Gülşen, E., & Mede, E. (2017). Efficacy of multi-level 

extensive reading in young learners’ reading 

motivation. International Online Journal of Education 

and Teaching (IOJET), 4(4), 290-315. 

http://iojet.org/index.php/IOJET/article/view/190/173 

 

Received: 27.03.2017 

Received in revised form:  04.05.2017 
Accepted:  03.06.2017 

 

EFFICACY OF MULTI-LEVEL EXTENSIVE READING IN YOUNG LEARNERS’ 

READING MOTIVATION 

 

Erhan Gülşen  

Bahçeşehir University 

erhan.gulsen@stu.bahcesehir.edu.tr 

 

Enisa Mede  

Bahçeşehir University 

enisa.mede@es.bahcesehir.edu.tr 

 

Erhan Gülşen is an English Teacher pursuing an academic career. He is currently teaching at a 

private school in Turkey, İstanbul and receiving graduate education from Bahçeşehir 

University. He is interested in studies related to differentiated instruction through 

technological tools. 

 

Ph. D Enisa Mede is a lecturer in the department of English Language Teaching at Bahçeşehir 

University. She is the department chair and currently teaching various courses to 

undergraduate and graduate students. 

 

Copyright by Informascope. Material published and so copyrighted may not be published 

elsewhere without the written permission of IOJET. 

 

 

 

 

 

http://iojet.org/index.php/IOJET/article/view/190/173
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4250-9679
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6555-5248


Gülşen & Mede 

    

290 

EFFICACY OF MULTI-LEVEL EXTENSIVE READING IN YOUNG 

LEARNERS’ READING MOTIVATION 

 

Erhan Gülşen 

erhan.gulsen@stu.bahcesehir.edu.tr 

 

Enisa Mede 

enisa.mede@es.bahcesehir.edu.tr 

 

 

Abstract 

Reading has always been open to research and development of new theories in the field of 

English language education. Many language teachers find it hard to tailor the level of any 

reading text to a common level that can appeal to every single L2 learner and each language 

level in the classroom. The hard-copy reading materials or the course books at hand are 

mostly unbreakable or unable to provide the teachers with the ease of editing the content to 

tailor it for each individual student. The present study, therefore, aims to investigate the effect 

of extensive reading lessons through the use of tablets and designed on the grounds of 

differentiated instruction (DI) on students’ motivation and comprehension skills. The 

participants were 24 fifth grade Turkish EFL learners studying in a private k-12 school in 

Turkey. Data were collected from two questionnaires, Motivation for Reading Questionnaire 

(Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997) and Favourite Book Types (www.raz-plus.com) as well as semi-

structured interviews. The findings revealed that there was a positive relationship between a 

students’ motivation for reading and multi-level extensive reading lessons. Besides, there was 

an improvement in the comprehension skills of the participants as well.   

Keywords: differentiated instruction, extensive reading, reading motivation, using 

tablets. 

 

1. Introduction  
When the main aim of the lesson is reading, it is mostly hard to see the flow of motivation 

running smoothly among the learners in a language classroom. Some of the students may have 

lost their interest while reading the book and might be interfering with their pencils or other 

stuff, while some others might be shuffling through the pages of the text or the book or 

counting down for the break time or several others might be looking at the lines blankly even 

though they seem to be “performing” the activity of reading. This is a scene most language 

teachers are accustomed to experiencing or being part of or one of a kind that is mostly 

ignored as it is supposed that the best reading lessons are those where the students are reading 

the books very silently or that is usually left unchanged just because no smart solutions can be 

found or because it is a must that the silent state of the students not be intervened. It is 

difficult to disagree with the fact that a language teacher leaves the classroom with his mind 

troubled with the question whether they have all enjoyed reading the text and comprehended 

it or they are looking forward to reading lessons. Therefore, it may even be hard to gather 

feedback after such a tiring and demanding task of reading because the students themselves 

think that they have simply read and completed the required activity. 

mailto:erhan.gulsen@stu.bahcesehir.edu.tr
mailto:enisa.mede@es.bahcesehir.edu.tr
http://www.raz-plus.com/


International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

291 

However, as it is apparently obvious, this is not the aim set at the very beginning of the 

lesson. As language teachers, we would all like to make sure that each and every student in 

the lesson is capable of comprehending every text that we have given them the chance to read. 

Because of the curricular restrictions or lack of text availability, the texts or passages that 

have been prepared in a single level and genre only are provided for them. However, we all 

know that not every student has the same level of English or the same level of disposition for 

language acquisition, even nuances between these levels can be felt in receptive skills. And, 

nevertheless, having reached a certain level of L2 does not have a sole role in activating the 

students’ motivation. As much as the reading texts are, the activity of reading itself must be 

authentic. The learners must read for a purpose and they must be cognizant of and familiar 

with this purpose, as everybody does when they are reading a text in their L1 (Servilio, 2009). 

And, here the task of differentiating between intensive and extensive reading for the language 

teacher comes into plan. However, it is always hard to set a convenient and “common” 

language threshold for a classroom as much as it is difficult to find separate books or texts for 

individual language thresholds and so a fixed threshold that is assumed to be the best one for 

each student in the classroom is set at all costs. Therefore, while that reading lesson might be 

extensive for some or most of the students, it might still be intensive for others. Dividing the 

classroom in different levels, assigning different groups of students the same levels and 

finding a book that has been published in at least two different levels or editing it so that it has 

different levelled versions in the end are all arduous and time-consuming tasks for us teachers. 

In this technological era, it is easier than thought or may be assumed to provide the 

students with such multi-levelled reading lessons where they will enjoy reading and 

comprehend the text in equal levels within the convenience of internet and by letting the 

student read on soft-copies, which can eventually save time and effort for teachers and help 

them design reading lessons that are structured on the basis of differentiated instruction and so 

truly extensive for each student. The repository website https://www.raz-kids.com has such 

online books which have been published in different levels and by using some of the multi-

level books provided by this website, this study shows the teachers a way that they can use to 

turn their reading lessons truly extensive ones on the basis of differentiated instruction. Its 

main focus is to gauge and explore the effect of multi-level lessons on reading motivation by 

recommending some extensions and identifying its limitations. 

1.1. The Current Course 

The students in the classroom are learning English through differentiated instruction and 

they are selected for this classroom accordingly. The course they are taking is based on an 

intensive main course book and a reading book that gives them the opportunity to read 4-5 

texts or stories each week. The level of the texts is always fixed and nearly 80% of the 

learners find them difficult. The teachers have difficulty giving feedback although they can 

differentiate the comprehension questions or tasks in the end. 

1.2. Problem Identification 

Most of the students who are taking this differentiated language course cannot get as much 

motivated in reading lessons as they are in other skills. They cannot use their comprehension 

skills effectively and lose their interest in reading activities easily. High-level students can 

find the lessons uninteresting if the teacher practices comprehensions skills over and over 

again for low-level students. As for low-level ones, they can lose track of the lesson when 

their strong partners do more challenging exercises.  

 

 

https://www.raz-kids.com/


Gülşen & Mede 

    

292 

     1.3. The Purpose of the Study 

The ultimate goal of this study is to measure and explore the effect of extensive reading 

lessons designed on the grounds of differentiated instruction on young learners in a private 

secondary school setting. Besides, it aims to find a solution for demotivation in current 

reading lessons within the same context. 

The research questions are based upon the following statements:  

- What happens to the student’s reading motivation after they are exposed to 
differentiated extensive reading activities? 

- What is the relationship between differentiated extensive reading lessons and students’ 
reading motivation and engagement?  

- How do the differentiated extensive reading activities change the students’ reading 
attitude and comprehension? 

2. Literature Review 

As a receptive skill, reading has always been an area of research for a teacher for which a 

clear-cut method of teaching can never be identified just because each individual read at 

different speeds and in different ways (Scrivener, 2009). And, most of the in-class reading 

task have conventionally been “detailed reading” or “intensive reading” activities where many 

of the students in a particular classroom found it too difficult to concentrate on the – perhaps 

unfamiliar – context and had to deal with language forms that are so complicated for his or 

her level that s/he cannot be engaged in the lesson and eventually finds the reading task 

intolerable (Hornery, Seaton, Tracey, Craven, & Yeung, 2009). To oust such issues or 

problems, through pedagogical studies and explorations, “extensive reading approach”, which 

suggests that students can read better in a laissez-faire atmosphere of surroundings, has been 

put forward (Brown, 2000). According to this theory, reading to take pleasure and without 

feeling obliged to look up all the unfamiliar words lead to high language proficiency 

(Green & Oxford, 1995, as cited in Brown, 2000). Therefore, extensive reading applies to 

reading tasks or texts where there are only a few unfamiliar words or grammar items. 

Correspondingly, students ultimately grasp more lexical and functional items out of the texts 

while they are reading them ‘unconsciously’ (Huang, Tsai, & Huang, 2015). However, such a 

case is generally possible when the learners find the relevant book interesting – or are free to 

choose it – and specifically when the level of the text is tailored to their respective level of L2. 

According to Language Threshold Hypothesis, each learner must have a sufficient amount of 

L2 vocabulary, grammar and discourse (Grabe & Stoller, 2002) and this knowledge draws a 

concrete line of the level at which learners can read a text or what level the text of the 

extensive reading activity should be. Many schools or courses divide the classes into 

particular levels and they use course books labelled according to these levels, no matter what 

the age of the students are. However, these classifications are ‘generally’ general and can only 

give an overall explanation regarding what the learners might know or might do. Since a 

language teacher is always actively in contact with all the students and, literally speaking, 

stands physically close to them inside a classroom, she can sense the individual – both 

instrumental and motivational – differences between them easily and that’s a very common 

case for every language teacher (Pulido & Hambrick, 2008). And, as far as extensive reading 

– or even intensive one – is concerned, it is possible to talk about the same personal 

differences. However, in almost all of the reading lessons provided, they are disregarded and 

all the students are obliged to read the text in the same level. This may be linked to the lack of 

the levelled versions of the relevant text or the book or lack of time to tailor the level to each 

student’s language threshold. And, sensory preferences, as described by Scrivener, are also 



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

293 

subject to complete disregard in many reading lessons. Some learners respond through 

auditory senses, while others learn best through visual and kinaesthetic senses. Therefore, in a 

language classroom where there are students with different levels of L2, different types of 

interest and senses, it is obligatory to make a blend with the materials at hand through a 

method of instruction that also differs. In this way, the students can be more engaged in the 

lessons as they are more motivated (Tomlinson, 2000, 2005). 

In this study, therefore, effects of extensive reading through differentiated instruction by 

considering the aspects of motivation, sensory preferences and different language thresholds 

is explored and gauged. It is evident that nowadays DI (Differentiated Instruction) is one of 

the most effective approaches in teaching learners with different levels of knowledge, 

modifying teaching strategies to meet the learners’ needs (Gardner, 2000, as cited in Vieira, 

Ferasso, & Schroeder, 2014 & Anderson, 2007). However, some teachers have lack of 

competence and knowledge to differentiate their teaching materials and instructions. Chien 

(2015) analyzed Taiwanese English teachers in elementary school in term of their DI 

perceptions, designs and knowledge of DI in content. The study revealed that participants had 

a positive attitude to DI and considered it as important but only three teachers implement DI 

in their lessons through jigsaw reading and supplementary materials because of lack of 

materials at hand. The fruitful side of this study is that: it provides suggestions related to the 

teachers’ development, elements of differentiated content and collaborative planning (Chien, 

2015). However, it doesn’t provide any means related to how the teachers can implement ID 

in their reading lessons. The study just explores the teachers’ perspective and potential 

towards ID in general.  

In the study Effects of Differentiated Reading on elementary students’ Reading 

Comprehension and Attitudes Toward Reading, (Shaunessy-Dedrick, Evans, Ferron, & 

Lindo, 2015), the effects of differentiated reading on fourth-graders’ reading comprehension 

and attitude towards reading are examined. It tests the use of school wide enrichment model-

reading (SEM-R) on the students’ comprehension and fluency skills. SEM is a triad model 

composed of three phases. (Renzulli, 1977, as cited in Shaunessy-Dedrick et al., 2015). They 

respectively focus on exposure, DI and self-selected activities in language learning. The study 

applies this method in five elementary schools with different models for reading 

comprehension and reading fluency. The researchers classified some of the schools as SEM-R 

treatment group and others as control groups and applies pre-tests and post-test. At the end of 

the study, students’ post-test reading comprehension and fluency scores on the Iowa Test of 

Basic Skills were significantly higher in SEM-R group compared with the control groups. 

However, the attitude to reading measured by the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey 

showed no statistically significant differences between two groups. This might be related to 

the fact that the study focuses on intensive reading activities rather than extensive ones. All in 

all, the study suggests that SEM-R can be implemented to increase reading comprehension. 

And, according to the observations during the study and teacher interviews after the testing, it 

was concluded that the students could be more engaged into the reading lessons through 

differentiated instruction (Shaunessy-Dedrick et al., 2015). The study is rare in that it explores 

and gauges DI in reading. However, it uses intensive reading method and doesn’t have any 

measure of students’ engagement in the reading lessons.  

Another study that tests the effect of differentiated instruction on reading is by Kathryn L. 

Servilio. The study You get to choose! Motivating Students to Read Through Differentiated 

Instruction aims to improve the motivation and engagement of students with disabilities 

through DI (Servilio, 2009). It provides language teachers with guidelines on how to embed 

student choice and DI into the curriculum and how to determine the learner styles on a 

particular classroom step by step through the results of an action research previously applied. 



Gülşen & Mede 

    

294 

The study is significant in that any type of teacher can make use of the process outlined 

although the samples in it are specifically chosen. Similar to the study previously mentioned, 

it concludes that students’ motivation and overall grades in reading can improve through DI 

and student choice of reading materials. However, as Servilio (2009) herself states, there is 

one drawback: it is time-consuming and hard to apply (pp. 9-10). 

Choice of reading is indeed hard to define or determine in a learning environment because 

a language classroom is composed of individuals with different needs and different levels of 

comprehension, especially when young learners are concerned. The study Understanding 

children’s reading activities: Reading motivation, skill and child characteristics as predictors 

examines this issue through a range of characteristics such as intrinsic and extrinsic reading 

motivation and concludes that these and the children’s choice of reading are related 

(McGeown, Osborne, Warhurst, Norgate, & Duncan, 2016). The results regarding the 

intrinsic motivation of engagement and extrinsic motivation of social reading interaction are 

relatively more important for the present study of ours. According to the results, children tend 

to read fictional and fact books if they are to engage in the reading lessons while choose to 

read digital books if they are to read for social or pleasure purposes. So, according to the 

study, textbooks with uninteresting context that are given by the teacher just for the sake of 

the language lesson are possibly found boring by the children in the process of engagement 

and they are likely to choose to read digitally – whatever the form is – for extensive reading 

activities. As a conclusion of the research, children will be more involved in the reading 

lessons if broader range of texts to choose from is available (McGeown et al., 2016). To put it 

simply, young learners can enjoy reading if the text is tailored to their level and interest.  

From another perspective, even the kindergarten and first-grade children can have 

respective competence beliefs for different areas of reading (Wigfield, Guthrie, Tonks, & 

Perencevich, 2004). The study Children’s Motivation for Reading: Domain Specificity and 

Instructional Motivation focuses on the efficacy of DI on young learners’ reading lessons in 

the context of motivation and it measures this concept specific to the domain of interest in 

extensive reading by also mentioning the differences between intrinsic motivation and 

extrinsic motivation. The reading models of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) 

and Strategy Instruction (SI) were applied in four different schools in a small town by the 

researchers (two schools for each model) (Wigfield et al., 2004). The former makes use of a 

content area found interesting by the students and links the hands-on activities to the reading 

while the latter applies the traditional method of reading in the classroom. The study 

concludes that intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy of the students raise thanks to CORI as 

the students have more autonomy over their reading activity, meaning that they can choose 

which book to read and which questions to pursue and that they can collaborate with each 

other freely. Therefore, various instructional practices tailored to the children’s interest or 

motivation level can have a positive effect even on their reading frequency (Wigfield et al., 

2004). However, the study makes use of only one domain of interest, which is science. In 

other schools, classes or even in the same classroom, there might be some students who do 

not find a specific domain interesting.  

3. Methodology 

     3.1. Research Design 

An action research using a mixed, quasi-experimental design, this study gauges and 

explores the impact of extensive reading lessons designated on the basis of differentiated 

instruction on the motivation of the students.  For the collection of quantitative data, 

Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997) is used both as a pre-test 

and a post-test to measure the student’s motivation and as a Questionnaire on Favourite Book 



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

295 

Types. As for the collection of qualitative data, the researchers interview each other after each 

lesson as the interviewee joins in the lessons as a participant observer and, at the end of the 

study, the students are interviewed in groups through a semi-structured interview type. 

Supporting the numerical findings with the reflections of the participant observers and the 

student groups, this study aims to reach more reliable findings and get more valid suggestions 

for differentiated instruction in reading lessons, where the students mostly have difficulties 

getting motivated and engaged because they are usually exposed to fixed-level readings. This 

study further wishes to illustrate the relationship between reading lessons structured on 

differentiated instruction and students’ reading motivation. 

3.2. Setting  

For the purposes of this study, a private secondary school in Istanbul was chosen for 

various reasons. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the students in this school, no matter 

what their grades are, are taught English through differentiated instruction, which means there 

are students with varying levels of English in each classroom. They are coming from the 

primary school of the same institution, different private schools or state schools with different 

cultural backgrounds and different likes. Differentiated materials are handed out for grammar, 

speaking and vocabulary teaching, but when it comes to reading, they all have to read the 

same text in the very same level. They can read multi-level books assigned by their IS (main 

course) teachers at home but these readings are never covered in the classroom because of 

lack of time. However, the students are all accustomed to use of differentiated instruction in 

the classroom setting. In fact, one of the researchers have been teaching at this school for 

nearly a year and he has been implementing DI and preparing lesson plans as well as 

worksheets and digital tasks for all campuses of the institution across the country.   

The second reason is that the relevant campus is regarded as the main campus of the 

institution and undergraduate students from many different universities are coming to observe 

the teachers or their peers. Therefore, it is open to different studies and researches in the field 

of English Language Teaching and the results of this research may be implemented and 

considered later for curriculum design for each grade. And, according to what has been 

assumed from the parent-teaching phone-conversations held twice a week by every mentor 

teacher, the students at each level have generally difficulties reading in L2 at home too. 

Therefore, this study might boost the students’ motivation for pleasure reading outside the 

classroom as well.   

Another reason is that the students are capable of using iPads because they take different 

motivational tests at school from time to time and they make frequent use of them in the other 

lessons as well. Therefore, this will make it easy to apply digital reading materials in any of 

the classrooms in this school. And, the results of a study applied for a specific classroom or 

level are also likely to be fruitful for other classrooms and levels as well.  

     3.3. Participants 

From the second to the last week of December, the researchers’ observations took place in 

a fifth-grade classroom composed of 24 students at regular intervals. Fifth graders were 

chosen for this study because one of the researchers are currently teaching them and he had a 

lot of chance to observe the reading skills of the students before. Only one class (5C) was 

chosen among the all the four classes he is teaching because this class has always been 

assumed to be more differentiated than others as far as the exam results and the previous 

observations (on superficial level) of the in-class activities are concerned. Therefore, the 

researcher had an opinion about how the assumptions of the current study would affect these 

specific students’ motivation in reading lessons. The students are all 10 years old and they are 



Gülşen & Mede 

    

296 

very eager to learn English. The overall level differs a lot in the classroom and some of the 

students are better at receptive skills while others perform better at productive skills. 

However, they all have a clear problem of motivation when it comes to reading in English. 

While they are reading a text in a fixed level, the low-level students cannot keep up with the 

high-level ones whereas the latter group loses interest when the teacher has to slow the pace 

of the lesson down for the former. 

Considering the fact that the reading activities proposed by the relevant study was 

performed on iPads by each student, another reason why fifth graders were chosen is that the 

students in this level use their iPads more than any other level in their lessons regardless of 

what subject they are learning since they are given far more digital assignments before every 

weekend and so they are more apt at using the online sources. Plus, looking at the previous 

statistics provided by www.raz-plus.com, the researcher concluded that the students at 5C had 

completed more assignments than any other class and they were more eager to read digitally.  

The students weekly have 15 hours of English lessons with 7 of them being IS (Integrated 

Skills) lessons, 4 being MS (Mixed Skills), where the main focus is on perceptive skills and 

speaking and writing activities are provided as post-reading skills, and 4 being CS 

(Communicative Skills). The researchers conducted this research in the IS lessons. And, the 

students are seated in a way that there will be one high-level and one low-level student at each 

desk.  

3.4. Data Collection Tools 

The quantitative data of the study aiming to find the students’ motivation in the reading 

lessons were found through an adapted version of Motivation for Reading Questionnaire 

(Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997) (see Appendix A). The questionnaire was performed in the form 

of a pre-test and a post-test. Based on a 4-point Likert-Scale, it includes 11 items regarding 

the students’ views about themselves as readers and the activity of the reading itself. The 

researchers wanted to gauge the learner’s reading motivation before they applied multi-level 

reading through the pre-test and their motivation level after they applied it through the post-

test. The related questions were selected from the original version of the questionnaire both 

because their answers follow an ascending pattern in terms of positive value where the most 

positive answer corresponds to the highest point (4) and because they best fit the researcher’s 

teaching environment as far as DI and in-class reading are concerned. At the end of the 

research, the results of the pre-test and post-test were compared and contrasted statistically – 

through a descriptive and an inferential analysis – and they were generalized for the whole 

population of the young learners who are having difficulty in intensive reading lessons where 

they have to read a book in a fixed level.  

The quantitative data to find the book type favoured most by the students were also 

gathered through the questions chosen from the same Motivation for Reading Questionnaire. 

The students took Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types (see Appendix B) at the beginning 

of the study, just after the pre-test. It includes 7 items and it is based on a 4-point Likert Scale, 

too. According to the results of the questionnaire, the researchers neatly chose six different 

multi-level books from www.raz-plus.com between the levels H-M. The questions in these 

questionnaire, which follow an ascending pattern in terms of positive value too, were selected 

from the original questionnaire because, among the other questions, they are most intended to 

learn what types of books and context or theme a student takes pleasure reading from. And, 

the types and themes suggested by these questions best fit those at www.raz-plus.com 

The first qualitative data of the study were collected through the interviews performed by 

one of the researchers who taught the reading lessons with the other researcher who 

http://www.raz-plus.com/
http://www.raz-plus.com/
http://www.raz-plus.com/


International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

297 

participated in those lessons as a participant observer. The semi-structured interviews were 

carried out just after the lessons. The researcher who participated in the lessons observed them 

by bearing the interview questions (see Appendix C) in mind and the other researcher took 

notes regarding his or her answers during the interviews and wrote brief reflections on them 

on the same day. These questions help the researchers to keep track of the students’ progress 

and motivation level during the lessons. To illustrate, the question “What can you say about 

the students’ attitudes, questions and responses while reading?”  is related to student 

engagement and helps the researcher think about how the students are participating in the pair 

work activities, while reading activities and post reading activities. And, by answering the 

questions “Can you say that this was an extensive reading lesson? Why?”, the researcher can 

make an overall reflection on the reading lesson by evaluating whether the students had 

difficulties reading the books. The qualitative research method was preferred for observations 

because the researchers believed that this would support the quantitative results on a more 

reliable basis thanks to the participation of the teachers and would save much more time than 

if questionnaires and check lists were applied for each student after every lesson in such a 

study (Creswell, 2012). The questions in the interview were prepared in relation to the 

questions in the quantitative tools and in open-ended style because the researchers wanted to 

give the impression of conversation to the interviews.  

The researchers collected the second qualitative data on the basis of reflections of the 

interview with the student groups of six. The semi-structured interviews were carried out at 

the end of the study to support the results of the post-test Motivation for Reading 

Questionnaire because the same questions were directed to each student group but some other 

questions and issues were also raised in accordance with the flow of the interview. The 

questions (see Appendix D) were directed to the student groups in their L1, which is Turkish, 

because their English level is not high enough yet and answers were gathered through 

conversations that didn’t take more than fifteen minutes. These questions generally focus on 

the students’ attitudes and views on reading and how they have changed since the multi-level 

reading lessons started. For instance, the question “How well do you think your reading has 

improved?” explores their awareness of the new reading lessons and whether it has any effect 

on their overall reading skills. By answering such questions as “Can you please compare and 

contrast them with our previous lessons?” they also make a quick analysis process, which can 

give the researchers more abstract knowledge to support the concrete data drawn by the post-

test.  

The researcher noted down the answers in Turkish as well and translated them into English 

while writing a reflection on the students’ opinions. As the questions in the other interview 

were, the questions in this interview were prepared in an open-ended style, with regard to the 

questions in the quantitative tools.  

The digital resources for the reading lessons were gathered from www.raz-plus.com, which 

is more commonly known as Raz-Kids, because the students are already familiar with the 

website or the application on their iPads. From time to time, they log in their accounts and 

choose books of their interest to read or those assigned by the teachers the students and the 

participant researcher read the books in digital version on their iPads and the teacher tracked 

their progress in the website. The researchers also made partial use of the lesson plans 

provided by the website for each book. Pre-reading and post-reading productive activities 

were decided by the researchers mutually before each lesson.  

Finally, even though the sample may sound very specific in the first place because of the 

fixed grade and age of the students, this study can be applied to any teaching environment 

where individual differences concerning learning difficulties in reading lessons are being 

http://www.raz-plus.com/


Gülşen & Mede 

    

298 

observed. So, this can increase the generalizability (external validity) of this research study. 

From another perspective, as the teachers as researchers make use of digital resources in the 

reading lessons, it can also lead to new teaching perspectives regarding the use of technology 

in the classrooms where required equipment is available. Also, if multi-level hard copies of 

any reading book(s) can be provided for each student, the study can be applicable too. 

However, thanks to the elimination of time-consuming and unavailability problems, use of 

digital sources in the research is of importance because the teacher and the students can access 

to the multi-level books – they are generally hard to find in an L2 learning environment – 

which appeal to different reading tastes in the convenience of technology. And, all these add 

to the practicality of the relevant study because teachers didn’t have to spend days looking for 

readings at multi-levels and to its reliability because the website from which the books were 

read by the students, (www.raz-plus.com), is an official and authoritative source used by 

millions of users around the world.  

3.5. Procedure 

Before the study started, the researchers chose 29 multi-level books levelled between H-M 

on Raz-kids regardless of their topic and context. The levels H, I, J, K, L and M had officially 

been assigned to the students’ Raz-kids accounts as suitable levels for the fifth graders by the 

school administration at the beginning of the term.  

In the first week of December, the students were given Motivation for Reading 

Questionnaire as a pre-test and Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types and the results of the 

former were kept for the later post-test while those of the latter were used by the researchers 

to choose the book types most favoured by the students on www.raz-plus.com. And, because 

6 lessons would be held in total, 6 books were chosen out of 29. The researcher translated the 

questions one by one while the students were answering them as there are some patterns and 

forms in the questions the students haven’t learned yet. The students didn’t write their names 

on both questionnaires as the results of items on Motivation for Reading Questionnaire were 

evaluated cumulatively out of 44 and the mean of each item on Questionnaire on Favourite 

Book Types was described individually, regardless of the gender, learner level or age.  

After the questionnaires, the multi-level reading lessons were started in the second week of 

December and two lessons were held each week. The lessons continued till the end of the 

month and 6 sessions were held in total. After each lesson, the participant observer, who 

joined in a student pair as a third member for exercises, was interviewed and short reflections 

were documented by being created out of interview notes. At the end of the study, all the 

reflections were compared and an overall evaluation was made by taking into the sequence of 

the multi-level reading lessons into account. The lessons were held as an extensive reading 

lesson, so pre-reading, while reading (if necessary) and post reading sessions were organized. 

Pre-reading and post-reading sessions were targeted towards peer interaction and productive 

skills.  

After 4 weeks, post-test Motivation for Reading Questionnaire was applied and its results 

were compared and contrasted with those of the pre-test in order to see the impact of multi-

level reading lessons. Upon gathering the quantitative results, the researchers interviewed the 

student groups together. One of the researchers – the one who can speak L1 of the students – 

interviewed the student groups by asking the questions in Appendix D and talking to them in 

a conversation atmosphere as this would help the students feel more relaxed and give sincerer, 

reliable answers. After he translated his notes into English, the researchers made an overall 

reflection on the students’ opinions and answers.  

 

http://www.raz-plus.com/
http://www.raz-plus.com/


International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

299 

4. Results 

     4.1. Quantitative Results 

The aim of this study was to find out whether reading lessons prepared on the basis of 

differentiated instruction had any effect on young learners’ motivation for reading. Firstly, the 

researchers conducted “Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types” in order to pinpoint the 

digital books that could raise each student’s engagement in the reading lessons equally.  

a. “Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types”:  Each item on the questionnaire is related with 

one of the book genres on raz-kids.com. Item 1 and item 4 are associated with fiction or non-

fiction adventure books or fantastic books while item 3 and item 5 are associated with long 

stories or tales where the readers can get themselves familiarized with different characters. 

The others can all be associated with informative books where the students can learn new 

things about their surroundings, history and the world. As it can be understood from Table 1, 

item 4 and item 1 received the highest scores out of the questionnaire and they were 

respectively followed by item 5, item 3, item 7, item 6 and item 2. This result showed that the 

students are more into fantastic books or tales without a complicated plotline, or those where 

they have to sort some simple mysteries out. Therefore, books appealing to this kind of 

interest were given primary importance but some informative books were also covered in two 

of the lessons as well. In this regard, the books Rapunzel and Blackbeard the Pirate were 

chosen for the first two lessons and then the students read What lives in that hole? and the 

Yellowstone, in both of which they learned about some mysterious of the world. And, in the 

last two lessons, they read one more book about a mystery titled Tornadoes, and one 

informative book titled Flying Machines, which also focuses on some unknown facts.  

To analyse Table 1 in detail, each item was summarized individually since their total result 

wouldn’t have had any effect on the result of the questionnaire. Their respective scores were 

calculated in a detailed way to determine the book types accurately. Each item has got a 1-4-

point scale and the maximum point they can receive is 96 as there are 24 students in the 

classroom. Each point they received was multiplied by the number of the students who circled 

the relevant point (1, 2, 3 or 4) to get the sub-score. And the mean for each item was 

calculated by dividing the sub-score result by the total number of the students, which is 24. 

Next, total score was found by adding each sub-score and the total mean was measured by 

dividing the total score 24, the total number of the students. The mean for each item and the 

total mean in the charts show a number between 1 and 4, which is the scale of the 

questionnaire. 

Finally, the percentages were calculated. The total score of each item was multiplied by 

one hundred and the result was divided by 96 as this is the maximum score each item could 

get. 

To gauge the change in the students’ motivation in reading, the researchers carried out a 

pre-test and a post-test form by abridging the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire. As the 

overall English level of the students is to standard the result of the pre-test is 46% in 

percentage. However, after the reading lessons, the total result of the post-test, in which the 

same questions were asked, was calculated to be somewhere near 90 %.  

 

 

  



Gülşen & Mede 

    

300 

                     Table 1.  Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types” Overall Results 

b. “The Motivation for Reading Questionnaire”: The tables for the pre-test and post-test was 

not organized with an individual analysis of each item as Table 1 was. The reason behind this 

is that the overall total score of both tests were needed to contrast the students’ motivation 

levels. Initially, the points of each item were individually calculated by adding the answer of 

each student together. As in the first questionnaire, the items in these tests were scaled from 1 

to 4. Therefore, the maximum point that each item can get was again 96 as there are 24 

students in the classroom. The scores of the items as calculated in this way ranged from 25 to 

70 in the pre-test and 72 to 92 in the post-test.  

After each item’s score was typed into the table, they were all added and the total score 

was found. The total score of the pre-test was 489 while that of the post-test was 913. The 



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

301 

maximum score a test could get was 1.056, which was calculated by multiplying the 

maximum score (96) each item could get by the total number of the items, which is 11.  

Next, the mean of each item was measured by dividing their scores by the total number of 

the students. They each range from 1 to 4 as they do in the first questionnaire because the 

original scale was arranged between these points. As for the total mean, it was calculated by 

adding the individual means together. The maximum mean would have been 44 since there 

are 11 items and each could have received 4 points maximally. As it can be seen from Table 

3, the post-test mean is far closer to 44.  

Finally, the percentages of each item were calculated by multiplying their scores by 100 

and dividing the result by 96, which is the highest score each item might have received. The 

percentages in the pre-test range from 26% to 73% while they range from 75% to 96% in the 

post-test. The overall percentages of the tests were calculated by multiplying the total score by 

100 and dividing the result by 1.056, the maximum score each test could have received.   

In the pre-test and post-test, the number of the students were not given, as opposed to the 

table of the first questionnaire because the items in these tables are of significance when they 

are evaluated or gauged together. 

Table 2. The Motivation for Reading Questionnaire” Overall Results for Pre-Test_________ 

 

Table 3. The Motivation for Reading Questionnaire” Overall Results for Post-Test________ 

      



Gülşen & Mede 

    

302 

4.2. Qualitative Results 

The descriptive analysis performed by the researchers and the results achieved in the end 

were supported through two different types of content analysis. The numerical data above 

showing the change in the students’ motivation level in a concrete way, quantitative findings 

gained a more credible and reliable aspect following the qualitative data analysis.   

4.2.1. Participant-Observer Interview Results 

4.2.1.2. Positive Impact on Engagement and Motivation 

In accordance with the notes jotted down by participant observers and interviews carried 

out with them, the 6 extensive reading lessons tailored to each student’s level of English on 

differentiated instruction basis had a positive impact in terms of engagement and motivation 

as shown in the excerpt taken from the notes below: 

The lessons went smoothly and every single student was trying to 

answer the pre-reading and post-reading questions eagerly. They were 

totally immersed in their books during the while-reading sessions.  

The observers took down more positive notes about the students’ engagement. One of the 

most significant excerpts was as follows:  

 Just as they did while answering the pre-reading and post-reading 

questions, the students are focusing on the texts with great interest and 

enthusiasm.  

As one of the observers noted, they were ambitious to finish reading the text and answering 

the questions before their peers (a state which relates to item 6, 7 and 10 on the pre-tests and 

post-tests). They were all racking their brains to understand every single sentence by plying 

between the pages of the books and those of their dictionaries. How active and diligent the 

students were can be seen from a couple of the photos taken by the observers (see Appendix 

E).  This confirms the numerically positive effect of choosing a genre for each student’s 

interest, and so that of differentiated instruction in reading lessons where the students could 

feel more motivated and even lost track of time as item 7 on pre-test and post-test suggests. It 

can also be concluded that in a language classroom setting where the students are given the 

chance to read for pleasure or for the sake of learning something new engagement is boosted 

and their comprehension skills can even improve.  

During the pair works, in which the observers participated as well, the below note was 

provided:  

Each student gave similar answers to the questions although their books 

are provided at different levels.  

Therefore, the extensive reading lessons provided can be analysed from two more aspects – 

the efficacy of lead-in activities or brainstorming activities before the reading lessons started 

and the overall comprehension skill of the students. 

4.2.1.3. The Efficacy of Lead-In or Brainstorming Activities 

To start with, the lead-in sessions of each of the six lessons were technically similar – the 

main purpose here was to activate the students’ schemata and help them get familiar with the 

context. The students’ interest in the books – even in the informative ones – was worth seeing 

according to what was stated by the researcher who is also the main course teacher of the very 

same class:  



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

303 

The students normally find it really difficult to concentrate on the text 

beforehand and they immediately lose their interest even before starting the 

reading task.  

By “normally”, the researcher meant – as noted by himself – […] the intensive reading 

lessons where the students have to concentrate on a reading text provided in a fixed level by 

the main course book. However, in those extensive reading lessons, the students themselves 

made efforts to activate their schemata and reflected their thoughts efficiently while 

brainstorming about the context. This can only be associated with the fact that the students 

could see in advance that the theme and the genre were in harmony with their interest, thanks 

to “Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types.” We can understand this from the below excerpt:  

It has nothing to do with the differentiated levels of the book because the 

students hadn’t started reading the book and so hadn’t had a chance to 

evaluate the level yet in the lead-in sessions. 

 From another aspect, as both of the observers stressed, the interaction in the lead-session 

was always “whole-class” even though it was intended to be “pair-work” or “group-work”. 

The reason why the teachers avoided such interaction patterns was – as underlined by the 

researchers while they were observing the lessons:  

The students were not so accustomed to working together with their peers or 

as groups in the reading lessons and they were afraid to speak with their 

partners for any reason.  

The researcher who regularly taught English to this classroom correspondingly explained 

that he also had a lot of difficulty getting them in pairs and they had always had the 

impression that the teacher would be angry with them if they set out to talk with their peers. 

Overall, the observers’ notes and reflections were in parallel with the numerical findings. 

4.2.1.4. The Overall Comprehension Skill of the Students 

Secondly, just as they were while reading the books, the students were totally concentrated 

upon the comprehension questions provided by Raz-kids at the end of each book. And, when 

the teachers – actually the observers – checked the students’ answers on the Raz-kids teacher 

platform, they learned that nearly all of the students answered all of the questions correctly or 

turned back to their wrong answers once or twice more to rectify them. According to the 

observers’ notes,  

They even worked together with us and their peers – as the instruction for 

the while-reading activity dictated – while answering the comprehension 

questions even though they were reading the very same book at different levels.  

Another important thing noted by both of the observers while the students were answering 

the comprehension questions was as follows:  

The students kept the silence throughout the session just as an extensive 

reading lesson stipulates.  

It can be deduced here that the students were “truly” reading a text tailored to their own 

language threshold and they were familiar with most of the words and language forms in the 

book they were reading. As one of the observers underlined, they never lost interest in their 

tasks.  

As for more general comprehension activities where the students had to fill in a graphic 

organizer on the board to find the author’s purpose for instance, the students were reportedly 

as active and answered the questions accurately too. Just as they did while answering the 



Gülşen & Mede 

    

304 

detailed comprehension questions, while answering post-reading comprehension questions, in 

accordance with the observers’ reflections:  

The students could understand the context of nearly every book and a book 

tailored to their respective levels could raise their motivation to the extent that 

they didn’t get bored of answering the difficult comprehension questions at all 

costs.  

The results of the pre-test and post-test Motivation for Reading Questionnaire suggest this 

quantitatively as item 2, 3 and 9 are affiliated with such tasks.  

4.2.2. Semi-Structured Student Interview Results 

After the notes of the observers and their reflections were evaluated, the researcher who is 

currently teaching English to the classroom made an interview with the students in Turkish. 

The students’ answers to the semi-structured interview were all in parallel with the qualitative 

data results and the observers’ reflections and thoughts. The students’ answers can be 

analysed under three different facets, which are the easiness and convenience of the text they 

were reading, their attitudes towards reading as an in-class and outside activity and their 

comprehension skill. All these points relate to one thing: differentiated instruction tailored in 

accordance with extensive reading activities leads to higher reading motivation in students. To 

provide more detailed reflection and an abstract basis for the concrete results of the 

questionnaire, the researchers analysed these three aspects in a more structured way by 

providing some examples. 

4.2.2.1. Easy and Convenient Content 

To talk about the easy and convenient content the students said:  

We read the books without any difficulty and there were fewer unfamiliar 

words than there are in the text provided by our main course book.  

And, they added:  

This led to more accurate guesses regarding these unknown lexical items 

and we felt this was the first time we could understand a short book written in 

English so well.  

In between the structured questions directed to the students, the researchers asked such 

questions as “Did you like the books?” and “What is the best book you read in these six 

lessons?” They all couldn’t differentiate between the books because, as they said:  

They all helped us get a better view of reading tasks and learn new words.  

As for the levels, some of the students who had been reading at lower levels even said We 

could have understood a higher level too, which means they accepted that it would be more 

challenging. Most surprisingly, before the researcher asked the question, “Would you like to 

read such books in hard-copy versions?”, one of the students asked:  

Teacher, can’t we find hard-copy versions? I want to read such books 

wherever I go. I want to read books that I can understand wholly.  

Here, it can be deduced from the two excerpts above that the differentiated instruction had 

an effect on the students, which helped them perceive the pleasure of reading unconsciously. 

They all wanted to have similar lessons in the future. The reason behind this is also that the 

books and the activities had all been prepared on the basis of extensive reading. Therefore, it 

was more like pleasure for them to read those books than a burden; they read because they 

wanted, not because they had to. This fact proves the positive effect of “Questionnaire on 



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

305 

Favourite Book Types” on the motivation of the students because the language threshold of 

every single student was considered while assigning the books in different levels. 

4.2.2.2. Students’ Reading Attitudes  

As a consequence of these lessons, it can also be stated that the students have all acquired 

positive attitude towards reading. According to the teacher, the students used to start dealing 

with other things when they were asked to engage in an intensive reading activity as they 

found the tasks challenging let alone the texts themselves. During these extensive reading 

lessons, the students made the following allegation themselves: 

 We answered the pre-reading questions and did the brainstorming activities 

eagerly.  

One of the above level students stated: 

 These questions helped me understand the context better and therefore I had 

little difficulty in understanding the new lexical items and language forms.  

During the interview, after the teacher asked Did you start reading books at home or do 

you feel like reading more books? most of the student answered these questions positively but 

with one condition:  

Teacher, we will read them as long as you assigned the reading assignments 

on Raz-kids.  

This conditioning showed that the students liked the teaching method differentiated in 

accordance with their English level and interest, so it is of great importance as it proves the 

results of the post-test. Some of the students added:  

We had even started reading books in the levels specified for them by the 

teacher at home.  

Some students also said:  

To read for pleasure or for learning something is more enjoyable than to 

read because I have to. In this way, I can acquire more words and have the 

opportunity to come across them more in the texts.  

Another point stressed by the students was that they had fear towards reading in the past 

and didn’t know how to deal with unknown vocabulary. But now, as they put forward, we 

have gained self-confidence thanks to the familiarity and the convenience of the books. These 

all showcase that the students’ motivation has indeed improved just as the results of the post-

test show and that a reading lesson planned by considering the benefits of extensive reading 

can boost their eagerness for reading both inside and outside the classroom and help them 

acquire the view that reading is a life-time activity not simply a part of the lesson.  

4.2.2.3. Reading Comprehension Skills 

As far as their comprehension skills are concerned, the teacher didn’t give any feedback 

during or after the lessons in order to avoid biased results. He just kept track of their activities 

online while they were answering the questions or observed their reactions or responses. 

During the interview, he didn’t give any feedback either. The students said: 

 We felt we were giving the correct answers while answering the 

[comprehension] questions and when we felt we were making a mistake we 

could rectify it by referring back to the text,  



Gülşen & Mede 

    

306 

This helped them understand the books more. And, at the end of the “comprehension 

questions” part of every book, the students were to answer an open-ended question. They 

said: 

 Such questions helped them understand how to make sentences more as they 

were given the chance to see the original sentences in the text while they were 

referring back to the text. 

 These all explain that the students can get more engaged in the reading activities and can 

get more pleasure from creative reading activities. However, when the teacher asked them 

how they felt during pair works and whether they felt comfortable or not while discussing on 

the given pictures or trying to brainstorm about the content of the books, they admitted: 

 It was something we were not used to in spite of the fact that this helped us 

understand the context better and we believed would improve their speaking 

skill too.  

As for the post reading comprehension questions answered as a whole class on the board, 

the students explained: 

 We could draw conclusions and pinpoint the main idea better, which we 

normally can’t do or feel uninterested in doing in our reading lessons.  

Overall, the students all agreed that the multi-level reading lessons can help improve their 

English reading skills and they felt the difference. Some of them even said at the end of the 

interview: 

Six lessons were not enough and that these lessons must cover the whole 

semester.  

And, in this way, they added, we believe we will have far better reading skills. Most of 

them even made a list of lexical items they found new in the books and said they study them 

every evening at home.  

So, to make a conclusion, all of the three elements pertaining to extensive teaching has had 

a considerable effect on the students’ motivation. These elements are lead-in-activity-based 

teaching, content-based teaching and theme-based teaching. However, as it can be clearly 

seen, the teachers’ intervention during the lessons was in minimum levels. This had not been 

dictated or decided beforehand or was not performed intentionally, but it was simply a direct 

result of the lessons structured on the basis of extensive reading tailored to each student’s 

interest and English level. The students learned some interesting facts or took pleasure from 

reading some tales or stories simply by doing, or discovering the facts themselves.  

5. Discussion  

The current study has some similar and different aspects when compared and contrasted 

with the previous ones within its remit. However, so far, no study dealing with differentiated 

instruction and its implementation into extensive reading lessons has included digital books 

that include different levels for each of the students in a classroom. And, the insufficient 

number of studies implementing differentiated instruction into reading lessons makes this 

action research worthwhile. Some perspectives and issues put forward by the previous 

researches have reached similar outcomes to those of the current study while others have not.  

First, the results from the “Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types” allowed the 

researchers to choose and implement the book types indicated by the students as more 

interesting to engage in into their differentiated instruction. These findings can be supported 

by McGeown et al.’s study (2016), which testifies that young learners can enjoy reading if the 



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

307 

text is tailored to their level and interest. Additionally, similar to Wigfield et al. (2004), 

students also had an opportunity to choose the book of their interest and collaborate with each 

other during the reading activities. Correspondingly, the lessons based on fantastic books or 

tales without a complicated plotline, or those with mysteries content boosted the students’ 

interest in the reading texts and their motivation toward the activities. Consequently, the 

results taken from both the questionnaires and the interviews indicated students’ positive 

change in proportion to differentiated instruction. 

The quantitative data analysis of the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire showed 

statistically significant differences in students’ reading motivation when the results of pre-test 

and post-test are compared and contrasted. More technically speaking, the students in 

question had higher motivation level of reading in total after the multi-level reading sessions 

were conducted (about 90%) while the pre-test administered by the same questionnaire 

indicated the equivalent result as 46%. In this context, it can be stated that in a language 

classroom consisting of students with different levels of L2 as well as different interests and 

views it is important to teach through the differentiated methods of instruction so that students 

become more engaged in the lessons as they are more motivated. Servilio’s (2009) and 

Shaunessy-Dedrick et al.’s (2015) findings concerning the effect of differentiated instruction 

on students’ level of reading motivation seems to be relevant here. The researchers 

maintained that students’ motivation and overall grades in reading can be enhanced through 

DI and by letting the students choose their own reading materials.  Therefore, a great deal of 

evidence supporting previous studies was found in the present research. As for the qualitative 

results taken from the observational notes, the Brown’s (2000) “extensive reading approach” 

theory can be confirmed. First, as the theory suggests, students took great pleasure during the 

reading and while completing the related tasks, and secondly, almost all the texts’ words 

seemed to be familiar for the students, which led the students to give correct answers in 

almost all of the comprehension questions. 

From another point of view, Grabe and Stoller (2002) suggested that a teacher must have 

adequate knowledge to draw a concrete line of the learner’s reading level so that an 

appropriate level of the reading text can be matched for each individual.  Such an extensive 

multilevel reading activity was provided in the present study as the teachers arranged the list 

of the books that had several different levels before starting the research. Besides, each book 

with a particular level was selected according to the individual’s reading abilities and they 

were all assigned for them just before the lesson.   

Similar to the study conducted by Shaunessy-Dedrick et al. (2015), results of the present 

action research, which were taken from the analysis of the observational field notes and semi-

structured interviews, indicated an increase in students’ comprehension skills and motivation 

while they were reading different texts. However, unlike the previous studies which used 

intensive reading method, this study helped measure students’ engagement in reading more 

accurately and more reliably thanks to the extensive reading approach, which gives the 

students the opportunity to read authentic materials without any intervention due to loss of 

interest and concentration (Brown, 2000).  As opposed to extensive reading activities, a lesson 

structured upon the basis of intensive reading skills forces a student to deal with such 

convoluted forms and lexical items that they couldn’t concentrate on more general reading 

activities like paragraph ordering or open ended questions (Hornery et al., 2009). And, as the 

students exposed to the current study reflected in the end, extensive reading helped them deal 

with exercises that they can find in many other texts both inside and outside the classroom. 

Likewise, the results of the study Effects of Differentiated Reading on elementary students’ 

Reading Comprehension and Attitudes Toward Reading, although it gauges and explores the 



Gülşen & Mede 

    

308 

effect of DI on reading skills, are not parallel with the results of the current study mainly 

because it is based upon the theory of intensive reading without any test of engagement.  

Another finding of the study that coincides with those of other studies within the same 

remit is that when students have found sufficient amount of familiar L2 lexical items, 

language forms and discourse they find the reading lessons let alone the books themselves 

more engaging and enjoyable to read as they do this receptive process unconsciously (Huang 

et al., 2015). And, as stated in the results section, this can also be linked to Language 

Threshold Hypothesis (Grabe & Stoller, 2002) since each student is able to read at their 

respective paces and in their respective levels.  

Additionally, through the findings of this study, language teachers can get a better idea 

about how to integrate differentiated instruction into their reading lessons, where, reportedly, 

the teachers have little practical knowledge although they have a great desire to apply the 

theory in their lessons (Chien, 2015). By using the tools and the methods dictated in this 

study, a teacher could get the same results by making some minor changes in accordance with 

their young learners’ needs. Therefore, different from the results of the study applied by 

Chien (2015), the current study recommends a practical perspective for differentiated 

instruction by using the terms of extensive reading. 

The intrinsic motivation of engagement and extrinsic motivation of social reading 

interaction as described in the study Understanding children’s reading activities: Reading 

motivation, skill and child characteristics as predictors (McGeown et al., 2016) can be 

associated with the findings of the current study as well because both the quantitative and 

qualitative results indicate the high levels of engagement and social reading. According to the 

indicated study, the children can comprehend extensive reading lessons if they are given a 

wide range of book choice, just as the findings of the current study have shown. Similarly, 

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction model applied in the action research Children’s 

Motivation for Reading: Domain Specificity and Instructional Motivation (Wigfield et al., 

2004) produced better results in terms of intrinsic motivation as the students had more power 

over their reading lessons.  

Briefly, different from the previous researches in the area, this study has found out through 

descriptive and content analyses that teachers can apply differentiated instruction in their 

reading lessons within the convenience of digital sources that have never been used in the 

action researches before. Besides, the wide range of book choice provided by the website 

Raz-kids can make it easier for the teachers to differentiate their methods by focusing on 

every single student’s need and interest flawlessly. And, as its findings provide data that treat 

of the issues and theories of engagement, how to embed extensive reading activities into the 

lessons, reading comprehension and differentiated instruction collaboratively, this study can 

be considered as multi-faceted and sui-generis, as opposed to the previous studies.  

6. Conclusion  

In this action research study, the aim was to confirm the positive relationship between 

differentiated instruction and motivation for reading both qualitatively and quantitatively. 

Despite the fact that the researchers have found valuable results related to the relation 

between the multi-level reading and the motivation of the students and that they have 

conveniently reached the aim they specified at the beginning of the study by allowing the use 

of technological means and enhancing the classroom setting as well as adapting the teaching 

materials for extensive reading, it would be scientifically appropriate to mention some 

possible problems or limitations of the present study for prospective studies in the field.  



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

309 

To begin with, the interaction patterns in the lessons couldn’t be performed completely as 

intended in the beginning. The students were not fully accustomed to task-based learning, 

pair-work and group-work interaction patterns that help them work with their stronger peers. 

Therefore, the teachers had great difficulty adapting the patterns to one that the students are 

mostly familiar with: whole class discussion. Nearly all the pre-reading and post-reading 

questions in the first two lessons were answered through whole class discussion. Since the 

teachers tried to get answers from all the students, this took some time and the students had to 

sacrifice their break time for the research. However, this was not an obligation. They willingly 

chose not to take a break, but this affected their performance in the next lesson even to a 

negligible extent. Thus, the researchers suggest that the students – if they are not familiar with 

different interaction patterns in the classroom – must take a pilot lesson before the study or 

must be taught about these interaction patterns through the use different skills. In our country, 

may be in most of the others, as one of the researchers have observed so far, the students find 

it awkward when asked to discuss with their peers about one point as they are not allowed to 

speak or share views with their peers in more dogmatic lessons like, mathematics, algebra or 

science. Yes, it is true that the students learned how to interact in a group or with a peer 

during a lesson after the first two sessions but this might have taken a lot more time if the 

students in the classroom were a lot more active or less diligent, which is mostly the case in 

this geographical area. Or, alternatively, another action research can be carried out in 

interaction patterns before carrying out multi-level reading lessons although it is out of the 

scope of the current research.  

Secondly, the questions in the questionnaires were adapted from the same questionnaire 

and most of the questions in the original form were omitted. Such an abridged version of the 

questionnaire could not be piloted because of lack of time on the parts of the researchers. 

However, no problems regarding the questions were encountered during the research. 

Therefore, the adapted questionnaires can be used for studies aiming to find similar results. 

Another limitation of the research is the use of technological devices in the classroom. This 

can be considered as a helping factor in the way to achieve the intended aim more than a 

limitation because the use of tablets may have boosted the motivation of the students and their 

eagerness as well when their ages are concerned. This effect can be neutralized by applying 

the same study to a group of older students or using hard copy materials in the lessons. And 

also, a full-fledged lesson planned can be organized in this way because the books on Raz-

kids provide the teachers only with certain types of while-reading or pre-reading texts as they 

cannot change or edit the texts. So, the students can neither do a pre-reading task where they 

can scan the text quickly for certain data as the pages differ so much in each level nor stop at 

a specific paragraph to answer a while-reading question. Even if they could do these activities 

freely on Raz-kids books, the performance check of the students might not be reliable because 

higher-level books can take more time to read, as they are comparatively loaded.  

One more suggestion by the researchers is that whether the frequency of the multi-level 

reading lessons has any effect on the students’ motivation can be gauged and explored 

through control or semi-control groups in a different, more comprehensive study as some of 

the students wished that they could have more multi-level extensive reading lessons like this 

during the interview.  

All in all, the prospective studies within the remit of the current study can consider the 

above points and limitations. However, the researchers are of the view that extensive reading 

lessons designed on the basis of differentiated instruction definitely produce positive results, 

as young learners mostly want to read for pleasure.  

 



Gülşen & Mede 

    

310 

References 

Anderson, K. M. (2007). Tips for teaching: Differentiating instruction to include all 

students. Preventing School Failure, 51(3), 49–54. 

Brown, H. D. (2000). Teaching by principles an interactive approach to language pedagogy 

(2
nd

 ed.). London: Pearson ESL. 

Chien, C. W. (2015). Analysis of Taiwanese elementary school English teachers’ perceptions 

of, designs of, and knowledge constructed about differentiated instruction in content. 

Cogent Education, 2, 1-16. 

Creswell, John W. 2012. Educational research (4
th

 ed.) Boston: Pearson. 

Grabe, W. & Stoller, F. L. (2002). Teaching and researching reading. London: Pearson 

Education Longman.  

Hornery, S., Seaton M., Tracey D., Craven, R. G., & Yeung A. S. (2014). Enhancing reading 

skills and reading self-concept of children with reading difficulties: Adopting a dual 

approach intervention. Australian Journal of Educational & Developmental Psychology, 

14, 131-143. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1041670.pdf 

Huang, H., Tsai, Y., & Huang S. (2015). The relevant factors in promoting reading activities 

in elementary school. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 

4(2), 62-70.  Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1091695.pdf 

McGeown, S. P., Osborne, C., Warhurst, A., Norgate, R., & Duncan, L. G. (2016). 

Understanding children’s reading activities: reading motivation, skill and child 

characteristics as predictors. Journal of Research in Reading, 39(1),109-125. 

doi:10.1111/1467-9817.12060 

Pulido, D., & Hambrick, D. Z. (2008). The virtuous circle: Modeling individual differences in 

L2 reading and vocabulary development. Reading in a Foreign Language, 20(2), 164-

190. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ815120.pdf 

Scrivener, J. (2009). Learning teaching (3
rd

 ed.). Oxford: Macmillan. 

Servilio, K. L. (2009). You get to choose! Motivating students to read through differentiated 

instruction. TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, 5(5), 1-11. Retrieved from 

http://escholarship.bc.edu/education/tecplus/vol5/iss5/art5 

Shaunessy-Dedrick, E., Evans, L., Ferron, J., & Lindo, M. (2015). Effects of differentiated 

reading on elementary students’ reading comprehension and attitudes toward reading. 

Gifted Child Quarterly, 59(2), 91-107. doi:10.1177/0016986214568718 

Tomlinson, C. A. (2000). Differentiation of instruction in the elementary grades. Eric Digest, 

ED443572. Retrieved from 

http://education.ky.gov/educational/diff/Documents/tomlin00.pdf  

Tomlinson, C. A. (2005). Differentiating instruction: Why bother? Middle Ground, 9(1), 12-

14.  Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED497093.pdf  

Vieira, L. M. M., Ferasso, M., & Schroeder, C. S. (2014). Connecting multiple intelligences 

through open and distance learning: Going towards a collective intelligence? European 

Journal of Open, Distance and e‐Learning, 17(1). Retrieved from 
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1065121.pdf 

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1041670.pdf
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1091695.pdf
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ815120.pdf
http://escholarship.bc.edu/education/tecplus/vol5/iss5/art5
http://education.ky.gov/educational/diff/Documents/tomlin00.pdf
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED497093.pdf
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1065121.pdf


International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

311 

 Wigfield, A., & Guthrie, J. T. (1997). Relations of children’s motivation for reading to the 

amount and breadth of their reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 420-432 

Retrieved from http://www.cori.umd.edu/measures/MRQ.pdf 

Wigfield, A., Guthrie, J. T., Tonks, S., & Perencevich, K. C. (2004). Children's motivation for 

reading: Domain specificity and instructional influences. The Journal of Educational 

Research, 97(6), 299-309.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.cori.umd.edu/measures/MRQ.pdf


Gülşen & Mede 

    

312 

Appendix A 

The Motivation for Reading Questionnaire 

Directions: We are interested in your reading. The sentences given below describe your 

feelings about reading. Read each sentence and decide whether it describes a person 

who is like you or different from you. To answer questionnaire, please, circle ONE 

number on each line. Thank you for your help. 

Answer the questionnaire using the scale below: 

Very different from you A little different 

from you 

A little like 

you 

A lot like you 

Circle 1 Circle 2 Circle 3 Circle 4 

 

     Adapted from Wigfield & Guthrie (1997) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. I know that I will do well in reading next year.  1 2 3 4 

2. If the teacher discusses something interesting, I might read more about it.                                 1 2 3 4 

3. I like it when the questions in books make me think. 1 2 3 4 

4. I am a good reader. 1 2 3 4 

5. I read to learn new information about topics that interest me. 1 2 3 4 

6. Finishing every reading assignment is very important to me. 1 2 3 4 

7. If I am reading about an interesting topic, I sometimes lose track of time. 1 2 3 4 

8. I am willing to work hard to read better than my friends. 1 2 3 4 

9. It is very important to me to be a good reader.   1 2 3 4 

10.  In comparison to other activities I do, it is very important to me to be 

a good reader. 

1 2 3 4 

11.  I like to read about new things. 1 2 3 4 



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

313 

Appendix B 

Questionnaire on Favourite Book Types  

Directions: Please indicate the preference of reading different types of books presented in the 

following sentences. We would like you to answer this questionnaire by giving marks 

from 1 to 4. Thank you for your help. 

Very different from 

you 

A little different 

from you 

A little like you A lot like you 

Circle 1 Circle 2 Circle 3 Circle 4 

 

                 Adapted from Wigfield & Guthrie (1997) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. I read stories about fantasy and make-believe. 1 2 3 4 

2. Complicated stories are no fun to read.                               1 2 3 4 

3. I feel like I make friends with people in good books. 1 2 3 4 

4. I like mysteries. 1 2 3 4 

5. I enjoy a long, involved story or fiction book. 1 2 3 4 

6. I enjoy reading books about people in different countries. 1 2 3 4 

7. I don’t like it when there are too many people in the story. 1 2 3 4 



Gülşen & Mede 

    

314 

Appendix C 

Interview questions for the non-participant observers 

Direction: Please observe the lesson(s) by taking the below questions into account. After the 

lesson, the researcher(s) will have an interview with you, generally on the basis of your 

answers to them. 

1. How engaged were the students during the pre-reading (brainstorming, guessing the 
context) activity? How much attention did they give to the question(s)?  

2. How was their attention while sharing their views with the whole class after the pair-
work discussion? 

3. What can you say about the student’s attitudes, questions and responses while they 
were reading the text?  

4. What do you think about the convenience of the context in regard to the Ss’ interest? 

5. How eagerly did the Ss answer the post-reading questions or do the related activities? 

6. What can you say about the Ss’ overall attitude towards this reading lesson?  

7. Can we say that this was an extensive reading lesson? Why? 

8. Can you please compare this reading lesson with the previous reading lesson in terms 
of Ss’ motivation? Do you think that they look forward to the next reading lesson? 

 

Note: The researchers themselves have prepared the questions by referring to the 

questions in Appendix A and Appendix B. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2017, 4(4), 290-315.  

 

315 

Appendix D 

Interview questions for the student groups  

1. What do you think the most enjoyable side of the reading lessons? Why? 

2. Can you please compare and contrast them with our previous reading lessons? 

3. How well do you think your reading has improved? 

4. What can you say about your attitudes towards reading before these lessons and now? 

5. Do you think that you are a good reader now? Why? 

6. What would you like to do in the next reading lessons? Are you looking forward to 
them? 

 

     Note: The researchers themselves have prepared the questions by referring to the 

questions in Appendix A and Appendix B.