Different quality initial reading same reading comprehension in the future

Abstract

This article reports the results of a longitudinal research carried out in 2015 on a population of sixth grade students, with the objective of proving that the reading method used to learn to read does not guarantee better reading comprehension on the future, because reading comprehension requires different processes than those involved in decoding. For this study, 189 students from six public schools in the province of Cartago Costa Rica did reading comprehension tests of the Reading and Writing in Spanish Test (LEE, for its acronym in Spanish). In 2010 and 2011 these same students had participated in a quasi-experimental study with a posttest design, which demonstrated that students who learned to read with Pictophonic Strategies (experimental group) acquired higher quality initial reading than those in the group that used the Eclectic Method (control group). The results of the reading comprehension evaluation in 2015 showed there were no significant differences between the 72 students on the experimental group and the 117 students on the control group, which leads to the conclusion that a better reading quality, encouraged by a specific teaching method, does not guarantee better reading comprehension in the future.