To develop citizens who possess potentials against severe global competition in the future, English communication, technology ability, and comprehension of literature and humanity turns out to be important “Future Ability”. Searching for an appropriate “Future Ability Course” to help underachievers, the teacher as researcher designed this “Integrate Multimedia Picture Books into English Remedial Instruction” (IMPBERI) course. The purpose of this study is to observe the effects of IMPBERI course on elementary school underachievers’ reading comprehension and learning attitudes. Two research questions are as follows: 1. Can this IMPBERI course increase the underachievers’ English reading comprehension? 2. Can this IMPBERI course increase the underachievers’ English learning attitude? Observing the difference of the same subjects during and after the experiment course, both quantitative and qualitative data were adopted for triangulation in the study. Paired samples t-tests were used to compare the results of Reading Comprehension Assessment. Also, the classroom observation journals, students’ portfolios, and interview transcripts were adopted for in-depth analysis. According to MOE’s After School Alternative (APA) program, the subjects were ten 5th grade underachievers from W elementary school in Taichung rural area. The subjects accepted the IMPBERI course for 12 weeks. Results have shown that the effects of IMPBERI course on elementary school underachievers’ reading comprehension are remarkable, especially on story sequence and sentence comprehension. As for the help of improving vocabulary and information comprehension, the effects were not obvious. Through the experience course, the subjects’ learning attitude turned positive. Based on the findings, it is suggested that elementary school English teachers employ multimedia picture books to facilitate the reading comprehension and learning attitude of 5th grade underachievers. For future studies, integrating multimedia picture books into English remedial instruction should be further investigated for underachievers. Also, surveys about learners’ preference of the story genre and the theme are worth to explore.
