Does Embedding Early Reading Education in Meaningful Contexts Improve Children’s Reading Engagement and Reading Proficiency?

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of the Zin in Lezen approach (ZiL; in English: Desire to Read) on children’s reading engagement, comprehension, decoding skills, and vocabulary. In ZiL, reading and writing activities are embedded in meaningful contexts, and attention to reading motivation, comprehension, decoding, and vocabulary is integrated. A total of 343 children, ranging from kindergarten through Grade 2, participated in the study. ZiL was compared to programmatic instruction, in which the curriculum is mostly centered on textbook-based programs. Several instruments were used to measure dimensions of reading engagement, comprehension, decoding skills, and vocabulary. Contrary to expectations, the results indicated a negative impact of ZiL on reading attitude and reading comprehension. No significant differences were found in the other outcome measures. Several possible explanations for these findings were considered. First, the standardized measures we used may have been more aligned with programmatic instruction than with ZiL. Second, the implementation quality of ZiL was hampered due to COVID-19 measures. Finally, lower scores in the ZiL condition may have been caused by lower decoding skills at pretest.