An investigation of recreational reading levels of fourth-graders with the reading levels obtained from an informal reading inventory

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Authors
Boulware, Beverly Joan
Advisor
Smith, Lawrence L.
Issue Date
1994
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (D. Ed.)
Department
Department of Elementary Education
Other Identifiers
Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the readability levels of the recreational reading books children selected to read with the reading levels of the children established by Powell's (1992) criteria for the Informal Reading Inventory. Using Fry's Readability Graph, a second purpose of this study was to compare the reading levels of the books the children chose and read with the reading levels of the books the children chose and did not read. Five hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance.Hypotheses I-IV were tested using a t-test for paired samples to determine if there was any particular reading level from which children tended to choose their recreational reading books.The analyses did not allow rejection of Hypotheses I and II. There were no significant relationships found between the reading levels independent and developmental, and the levels of recreational reading books children chose from their school library.The analyses did allow rejection of Hypotheses III and IV. The reading levels emergent and frustration proved to be statistically significantly different from the children's recreational book levels.Hypothesis V was tested using the Pearson correlation coefficient to determine the relationship between the reading levels of the recreational reading books the children chose and read and the reading levels of the books the children chose and did not read.The analysis failed to reject Hypothesis V. There was no significant relationship between the reading levels of the books the children chose and read and the reading levels of the books the children did not read. Although this hypothesis did not prove to be statistically significant, the following tendency was observed: the easier the readability of the book, the more likely it was to have been read.The findings of this study indicate fourth grade students chose books from their school library on all their reading levels. However, on the average students chose books between their independent and developmental reading levels.