’ Reading Attitudes and Achievement in a Scaffolded Silent Reading Program versus Traditional Sustained Silent Reading

Abstract

This study explored the reading attitudes and achievement, as well as genre knowledge, of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth-grade students who participated in Scaffolded Silent Reading, Sustained Silent Reading, or a control group. The Reading and You attitude survey, Degrees of Reading Power achievement measure, and Genre Assessment were administered to 66 secondary students enrolled in English classes at a high school in the southeastern United States. Their attitudes toward reading, reading achievement, and knowledge of genre were assessed at the beginning of the course and again at the end of the course to compare any changes. The research questions that guided this study were: 1) To what extent do students on the secondary level participating in Scaffolded Silent Reading show greater improvement in attitudes toward reading books than students participating in Sustained Silent Reading or in a control group? 2) To what extent do students on the secondary level participating in Scaffolded Silent Reading show greater improvement in reading achievement than students participating in a control group? 3) To what extent do students on the secondary level participating in Scaffolded Silent Reading show greater improvement in knowledge of the following genres—autobiography, biography, fantasy, fiction, historical fiction, horror, mystery, nonfiction, poetry, romance, science fiction, and sports—than students participating in Sustained Silent Reading or in a control group?