The Effects of the Picture Word Inductive Model on the Sixth-Grade Students'' Dolch Sight Words Acquisition in an Elementary School in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Chien-hung Chen, 陳建宏
• Other Authors: none
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/91173664894254036978

碩士 === 國立雲林科技大學 === 應用外語系碩士班 === 100 === The purpose of the research aimed at investigating the effects of the Picture Word Inductive Model on the Taiwanese sixth-grade students’ acquisition of the Dolch sight words knowledge in the aspects of phonics (spelling and pronunciation), lexico-grammatical awareness (meaning and grammar) and reading comprehension. The participants in the research were 46 sixth-grade students, 29 male and 17 female, in two intact classes of an elementary school in Nantou County, Taiwan. One of the sixth-grade classes was the control group, and the other sixth- grade class was the experimental group. There were 23 students in the control group, 16 male and 7 female. In the experimental group, there were also 23 students, 13 male and 10 female. The students in the control group received regular English instruction, while those in the experimental group received the Picture Word Inductive Model program in two English classes a week for 18 weeks. Pretest-posttest of knowledge in the Dolch sight words in the aspects of phonics (spelling and pronunciation), lexico-grammatical awareness (meaning and grammar) and reading comprehension tests as well as reading questionnaires were applied to evaluate the students’ progress of reading competences and attitude change towards English reading before and after the Picture Word Inductive Model program. Interview with 11 students after the program was conducted and reflection logs were recorded to understand the students’ feelings about the Picture Word Inductive Model and their attitudes towards English reading. The results indicated that most of the students in the experimental group made prominent improvement in knowledge in the Dolch sight words in the aspects of phonics (spelling and pronunciation), lexico-grammatical awareness (meaning and grammar) and reading comprehension. Moreover, the findings showed that most of the participants in the experimental group were positive about the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) and liked the implementation of the PWIM in English classes and that the PWIM is conductive to English learning. The researcher also provided some insights and suggestions for English teachers or educators in the study for their references.