NURUL SADAH BINTI SAIPULDIN

MP 132070
CRITICAL REVIEW PAPER

Abraham, Lee B. (2007). Second Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary

Learning with Multimedia. Hispani, Vol 90(1), 98-108.
Mostow, J., Jessica N.-T., & Joseph E. B. (2013). Computer Guided Oral Reading Versus
Independent Practice: Comparison of Sustained Silent Reading to An Automated
Reading Tutor That Listens. J. Educational Computing Research, Vol 49(2), 249-276.

1.0 Introduction
In the era of knowledge that can be reach within the tip of fingers and stroke on
keyboards, many teachers and students evolve from chalk and talk in classrooms to the
world of IT or information technology. Vast sources available for them to choose make
learning process as flexible as any can ever imagined. Development of software to assist
learning as well as emerging learning website offer students infinite opportunities for
them to explore and learn. Many researches were conducted especially in the Computer
Assisted Language Learning (CALL) field focusing in reading skills to encourage
continuous understanding of students interactions with multimedia and technology
(Bernhardt, 2003). Reading skills are important as such it open the opportunity for the
students to learn better.
Abraham (2007) conducted a study at a large university in the Southwestern of United
States. The objective of the study is to understand how students (whom are fluent in
English but not non-native speakers of Spanish) utilize multimedia resources while
reading Spanish text. There are seven major headings to guide the readers to understand
his research. After Introduction, he lays some Review of Literature which include ample
details of explanation on Multimedia Glosses in which he presents several researches on
strategies and techniques for enhancing comprehension and facilitating vocabulary with
authentic text. He also provides Theoretical Framework underpinning his study in the
Review of Literature heading. Next, in Method, he includes Participants and Design,
Materials, Tasks and Procedure as sub headings. Fourth major heading is Results,
followed by Discussion, Limitations and lastly Conclusions. There are no software used
in the study but Abraham uses multiple combinations of multimedia glosses as treatments
in his study.
Mostow, Jessica and Joseph (2013) investigated a comparison of Computer-Guided
Oral Reading Versus Independent Practice (Sustained Silent Reading) in improving
various reading ability and skills. Their paper is divided into six sections which starts
with explanation on Guided Oral Reading and then, the explanation on The Computer-

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Guided Oral Reading (The Reading Tutor), which they break it down further into two sub
headings namely Automation/Scalability Features and Instructional Principles. The third
section is Study Design followed by Results. Before the Discussion section, they have a
section with heading Relation to Other Work and for the last section, they put Appendix
which include tutorials interventions and details on six Types of Steps comprised the
activities and interventions in the 2000-2001 version of The Reading Tutor. These six
sections provided a clear path for the readers to follow through on what has been done,
how the study is carried out and the discussions prompt by the results gained from the
study.
This paper aims to provide critical review by summarising both articles, discussing on
the strengths and weaknesses and finally comparing and contrasting both articles.
Abrahams (2007) article will be referred as Article 1 and Article 2 is the paper written by
Mostow, Jessica and Joseph (2013).
2.0 Summary of Both Articles
This section will summarise in brief both articles which include the aims and
objectives of the research, the type of research, the research instruments, the participants
involved, the procedure and lastly the findings.
2.1 Summary of Article 1
Abraham (2007) aims in carrying out this study is to understand how students
use multimedia resources while reading an authentic Spanish text. He provides
two research questions to be addressed, 1)do students who read an authentic text
in Spanish with pictorial and written annotations learn more vocabulary words
than those students required to look up all information provided in every
annotated word or than students who do not have access to annotations?, and 2)do
students who read an authentic text in Spanish with pictorial and written
annotations learn more main ideas than those students required to look up all
information provided in every annotated word or than students who do not have
access to annotations?.
This is an experimental research as it has pretest-posttest control group
whereby the participants are randomly assigned to one of the following groups, 1)
control group, 2) choice lookup, or 3) force lookup. The vocabulary posttest was
the same as the pretest, except that the order of items on the posttest was changed
to pprevent carry over effect. The participants read a 1012 word version of
Gregorio Lopez y. Fuentess Una carta a Dios in Ciberteca (Chunn and Plass,
1998) with eighty five glossed vocabulary words and phrases. Then, they

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completed two tasks, Vocabulary Pretest and Posttest and Summary (recall
Protocol). The research is carried out at a large university in the Southwestern of
United States with 102 students participate in the study whereby 61 students are
females and 41 are males. They are in their third semester intermediate level
Spanish course.
Participants in the forced lookup condition looked up every piece of
information for the 85 words with annotations (i.e., Spanish definitions, English
translations, pictures, and videos). In addition, for the participants in the choice
look up condition, they can freely looked up any of the verbal or visual
information for all 85 annotated words but the participants in the control group
read the story in the multimedia environment without being able to use any of the
glosses. The study consumed two fifty-minute sessions in a computer lab during
their regular class schedule. On the first day, after they submitted the letter of
consent, they were given ten minutes to complete the vocabulary test and three
minutes demonstration on how to select and activated all available annotations.
After that, the participants had thirty minutes to read the story. On the next day.
Ten minutes were allocated for the participants to complete the vocabulary
posttest and another ten minutes to write a summary of the story in English.
MANCOVA was conducted to adjust any prior knowledge of vocabulary and
ANCOVA is conducted to find the effect of treatment group on the vocabulary
posttest and summary. Based on the results, the participants performed
significantly better on a productive vocabulary and on a summary when they were
able to look up annotated words and when they were required to use multimedia
sources. However, they might experience cognitive overload while reading
because they devoted limited resources of short term memory to trying to
understand the text.
2.2 Summary of Article 2
Mostow, Jessica and Joseph (2013) conducted a 7-month study of 178 students in
Grade 1-4 at two Blue Ribbon schools to compare two daily 20-minute treatments.
The study objective is to investigate the effects of computer guided oral reading in
students learning to read in their native language (English) on a variety of reading
measures. This was an experimental research whereby the procedure when
assigning the participants for treatment was systematic and computerized (when
determining the pair) but did not prescribe selection criteria in deciding which

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students should participate in the study. The 2000-2001 Reading Tutor, a software
develop to help upgrading Reading skills is used as treatment. For each pair of
participants, one was assigned to Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) and the other
was under The Reading Tutor treatment. For the students who not yet able to read
or willing to read independently, SSR included teachers reading aloud. A daily
20-25 minutes are reserved for SSR purpose and during the same time, the
participants under The Reading Tutor were in the computer lab and a school-
provided monitor escorted and supervised them there. The Reading Tutor itself
trained students how to operate it, took turns with students to decide what to read
next based on the estimated students reading level and it adjusted automatically
based on assisted reading rate as a rough indicator of oral reading fluency. The
participants are initially 193 students but only 178 students completed the study.
Out of 178. 55 of them are special needs students. By definition, they are the one
who learned more slowly and read more poorly. The pretest and posttest scores
were collected for the following tests; 1) Comprehensive Test of Phonological
Process (CTOPP) and 2) Woodcock Reading Mastery Test (WRMT). As a result,
two groups of students matched on their Total Reading Composite scores from
WRMT. These students were pre-tested and post-tested on a variety of reading
measures. As conclusion, in no case did SSR group outperform The Reading Tutor
group.

3.0 Strengths of Both Articles

3.1 Strengths of Article 1
3.1.1 Letter of Consent
This is among the important element to have when conducting a
research as the letter of consent signify the participants giving
authority for the researcher to use any part of the data collected to be
analyse without having to worry getting sue because of it.
3.1.2 Participants for related course
As the study required the use of authentic Spanish text, the researcher
selected the students from the related course, which is Spanish course
to help the researcher to conduct the experiment and thus provide valid
result.
3.1.3 Theoretical Framework
The study was developed with The Generative Theory of Multimedia
Learning as the underpinning theoretical framework. This framework

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guides the researcher so as not to divert and always unbiased when

conducting the study.
3.1.4 Valid and clear
Despite of only a seven-pages research article, the researcher writes the
paper clearly which makes it easier for the readers even from the
outside of the education circle, to understand and make sense of what
the researcher trying to convey. For example, he elaborates clearly the
annotations needed and used in this study i.e Spanish definitions,
English translation, pictures and videos.

3.2 Strength of Article 2

3.2.1 The Reading Tutor
The use of this software as a treatment for the students to improve their
reading is smart. In addition, the software is self-explanatory and this
somehow gives the students the power of self-empowerment and
motivate them to use the software.
3.2.2 Reading Skills explain in details
The researcher are able to appoint various measures in reading skills
by using Comprehensive Test of Phonological Process (CTOPP) and
Woodcock Reading Mastery Test (WRMT). Each of the reading
measures are explained in details to provide clear insight whether the
use of The Reading Tutor software bring benefits towards improving
reading skills.

4.0 Weaknesses of Both Articles

4.1 Weaknesses Article 1
4.1.1 Effectiveness of the tasks assign
Among the objective of the study is to see whether there is
improvement in the reading comprehension, but I dont think writing a
summary of the Spanish text provide enough information whether the
students really understand the text or not.
4.2 Weaknesses Article 2
4.2.1 Time Consuming
This study is a 7-month long study which is very time consuming. As
we all knows, time costs money, hence if other researchers want to
carry out similar study at their location, they need to plan carefully and
reconsider as well as reconstruct the research plan.

5.0 Similarities and differences between Both Articles

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 NURUL SADAH BINTI SAIPULDIN
MP 132070
CRITICAL REVIEW PAPER

5.1 Similarities
Both articles are experimental research with pretest and postest results. The
researchers in both articles also administered ANCOVA and MANCOVA to
further affirm their results of experiment. Both Studies also constitute a mixture of
males and females as their participants although both had different age range of
participants.
5.2 Differences
In term of time needed to conduct the research, Article 1 showed that the study
only took two days to complete, however Article 2 needed seven months to
complete. If looking at the treatments or tasks (which later be evaluated by the
researchers), the task given by Abraham (2007) to his participants are much easier
to administer to compare with the treatments given by Mostow, Jessica and Joseph
(2013) to their participants. In addition, there were multiple reading measures to
be investigated by them.

6.0 Conclusion
Although the articles have their own strengths and weaknesses, both are actually give
good insights on the improvement of Reading Skills through CALL. The Reading Tutor
software especially is a very good software for the students to have in order to assist them
in improving their reading skills. As conclusion, hopefully the teachers and all educators
involve can adopt or adapt the information provided by both articles to enhance their
teaching practices.

REFERENCES
Abraham, Lee B. (2007). Second Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary
Learning with Multimedia. Hispani, Vol 90(1), 98-108.
Bernhardt, Elizabeth B. (2003). Challenges to Reading Research from a Multilingual World.
Reading Research Quarterly, Vol 38, 112-117.
Bernice, E.C. (2000). Independent Reading and School Achievement. School Library Media
Research, Vol 3, 1-24.

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 NURUL SADAH BINTI SAIPULDIN
MP 132070
CRITICAL REVIEW PAPER

Mostow, J., Jessica N.-T., & Joseph E. B. (2013). Computer Guided Oral Reading Versus
Independent Practice: Comparison of Sustained Silent Reading to An Automated
Reading Tutor That Listens. J. Educational Computing Research, Vol 49(2), 249-276.