The Effects of Choral Repeated Reading on Foreign Language Reading Fluency of Words in Connected and Disconnected Text

Abstract

Repeated reading has been successfully used to enhance reading fluency in L1, but little is known about how (and to what extent) this strategy impacts reading in foreign language classrooms. Our paper reports the results of a 5-week intervention program aimed to improve reading fluency of middle school students during their English as a foreign language classes. Four classes of sixth-graders divided in two groups received two reading treatments for the last 15 minutes of the class: choral repeated reading (CRR) and reading comprehension/vocabulary development (RC/VD). Results indicated that a short term intervention program of repeated reading can lead to significant improvements of fluency only at lexical level (words in disconnected text) but not at syntactic level (words in connected text). Pedagogical implications and further research directions are addressed.