The effects of listening to expository text on first graders' listening comprehension and book choice

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of listening to expository text on first graders' listening comprehension and book choice. The participants for this study included 77 first grade students from four heterogeneous classes at a suburban elementary school in the New York City metropolitan area.;During the pretest and posttest each individual student's book choice was measured by asking them to choose between three sets of narrative and expository texts on the same topic. Each student's listening comprehension was measured using the Qualitative Reading Inventory-3 (QRI-3). Following the pretest, an intervention was conducted with the experimental group in the students to listened to twelve read-alouds of expository books and articles over the course of four weeks.;A Chi Square analysis revealed that initially 76.6% of students chose expository text over narrative text. There was no significant change in these findings after intervention. Further analysis revealed a significant difference between the students' performance on the two types of passages on the listening comprehension measure (t(76) = 9.129, p = .000) indicating that the first graders performed significantly better on the narrative comprehension test than the expository comprehension test. However, after intervention, a MANOVA revealed that the experimental group performed significantly better on the expository listening comprehension measure ( Lambda (1,75) = .754, p < .001). There was a weak correlation between the students' listening comprehension abilities and book choices.;It is clear that primary grade students enjoy and are capable of understanding expository text. First grade teachers should not overlook the value of this type of text as read-alouds. Children would benefit from and appreciate the opportunity to choose books that interest them for independent, recreational reading. Making these findings available to parents would further benefit the students by encouraging parents to include expository text in their home libraries.