Effectiveness of Reading Strategies for EFL students of Pre-Intermediate Level

At the beginning students were asked to fill questionnaire to know their interests and attitude towards reading. After getting necessary information about students’ needs, the researcher gave students diagnostic test to find out learners’ reading proficiency in English. Taking into consideration all these information, the researcher could provide them with interesting reading handouts, such as articles, paragraphs and stories each lesson. During the lessons the teacher tried particular strategies by the use of various techniques.

              The first strategy was Reciprocal Teaching, it includes question generation, clarification, summarization and prediction. Through all the research in reciprocal teaching, two forms of the practice have been developed.  They are reciprocal teaching only (RTO) and explicit teaching before reciprocal teaching (ET-RT) (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994).  In RTO, the four sub-strategies of reciprocal teaching were taught during student-teacher dialogues, it means that the learners were getting explanations during the process of reading.  While these dialogues students received prompts, models, and cues from the teacher about the strategies.  In contrast, students were given direct instruction in each of the four strategies before student-teacher dialogues during ET-RT. 

         The second strategy was Think-Aloud. Students were required to make notes while they were reading in group work. Then basing on their feelings and understandings of the passage, they were asked to draw some posters and present them. This assignment let them know about their weaknesses and strengths. Comparing their comprehension with each others they identified the right one themselves.

         The third one is Questioning Practices strategy. The researcher followed techniques that were offered by Lehr and Osborn (1994), students used the following techniques: Question and answer relationships (QAR's).  There are three types of QAR's.  They are characterized as text explicit (TE), text implicit (TI), and script implicit (SI).  Answers to TE questions were stated right in the text.  TI questions required the readers to synthesize a variety of information from the text in order to arrive at the answer.  Answers to SI questions came from the reader's prior knowledge. There were five steps to QAR activities.  They include assigning the text, generating the questions, providing the answers, identifying the QAR, and providing a justification for the QAR.  As students went through the steps, they learned how to classify types of questions. If questions are classified, students are taught how to go about answering them. 

         Another method of self-questioning is reciprocal questioning (ReQuest).  During ReQuest, the teacher and students took turns asking each other questions about a given text.  In this method of practice, teachers' questions and answers served as models for the students.  This type of format allowed teachers to provide students with feedback about their questions, as well as the strategies required to answer formulated questions.

         The fourth strategy was Retelling Practices. The researcher explained and taught students techniques of how to retell the text correctly: identifying main idea, to make general questions, distinguishing introduction, body and conclusion. Then, students were required to record their own tape with their retellings for 3 lessons, one text for each.

         The fifth strategy was Vocabulary Development Activities, here students were asked to make Word Map for new words that they came across while reading. Teacher asked them to write the new word in the centre of paper and to find the definition from the dictionary then they wrote synonyms, antonyms and another form of the word in order to know the words with the similar roots in their future readings.

             And the last strategy, that researcher made experiment on, was Peer-Facilitated Activities. This strategy assists students in activating prior knowledge and form predictions about the text to be read. The click and clunk strategy was used during the reading process.  Students were to identify those ideas in the reading they were familiar with or "click" with, as well as clunk those ideas they didn't understand.  Once this was done, students were taught strategies to help them with the clunk ideas they had identified.  In get the gist, students identified the main ideas in their own words.  Students identified the main point in 10 or fewer words. 

         After making each experiment, the researcher gave students the test for comprehension of text and at the end of the research she compared all results and found out the most effective reading strategy.

         Analysis

         When the all data was collected, it started to be analyzed. The researcher began to compare all results that she got from the tests. First of all, she determined the frequency of distribution of each test; it helped to find out how many learners performed in the same way and what the range of their performance was. Then, in order to work with the date further, the researcher had to calculate central tendency and dispersion, it means to find mean, median, mode and range with standard deviation. Everything was calculated by particular formulas and presented in the form of the tables. This long and difficult process was done with the results of all tests.

         The main aim of the analysis was to find out the most effective and reliable strategy for reading comprehension. And, after all calculations were done, the researcher compared the performances of the subjects on all tests that they had. The results of central tendency and dispersion were similar but the researcher managed to identify the best one. The most successful results were on the test 3, which was done on the strategy Questioning Practices. Accordingly, by the results of the research, the most effective strategy for reading comprehension turned out Questioning Practices.  

Data Collection

       The researcher briefly informed and explained students that they were supposed to participate in set of experiments which will give them an opportunity to improve their reading skills, particularly comprehension. As it was already mentioned in research plan, students were asked to be very active and follow all instructions during the experiments. The researcher was planning to experiment each of the following strategies on learners (Reciprocal Teaching, Think- Aloud, Questioning Practices, Retelling Practices, Vocabulary Development Activities, Peer- Facilitated Activities) by using different techniques that support these strategies.

             At the beginning students were asked to fill the questionnaire (see Appendix 1) in order the researcher knew their interests and attitude towards reading. The questionnaire included questions about their interests: what kind of books they like more and what type of reading materials they prefer. Moreover, there were questions about their personal information: name, age, gender, nationality. The researcher supposed that most of learners had the same interests because all of them have the same characteristics but the results were different. Some students liked sport, others liked cooking or dancing, and it caused problem what topics for reading to give.

       But before solving this problem, the researcher decided to give learners a diagnostic test (see Appendix 2) to know their reading proficiency, because the topics for reading should be not only interesting but appropriate for their level of comprehension. The researcher explained and translated the questions and answers when the students with elementary level of English asked, and it was important to make them understand what they were answering. After checking the tests, it was vividly clear that most of learners were pre-intermediate level of English. And taking into consideration all this information the researcher could provide them with interesting reading handouts each lesson. During the classes the teacher began to experiment particular strategies by the use of various techniques. 

       Reciprocal Teaching

       As it was already mentioned in research plan there are two types of it. These are Reciprocal Teaching Only (RTO) and Explicit Teaching before Reciprocal Teaching (ET-RT). So, the researcher decided to take the second one ET-RT. Teacher distributed students handouts with reading (see Appendix 3) and asked them to work in pairs. The task was to read the handout and to create some question generation, clarification, summarization and prediction before whole- group discussion. After discussion the teacher could understand whether the students understood the topic or not and what amount of them could do this. 

       Think-Aloud

       The next lesson students got another handout with reading task (see Appendix 3). They were required to make notes while they were reading in group work. Then the researcher provided them with sheets of paper and asked to draw some posters and make mini-presentations. As students worked in groups, the learner, who understood everything, could help, advise and explain to the learners who did not understand the passage. And after all presentations, students identified the right comprehension of the passage themselves. This information showed them their weaknesses and strengths. 

             

            Questioning Practices strategy

       It was the most difficult reading strategy for students because this strategy was conducted in three steps. The researcher followed techniques, offered by Lehr and Osborn (1996) Reading, Language, and Literacy, which are text explicit questions (TEQ), text implicit questions (TIQ), and script implicit questions (SIQ). Teacher divided students into groups of three and provided them with handouts (see Appendix 3). The task was to read the handouts and to make the following types of questions to the text:

• the first type was text explicit questions, it means answers to them should have been stated right in the text,
• the second type was text implicit questions that required the readers to synthesize a variety of information from the text in order to arrive at the answer
• the third type was script implicit questions, the answers to such questions should come from reader’s prior knowledge.

       So, the learners, besides reading and understanding overall comprehension, had to create questions according to the classification that was written above. Such kind of activity helped them to have detailed understanding of the text that improved their reading skills. The experiment was a little bit difficult because of misunderstanding of difference between types of questions. However, the teacher tried to do the best and explained everything in acceptable way that was appropriate to their level of comprehension.

                Retelling Practices

         The fourth strategy was Retelling Practices. The researcher explained and taught students techniques of retelling the text correctly. They are identifying main idea, making general questions, distinguishing introduction, body and conclusion. Then, students were required to record their own tape with their retellings for 3 lessons. The researcher provided each student with three texts and their task was to read them at home and record their retellings on the tape but the problem was that not all learners could afford recording their own tape. The solution was to work in groups and to record only one text for one lesson. Such an original and interesting technique was used to make students feel responsibility and to raise their awareness. The results showed that such kind of activity made them work harder and read more attentively at home. So, while listening each recording, the researcher could find out how well they could comprehend the texts.

         Vocabulary Development Activities

         Students were asked to make Word Map for new words that they met while reading. Teacher asked them to write the new word in the centre of paper and to find the definition from the dictionary, then to write synonyms, antonyms and another form of the word in order to be familiar with the words with the similar roots in their future readings. Such activity turned out to be inappropriate for reading comprehension skill since the emphasis was more on vocabulary enrichment rather than enforcing on reading comprehension. Moreover, it was time consuming and while taking this activity, students even forgot about the meaning of the text.

              Peer Facilitated Activities

              On this stage of experiment a higher-achieving student was paired with a lower-achieving student in a tutoring situation.  The task was to help students in activating their prior knowledge and form predictions about the text they were going to read. During partner reading, the higher-achieving student orally read first.  The lower-achieving student reread the same text with the support of their higher-achieving partner. The click and clunk strategy was used during the reading process. “Click” meant the ideas that students understood and “clunk” those ideas they did not understand. After this was done, the teacher asked a higher-achieving student to help a lower-achieving one with the clunk ideas they had identified. Then, both of them summarized the main idea of the paragraph and made a prediction. After the activity, students reported that they had enjoyed working in partners and felt that they had worked hard to improve their reading.  However, despite these results there are some limitations.  The first limitation was a difficulty in finding a variety of high interest, simple vocabulary text for these struggling readers, and another was that there were just a few of higher-achieving students.

               While planning the research, the author intended to give the test for comprehension of text after each experiment, but during the process the author decided to omit the test on the fifth strategy, Vocabulary Development Activities, because it did not answer to the aims of the research. The other tests (see Appendix 4) were used as it was planned. So, when the experimenting of reading strategies was finished, the researcher compared only five tests, and according to the answers, the researcher found out the most effective reading strategy.

TOOLS	QUANTITY
Questionnaire	10
Diagnostic test	10
Reading handout 1	5
Reading handout 2	4
Reading handout 3	5
Reading handout 4	4
Reading handout 5	5
Reading handout 6	5
Diagnostic test 1	10
Diagnostic test 2	10
Diagnostic test 3	10
Diagnostic test 4	10
Diagnostic test 5	10

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Results and Discussion 

         The research made by investigator is based on six strategies for reading comprehension. Accordingly, the researcher had to compare five diagnostic tests for reading comprehension that were provided with students during the experiments. But before, the teacher had a test for identifying reading comprehension level of students. The results are presented in the Table №1 

      Table №1 Results of Reading Comprehension Test  

Name	Score
Muazzam	30
Nilufar	28
Suhrob	24
Nasiba	18
Hilola	15
Odina	15
Zarnigor	12
Lobar	9
Gulbahor	9
Nargiza	9

 

         The total score of this test was 42; from the results it is clear that most of students failed it. The test consisted of three parts; each part had one passage and several questions concerning it. The first text was of pre-intermediate level, the second was of intermediate and the third one of upper-intermediate level. The most of correct answers were given on the first part of the test that showed the researcher that the learners were of pre-intermediate level of comprehension.

         So, after knowing the level of students, the researcher began his research. As it was mentioned, there was a test after each experiment; the first was on the strategy Reciprocal Teaching. The test consisted of six comprehension questions, 10 points were given for each correct answer, it means that total score was 60 points. The results on this test you can see in the Table №2.

         Table №2 Results of Diagnostic Test 1 

Name	Score
Muazzam	45
Nilufar	40
Suhrob	40
Nasiba	30
Hilola	30
Odina	25
Zarnigor	25
Lobar	25
Gulbahor	25
Nargiza	20

 

         The next table the researcher wanted to presents is frequency distribution of diagnostic test 1. After collecting all necessary data, it is possible to see how many students performed in the same way and what the range of their performance was.

         Table №3 Frequency Distribution of Diagnostic Test 1

Score Value	Frequency
45	1
40	2
30	2
25	4
20	1

 

         The most frequent score is:

           “25” – 4

         In order to work with the date further it is important to calculate central tendency that would be used in other calculations. Central tendency is indicated in three ways: as a mean, mode and median.

         Mean is the average numerical value in a set of numerical values. In order to get mean, all the values in the set should be added up and then divided the sum by the number of values in the set: