Effects of tiered English reading instruction on reading comprehension ability and opinions of lower secondary school students

Abstract

Differentiated Instruction (DI) is an instructional approach that can be used in English reading classrooms for second language learners to accommodate a wide range of student reading abilities. Tiering is one specific DI strategy that aims to adapt instruction to different levels so all students in a mixed-ability classroom are adequately challenged. This study explored the effects of tiering instruction on the English reading comprehension of secondary school students in Thailand. Three parts of each lesson were tiered: content (reading texts), process (the way students make sense of the reading texts), and product (post-reading tasks). The students were also tiered into three groups—basic, grade-level, and advanced—based on their self-assessed background knowledge of the topic of each lesson. The scores from the paralleled pretest and posttest were compared and a statistically significant improvement to the students’ overall comprehension was observed. The interviews revealed mostly positive sentiments amongst the students who used words like “joy”, “motivation”, “interest”, and “excitement” to describe their opinions of tiered reading instruction. The findings from this study suggest tiering is an effective strategy in mixed-ability English reading classrooms for second language learners. Further, tiering should be investigated as an instructional strategy for other language skills.