An investigation into the effects of parental involvement in the teaching of reciprocal reading to underachieving students

Abstract

Poverty leads to social disadvantage and low aspiration in children. The Department of Education reported that the Home Learning Environment is as important to the intellectual and cognitive development of children as the occupation and education of their parents. Reciprocal reading has been widely used internationally to raise reading comprehension skills amongst disadvantaged children but this study is the first to engage parents. This research investigated the impact of a literacy intervention in Primary schools, involving parents at every stage. The study investigated whether levels of self-concept in reading, for both parties, were improved by their participation in the intervention.The sample size was (N=12) from three schools. Participants satisfied criteria set by Fischer Family Trust. This Phase II study relates to the efficacy of Reciprocal Reading based on Palincsar and Brown’s model of reciprocal teaching. The involvement of parents was based on the theories of Vygotsky, Bruner and Johnson and Johnson’s theory of social interdependence. Gains for the intervention group were +15.00 marks on the NGRT test in Sentence Completion. Cohen’s d gave effect sizes of +0.25 for Sentence Completion for the intervention group compared to the control. Improvements in Self-Concept in Reading for parents were +1.84 (effect size +0.16) compared to no gains for pupils -1.09 (effect size –0.13).

Date of Award	Dec 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Allen Thurston (Supervisor) & Maria Cockerill (Supervisor)