Effectiveness of Repeated Reading in Developing Oral Reading Fluency Among Grade 7 Students at Lutac National High School

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effectiveness of a guided repeated reading intervention in improving the oral reading fluency of Grade 7 students at Lutac National High School, City of Naga, Cebu, Philippines. Sixty students were divided into an experimental group (n = 30) and a control group (n = 30). Over eight weeks, the experimental group participated in structured repeated reading sessions employing echo reading, paired reading, whisper reading with monitoring, and model-and-reread strategies, while the control group received regular instruction. The Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) was used to measure oral reading accuracy, reading speed (words per minute), and comprehension before and after the intervention. Shapiro-Wilk normality tests determined the use of Mann-Whitney U tests for non-normal distributions and ANCOVA for reading speed. Post-intervention results showed significant gains in the experimental group: oral reading accuracy improved from the frustration to the independent level (M = 0.968), reading speed rose to a mean of 112.1 words per minute (87%), and comprehension advanced dramatically from the frustration to the independent level (M = 0.89). Mann-Whitney U tests confirmed statistically significant differences in oral reading (U = 260.5, p = 0.005) and comprehension (U = 50, p < 0.001). These findings affirm that guided repeated reading, grounded in Automaticity Theory and Social Development Theory, is an effective, evidence-based strategy for developing oral reading fluency in junior high school settings.