| Abstract [eng] |
The aim of the study - to compare the impact of different types reading skills improvement activities to the reading motivation and word decoding skills for second grade students. The study involved second grade students (7-8 years old) from 3 different classes but the same school in Klaipeda. Since the students' abilities have already been assessed, with the help of the methodologies used in the school, lists have been obtained from the school speech therapist, with the names of the students who have reading difficulties, and attend special classes at the school. The following students (who also received parental consent) were randomly divided into 3 groups: Experimental (I) - once a week (14 weeks), during the group session, read the texts to the researcher; Experimental (II) - once a week (14 weeks), during a group session, read texts to a certified, therapeutic dog (the researcher only coordinated the group procedure); Control (III) - no additional intervention was applied. The parents of the study participants were asked 4 questions that meet the identified main criteria of Home Environment Literacy. Also, by the Method of Psychological Difficulties of Reading and Writing Assessment: Meaningful and Meaningless Words Reading Tasks, and by The Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) translated and modified method, we were able to assess the elementary (decoded) reading skills and the reading motivation change, after differently intervention/control period, to all of 3 different groups. Additional Reading and Reading with a Dog methods, which were used as intervention methods during the study, for 2 different experimental groups, were developed and adapted for work with groups, based on similar studies already performed. Study participants did not differ significantly in any aspect of home environment literacy. It was observed that comparing the results of each group before and after the intervention / control period separately, for none of the group participants, word decoding skills, internal, external motivation and negative attitudes towards reading did not change significantly. Comparing the changes in the results of all 3 groups after the experiment, it was observed that the participants of the group who read the literature for the therapy-dog had a significantly greater positive change in the ability to decode meaningless words after the experiment than the rest of the experiment (control and the group that read to the researcher), participants in the group that read the literature and received feedback had a significantly greater negative change in the ability to decode meaningless words after the experiment than the rest of the experiment (control and the group that read to the therapy-dog). Also, the participants in the group that read the literature to the therapy-dog showed a significantly increased aspect of external motivation after the experiment - social (reading-related) behavior compared to the rest of the experimental participants (control and the group that read to the researcher), and the group that did not receive any exposure (control), participants showed significantly reduced social (reading-related) behavior after the experiment compared to the rest of the experiment participants (the group that read to the therapy-dog, and the group that read to the researcher). Participants in all 3 groups, after the experiment, showed a positive change in the ability to decode meaningful words, but did not differ significantly from each other. There were also no significant differences when comparing the changes in the remaining internal and external aspects of reading motivation and negative attitudes towards reading. |
