Changing Patterns of Talk to Improve the High-Level Reading Comprehension of Chinese Primary Rural Students

Little research to date has examined the effectiveness of text-based discussion to improve the high-level reading comprehension of primary students from Chinese rural settings. This doctoral project investigates the extent to which a dialogic intervention is associated with shifts in classroom talk patterns and impacts on Chinese rural students’ high-level reading comprehension. The current study adopted the ‘Learning Schools Model’ (LSM) and it has three correlated phases. The profiling phase investigated the talk pattern in the rural classroom setting prior to the intervention. After that, the dialogic intervention was co-designed by the researcher and the treatment teacher to build specifically on strengths and address weaknesses and gaps identified in the profiling phase. The third phase examined whether the teaching practice and students’ reading outcomes are sustained. In the intervention phase, the treatment class (N=50) received an eight-week intervention, whereas a comparison class (N=49) continued business-as-usual reading instruction. Key shifts were identified associated with the intervention, including students’ notable increases in the frequency of engaging in elaborative explanations and exploratory talk, and a decrease in teacher’s test questions and the amount of talk. There were mixed effects from the intervention on students’ reading comprehension ability from baseline and two subsequent time points. Although there was no statistically significant effect from the intervention on treatment students’ PIRLS tests, which require text integration, the treatment students performed significantly better than comparison students on treatment-specific tests, which assessed students’ ability in text evaluation. Investigation of the sustainability of the intervention indicated that the treatment students sustained their high-level reading achievement in text evaluation. However, the teacher reverted to the talk patterns that she had prior to the intervention. Explanations of these outcomes include the teacher’s lack of dialogic stance and educational system factors that hinder the sustainability of text-based discussions. Results indicated that intervention to increase dialogic discussions can be effective with Chinese rural students, and can transfer from spoken to written tasks. It is recommended that future research should emphasize the sustainability of the dialogic intervention as a process of continued improvement to achieve the improvement of teaching practice and valued student outcomes.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Zhong, Yiting

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wilson, Aaron

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/69324

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/69324