Phonological Bootstrapping in Word Recognition & Whole Language Reading: A Composite Pedagogy for L2 Reading Development via Concurrent Reading-Listening Protocols and the Extensive Reading Approach

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of concurrent reading and listening--in the form of the Reading While Listening (RWL) technique--as a means of improving word recognition and reading comprehension among intermediate L2 readers and compared these effects to a distinct top-down reading pedagogy in the form of Extensive Reading (ER) approach, an integrated pedagogy of both RWL and ER and a Control pedagogy of silent in-class reading. Drawing upon innate acquisitional mechanisms of phonological recoding as articulated by Jorm & Share's (1983) Self-Teaching Hypothesis (STH), the present research suggested the simultaneous presentation of identical orthographic and aural input as an ideal protocol for the exploitation of such a route to fluent word recognition in reading. Drawing upon innate acquisitional mechanisms of cognitive inferencing and whole language development as proposed by Goodman (1967, 1988), Krashen (1995, 2007) and Day & Bamford (1998), the present study also proposed the ER pedagogical approach as an effective top-down mechanism for cognitive inferencing in reading and whole language development as well as a tool for addressing L2 reader affect. In order to investigate the efficacy of RWL and ER respectively, while also as an integrated composite pedagogy of both RWL and ER, the present study employed a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design incorporating longitudinal classroom treatments of RWL, ER, RWL-ER and Control reading pedagogies over five weeks and among 51 intermediate ESL readers. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses, alongside qualitative data reduction and display, supported the respective and significant efficacy of RWL and ER reading pedagogies over Control treatments on measures of reading rate, comprehension, vocabulary and grammatical knowledge gains as well as reader affect. Moreover, the composite RWL-ER treatment group demonstrated superlative gains above all other treatment types in a manner that supports the distinct advantages of such an integrated reading pedagogy, which pairs acquisitional approaches to both bottom-up word recognition and top-down cognitive skills development in tandem. Pedagogical implications for these findings are discussed alongside limitations and area for future research.