The thesis addresses the issue of teaching reading strategies to young English learners and investigates their effectiveness using a range of English texts and different types of comprehension questions. Through empirical observation and task analysis, this thesis investigates the progress in reading strategies used by 7 young English learners (level A1-Α2) who were explicitly taught some reading strategies through classroom tasks.
- Literature review
- Examples of reading strategies
- Strategies and skills
- Explicit and implicit strategy instruction
- Inferencing
- Skimming and scanning
During the planning phase, the teacher also motivates the students and demonstrates the purpose of the activity. As students become more comfortable and begin to understand the use of the strategy, the teacher can gradually withdraw and allow students to work independently (Rupley et al., 2009, pp. 128-129). The teacher must also assess the effective use of the strategies and reteach them.
- Research questions
- Participants
- Instruments and procedure
- The questionnaire
- The vocabulary test
- Teaching materials
- The teaching sessions
- Inferencing, prediction
- Inferencing, skimming, scanning
- Prediction, inferencing, scanning
I asked the students if the title and cover of the book created any images or ideas in the students' minds. The items that the students were asked to translate were included in the story used in the pre-test session (see Appendix 3). I reminded the students of the importance of trying to find the meaning of unknown words from the context.
I provided feedback and discussed the clues the students had used to guide themselves through the process. Before completing the task, students were reminded to make use of the strategies that had been analyzed earlier. I provided feedback and discussed the responses of all students in both teaching sessions.
The students were asked to read a text and answer a series of multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank and open-ended questions. I asked the students what they thought about the different types of questions they encountered.
Inferencing, prediction
I have accepted this Greek phrase as accurate since it expresses the meaning of the phrasal verb as precisely as the phrase used in the original text (ξαναμονοιασμαι). Some of their guesses were also very close to the connotations of the words and phrases. The learners translated the adjective 'delightful' as 'great' (τέλειο), with the exception of learner 3 who came up with the adjectives 'terrible' (απαίσιο) and 'sad' (στενάχωρο) meant with the intention of the one the text.
The students were also able to combine the words "storm" and "waves" to come up with the correct ending of the word "drops". They seemed to use this knowledge as a basis for explaining the meaning of the word "stepfather". The students repeated their initial guesses, namely the ones they had tried to guess during the pre-test, and seemed unable to recall the correct translation of the words and phrases.
The students tried to retranslate verbs based on the meaning of the individual words. Although the students seemed to understand the meaning of the words when the answers were revealed to them during the pre-test, they could not remember them when they encountered them again in the same context.
Inferencing, skimming, scanning
He asked for guidance throughout the session and considering the fact that he seems to be easily distracted, I helped him more than the rest of the students. This particular example should not be considered indicative of students' ability to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words from context due to their lack of personal experience with the concept expressed by this term. Student's answer 2, 'tell me what's new with me' (να σου πω τα νέα μου) was closer to the exact meaning of the phrase, to spend time finding out what happened when you haven't seen someone.
Being able to focus on the phrase that expressed the opposite meaning and therefore infer the meaning of the phrase in question can be a useful approach to infer the. The rest of the learners seemed to understand its meaning easily and all used the Greek words that mean. Most of the learners claimed that they focused on the words mentioned in brackets such as 'T-shirt', 'shorts' and 'socks' to translate the phrase correctly.
The students demonstrated that they remembered most of the items in bold, even those that had bothered them during the pre-test. All comprehension questions were answered correctly at this stage and the other students did not ask for help.
Prediction, inferencing, scanning
When answering comprehension questions, students used the method of underlining relevant parts of the text, some using different colors. All students independently answered the fill-in-the-blank questions correctly, except for student 6 who appeared to need help. I helped him find clues in the questions and asked him questions like “What is Kim doing in this question.
The posttest included the same tasks and was given to the students a week later. The final question asking students to complete the story using their imagination yielded some very interesting answers, which varied in the pre- and post-test. Finally, I revealed the ending of the story, which was essentially the same as what they had predicted, and the students seemed satisfied with it.
The questions that were easier to answer this way were those that inquired about specific information in the text rather than the main ideas. The learners pointed out that they had to read the entire text before answering questions that refer to the main ideas.
Discussion with learners
When the sessions were finished, I discussed with the students about their attitudes towards the particular strategies. I asked them what they thought they should do if they came across unfamiliar words and phrases. They all answered that they should 'read the whole sentence', even students 5 and 7 who had indicated in the questionnaire that they rarely read the whole sentence to guess the meaning of a word or phrase.
Students 3, 5 and 7 admitted that underlining the part that they thought included the answer to the question in the text was very useful, while their first answer in the questionnaire was different as they had rarely used this method before. The students gave interesting answers in terms of trying to translate difficult words and phrases. They also said that sometimes the translation helped them because they were able to understand the meaning of difficult phrases such as coinage when trying to find the familiar words that were in them.
The rest of the learners insisted that translation of each individual word was always useful for them. Learner's 6 answers did not differ much from his initial answers in the questionnaire, except for the question related to underlining important parts of the text.
Recommendations for further research
Regarding the implication of affective factors in the process, it seems that the students did not have negative feelings such as stress or unwillingness to complete the tasks. Given the previously mentioned conditions with which the students were already familiar, and the nature of our individual lessons, we can conclude that these students would be more confident under different circumstances. In fact, they later admitted that if they had been asked to do the tasks themselves, they would have been more nervous about the process and likely given up trying to understand at certain points where the text increased.
Regarding the method of evaluating how effective the students' use of reading strategies has been, Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995) mention that "interviews provide personalized information [...] while aloud protocols provide the most detailed information From all. because the student describes strategies while performing a strategy task” and they argue that strategy assessment methods usually involve student self-reflection (Oxford & Burry-Stock, 1995, p. 2). This thesis has attempted to examine student performance qualitatively through observation, interviews and think-alouds taking into account students' own views and attitudes and does not examine the relationship between factors that can be measured quantitatively.
The skill level of learners can direct the teacher to the dominant type of process in the former's approach to reading. Another important suggestion for teachers is derived from Macaro (2006), who insists that "learner strategy instruction (or "training") appears to be effective in promoting successful learning if it is carried out over long periods of time and if it is a focus on metacognition" (Macaro, 2006, p. 321). Also, when choosing which strategies to teach, language teachers should keep in mind the importance of the "transferability" of these specific strategies, as it is that characteristic that make it more effective for learners and produce the most positive results in language learning (Macaro) , 2006, p. 328).
Being able to teach a combination of strategies is also important, especially in terms of reading comprehension. Teachers should therefore spend time on explicit and direct teaching of strategies to help learners become more competent, confident and independent language users. Investigating the immediate and delayed effects of multiple reading strategy instruction in primary EFL classrooms.
Teaching children to read: An evidence-based review of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Assessing the use of language learning strategies worldwide with the ESL/EFL version of the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL).
The questionnaire
What year were you in school when you started having English lessons at school. What year were you in school when you started getting English lessons at home or at a language school. I can find information such as names, dates and numbers in a text, even if there are words I don't know.
I encourage myself to continue reading in English even when I am not sure that I understand the text correctly.
The vocabulary test
Materials for inferencing and prediction
Materials for inferencing, skimming and scanning
Materials for prediction, inferencing, scanning
I had just bought an ice cream and was eating while my brother played with his ball.
