Reading speed. Table 6 shows the amount of time subjects said they took to read the text at the beginning of the school year and at the end. The gains in reading speed were significantly different (F = 79.80, df = 2/100, p < 0.001). Protected t-test showed that those who responded in Japanese improved their speed significantly more than the comparison group (t = 12.76, df = 68, p < 0.001) and those who responded in English improved their speed more than the comparison group (t = 5.70, df = 67, p < 0.001). However, the extensive readers who responded in Japanese improved their speed significantly more than those who responded in English (t = 6.77, df = 65, p < 0.001).

Table 6. Time taken to read text (in min)
n Pre-test Post-test Difference
Extensive reading: Japanese resp. 34 40.12 (8.01) 18.32 (3.67) 21.80
Extensive reading: English resp. 33 30.73 (7.42) 18.21 (3.11) 12.52
Comparison 36 28.89 (5.31) 24.06 (5.76)  4.83
Pre: beginning of school year.
Post: end of school year.

Discussion

Experiment 3 was designed to tell us the effects of writing in the first language vs writing in the second language. One result supports the output hypothesis: those who wrote in the second language showed significantly better gains than comparison students on the cloze test, while those who wrote in their first language during the school year did not significantly outperform comparison students on the cloze test.

Other results, however, do not support the output hypothesis: the difference between the English response group and Japanese response group on cloze test gains was not statistically significant, and both groups of extensive readers did better than comparisons on the test of reading comprehension, but were not significantly different from each other. In writing, the Japanese response group clearly made better gains than both the English response and comparison groups, and they made the largest increase in self-reported reading speed.

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