The Impact of Educational Comics on Primary School Students’ Reading Skills

This study examined changes in the reading level, reading speed, and reading errors of third-grade primary school students reading at the frustration level following a 9-week instructional process that combined educational comics with the choral reading method. A single-group pretest–posttest quasi-experimental design was used with 11 students selected through criterion sampling. Data were collected with the Reading Miscue Inventory, and the same 121-word text was read at pretest and posttest. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests showed that students’ word recognition percentages (z = −2.94, p = .003, r = .63) and reading speeds (z = −2.94, p = .003, r = .63) were significantly higher, and their total reading errors were significantly lower (z = −2.93, p = .003, r = .63), at posttest than at pretest. Five students moved from the frustration level to the borderline level (90%–94% word recognition), whereas none reached the instructional criterion of 95%. The findings should therefore be regarded as preliminary evidence that educational comics combined with choral reading may serve as a supportive material for struggling early readers, which warrants further testing in controlled studies.