Does+confidence,+attitude,+or+grades+affect+the+amount+of+miscues+and+or+comprehension+while+reading?-+Casey

1. My research question was does confidence, attitude, or grades affect the amount of miscues and/or comprehension while reading? 2. To answer this question, I gave everybody in the grade a survey that asked their grades (type of honor roll), age, gender, number of times they have forgotten or not done their homework, when they try their best in school, when they try their best in school, if they care about how they do in school, and if they were a confident reader or not. Based on this survey I created 6 groups. Each group contained a different type of student. There were 2 groups, 1 with boys, and the other with girls who were on the gold honor roll and have never forgotten or not done their homework (also known as getting zapped). There was a group of students who were on the silver honor roll who have gotten zapped 1-4 times this year. There was a group of students who never tried their best, or only tried their best when something was graded. I also had a group of people on the blue honor or not on the honor roll at all. Lastly, I had a group of not confident readers. I had each person that was selected read me a passage out loud, and I counted their miscues. I counted miscues as points in the reading when they skipped/added a word, stopped for a really long time, pronounced something completely incorrectly, etc. Then, I took the passage away and had them answer 5 comprehension questions. I compared the results to the surveys.

Results: I classified certain scores into specific groups.

Miscues- Great: 0-4 Comprehension- Great: 5/5 Good: 5-8 Good: 4/5 Okay: 9+ Okay: 3/5 Needs work: 1-2/5

Non-confident readers: had between 6-10 miscues and a comprehension score of 3-5/5. One person got a 5/5, 2 people got a 4/5, and 2 people got a 3/5 Female, gold HR, 0 zap: had between 5-7 miscues and a comprehension score of 3-5/5. 1 person got a 3/5 and the other 2 got a 5/5 Male, gold HR, 0 zap: had between 5-8 miscues and a comprehension score of 3-5/5. 1 person got a 3/5 and 2 got a 5/5.

Silver HR 1-4 zap: had between 5-8 miscues and a comprehension score of 3-5/5. 1 person got a 3/5, 1 got a 4/5 and 1 got a 5/5. Don’t always try: had between 1-9 miscues and a comprehension score of 3-4/5. 1 person got a 3/5 and 1 got a 4/5 No, or blue HR: had between 2-12 miscues and a comprehension score of 3-5/5. 1 person got a 3/5 and 1 got a 5/5

I found that most people are confident readers because they read, a lot, like to read, or feel as if they are good readers. Most people are not confident readers because they don’t like to read, they don’t read very often, or they feel like they are not very good at reading.

I also found that not confident readers are either struggling with comprehension or miscues. But also, everyone has a different interpretation of what confident is. I found that people with higher grades tend to have less miscues than people with lower grades (however, the amount of miscues made by people with higher grades is not much lower than everyone else’s). I did not find that grades greatly affected the comprehension while reading. I could not find a pattern between the attitude of the students, and their miscues and comprehension scores. (Attitude was classified as when the student tried their hardest in school).

Limitations:
 * Small sample size
 * Outliers made the sample sizes smaller
 * Could not be sure if surveys were answered truthfully
 * Everyone has a different interpretation on things

Recommendations: It is obvious that for the most part confident readers have fewer issues with comprehension and miscues than non-confident readers do. I would strongly suggest that teachers and parents encourage their kids to read, because people who read more often seem to be more confident with their reading abilties.