The Effect of Literature-Based Reading instruction on Tenth-Grade Students' Attitudes Toward Reading

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of whole language literature-based reading instruction on students' attitudes toward reading. More specifically, this study aimed at answering the following questions: 1. Is there a significant difference in the tenth-grade students' reading attitudes due to the whole language ,literature-based reading instruction? 2. Is there a significant difference between the mean scores of the males' and females' attitudinal tests clue to the whole language, literature-based reading instruction? 3. Is there a significant difference in the tenth-grade students' attitudes toward reading due to the interaction between the students' gender and their group? The population of the study consisted of the tenth grade students' in the public schools of Nablus Directorate of Education in the scholastic year 1999/2000. The sample of the study consisted of (156) tenth grade students divided into two treatment groups, an experimental group with (78) students (41 females and 37 males), and a control group with (78) students (43 females and 35 males). The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey was administered three days before the beginning of the treatment period_ The analysis of the data obtained showed that the two groups were not equivalent in the attitudinal mean scores. Then the experimental groups were taught many texts representing different literary genres using the literature-based reading instruction, while the control groups were taught many reading comprehension passages from their basal readers using the traditional method of teaching reading. Three classroom periods for four weeks were allotted for each class. At the end of the four-week treatment period, students were given the elementary Reading Attitude Survey again to measure the change in their attitude toward reading. The data were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance (ANNOVA), t- test (paired t-test), and two way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The findings of the study were: 1. There was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the tenth-grade students' pre and post reading attitudinal tests of the experimental and control groups in favor of the experimental group due to the effect of literature-based reading instruction. 2. There was no statistically significant difference in the mean scores of the tenth-grade students' pre and post reading attitudinal tests of the experimental and control groups due to gender. 3. There was no statistically significant difference in the mean scores of the pupils' post reading attitudinal tests of the two groups due to the interaction between gender and method of instruction. In the light of these findings, it is recommended that the basal reading approach should be replaced with a literature-based reading approach. It was also recommended that the Ministry of Education should train the teachers in literature-based reading instruction. Another important recommendation is that teachers should give special attention to the importance of the students' attitudes in developing proficient readers. Finally, the researcher recommended that further experimental and longitudinal studies should be conducted to find the long range effect of the whole language, literature-based reading program on students' attitudes toward and their achievement in reading and the correlation between these two variables.