Kindergarten students' reading performance and perceptions of Ludus Reading: A mixed-method study

Abstract

The study used an embedded qualitative, historical, explanatory, case study design with a dominant quantitative, quasi-experimental pre-post, longitudinal, retrospective design. The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of Ludus Reading—a new reading program—in terms of kindergarten students’ reading perceptions and performance between the control and experimental group addressing the problem of illiteracy and aliteracy. Study participants included 73 kindergarten students. The results of the study were statistically significant (alpha = .05). The null hypothesis H1 was rejected (F (1,70)=15.01, p <. 001). Consequently, the experimental group had higher means on KDRA2 (M=9.25, SD=5.11) than the control group (M=5.07, SD=4.25). The null hypothesis H2 was rejected (F (1,69)=6268.69, Wilks Lambda=0.68, p < .001). Therefore, the experimental group had higher means on KDIBELS NWF-CLS (M=53.31, SD=21.51) than the control group (M=32.20, SD=18.99). The sub-null hypotheses were retained, signifying that moderating factors, gender and speech language services, did not influence the students’ reading performance. Qualitative data from learning profiles were explored, and emerging themes indicated that the experimental group enjoyed reading more than the control group because students from the experimental group used more descriptive emotion words to describe reading, and expressed a higher intensity level of enjoyment.