Abstract:
The main purpose of this inquiry was to study the units of reading material ( i.e. Letters, Words and groups of words) that a typical Thai student in M.S.3 processes in situations of both oral and silent reading. The specific purposes were to compare reading speed and comprehension in four groups, each of which read one of four types of passages, printed in black and red alternating between letters, printed in black and red alternating between words, printed in black only and red only, and to study the trend of ten-time reading. Samples : The samples were composed of 160 girls who are students in M.S.3 at Satrisetabutbumpen School in Bangkok. They were divided into two group of 80 each. One group was subject for Experiment I and the other group served as subject for Experiment II. Instruments : 1. The instrument for Experiment I were ten Thai Language passages of a similar difficulty. Each of them was printed in black and red alternating between letters, black and red alternating between words, black only and red only. Students were tested for reading speed. 2. The instrument for Experiment II was a Cloze test made up from the instrument for Experiment I. Students were tested for comprehension. Procedure : Experiment I. Oral reading. The first group of subjects were divided into four sub-groups of twenty each. The first subgroup read the passages which were printed with alternating black and red Letters. The second subgroup read the passages printed with alternating black and red words. The third subgroup read the passages printed in black only and the fourth subgroup read the passages in red only. Each of the subjects in each subgroup read all ten selections of the type read by that subgroup. The experimenter distributed the selections in a random fashion to each subject and recorded the reading speed of each subject as she finished each reading passage. Experiment II. Silent reading. The second group of subjects were divided into four subgroups of twenty each. The first subgroup read Cloze test which were printed with alternating black and red Letters. The second subgroup read Cloze test printed with black and red alternating words. The third subgroup read Cloze tests printed in black only and the fourth read Cloze tests printed in red only. As in Experiment I each group read 10 test of a similar degree of difficulty in random order. Individual comprehension scores were recorded by the experimenter Findings : Experiment I. Oral reading. The reading speed attained on the passages that was printed with alternating black and red words (X̅ = 81.71) was not significantly faster than the reading speed attained on the passages printed in black only (X̅ = 89.27) and that printed in red only (X̅ = 88.26) (p > .05). The reading speed of the passages printed in black only was significantly faster than the reading speed attained on the passages printed with alternating black and red Letters (p < .01). The reading speed of the passages printed in red only was significantly faster than the reading speed attained on the passages printed with alternating black and red Letters ( p< .01). While it cannot be concluded that the students in general process reading materials in a Letter by Letter, word by word, or phrase by phrase fashion, it might be concluded that the students in the present experiment were more inclined to process reading materials as individual words. The Trend of the ten-time reading showed a quadratic significance at p<.05 but a linear insignificance (p > .05) Experiment II. Silent reading. The reading comprehension of the four groups was not significantly different (p> .05) nor was the reading comprehension on the ten-time reading significantly different (p> .05). The result showed that, in regard to silent reading no significant conclusions could be made about the maner in which students processed reading materials.