Effective strategies for English reading comprehension

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It is undeniable that reading skills play a crucial role in English learning and in expanding knowledge in general. The majority of EFL students find it hard to comprehend English texts during their learning process or when taking examinations. Reading strategies help learners comprehend English reading passages efficiently.

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Nội dung Text: Effective strategies for English reading comprehension

EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION Đào Thu Uyên, Dương Phi Yến, Phạm Phú Khải, Trần Nhân Hậu* Faculty of English Language, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) Supervisor: Tran Nhat San (MA) ABSTRACT It is undeniable that reading skills play a crucial role in English learning and in expanding knowledge in general. The majority of EFL students find it hard to comprehend English texts during their learning process or when taking examinations. Reading strategies help learners comprehend English reading passages efficiently. This paper aims to discuss the role of reading comprehension and provides some common reading strategies to improve EFL learners’ reading comprehension. Keywords: EFL, effective strategies, reading comprehension. 1 INTRODUCTION English is one of the most popular languages in the world since it allows learners to communicate with a wider range of the world’s population. Among different skills in this language, reading is considered a challenging area for EFL learners. There are many difficult problems that learners may encounter such as issues with decoding, poor comprehension, and reading speed. As a result, to read effectively and to understand more about what the author wants to impart in passages, learners must have useful strategies while reading. Therefore, applying effective reading strategies is essential in order to help EFL learners shorten reading time but still comprehend the text. 2 DEFINITION AND THEORIES OF READING COMPREHENSION 2.1 Definition of Reading Comprehension According to Simon, Rhinehart, Howard and Cho (2010) reading is basic in all academic disciplines and comprehension is the process of eliciting and making meaning through interaction and involvement with written language. Karizak and Laleh (2016) stated that comprehension is a process in which readers make meaning by interacting with text through the combination of prior knowledge and previous experience, information in the text, and the views of readers related to the text. The result of reading comprehension is the internal interpretation of the context of the text, which is coupled with the prior experience of the 2788
reader. Reading comprehension is the interpretation of what a text entails and the concepts that the writer is trying to express, both textually and subtextually (Snow, 2002). 2.2 Theories of Reading Comprehension There are two types of theories of reading comprehension: content literacy, and cognitive processes. 2.2.1 Content Literacy Content literacy is the ability to read, understand, and learn from texts from a particular matter. There are three types of content literacy: general literacy abilities, content-specific literacy abilities, and previous knowledge of content. The general and the content-specific literacy abilities indicate some more general type of knowledge that does not hinge on the detailed content of a particular text. This knowledge is applied to make a text-base in the mental representation (McNamara & Joe, 2009). Previous knowledge of content is the knowledge that is related to the content of a particular text and is applied to make a situation model in the mental representation. For example, it is not obvious that mathematics makes a necessity for content-specific literacy abilities and the reading comprehension in mathematics hinges on more general literacy abilities and previous knowledge. It can be stated that the symbolic language in mathematics is the main cause for the need of content- specific literacy skills (McNamara & Joe, 2009). 2.2.2 Cognitive Processes Cognitive strategies involve interacting with the material to be learned, manipulating the material mentally or physically or applying a specific technique to a learning task. Ghavam and Mohammad (2011) defined cognitive strategy as related to the “task at hand and the manner in which linguistic information is processed” (p. 17). Cognitive strategies are used by learners to transform or manipulate the language. In more specific terms, this includes activating and using background, predicting, summarizing, visualizing, making inference. 3 EFFECTIVE READING STRATEGIES Following Block’s taxonomy and based on O’Malley and Chamot’s framework, Fotovatian (2006) and Marzban (2006) EFL learners should apply cognitive, and metacognitive strategies while reading. These strategies are mentioned by Block and O’Malley and Chamot for their large benefits. Metacognitive strategies are higher level skills that plan for, observe, or measure the success of a learning activity. 3.1 Cognitive strategies Cognitive strategies include distinctive stages: predicting, activating and using background knowledge and summarizing. Firstly, readers may apply what they know about a writer to forecast what a text will be about. During reading, successful readers can make predictions about what will occur next, or what opinions the writer will offer to support a discussion. Readers try to assess these predictions ceaselessly and change any prediction that is not 2789
approved by the reading (Harvey, 2000). The good language learner may be a good guesser, that is, he gathers and stores information in an efficient manner so it can be easily retrieved. Learners should pick out the words he understands and infer the rest. Second stage is activating and using background knowledge. Readers often draw on their background knowledge and experience to help them understand what they're reading. Good readers apply their understanding of the text to create associations with it. Research has shown that students who are able to make these personal connections to the text and question whether the text they are reading makes sense on the basis of their own background knowledge tend to understand what they are reading. Often, when presented with difficult reading material, the struggling reader is so focused on decoding these difficult words, there is little mental space left to infer the meaning. "Activating Background Knowledge" is one of several key understanding strategies (Harvey, 2000). Next, making inferences is a great strategy for reading comprehension. There are different levels of reading comprehension; literal comprehension, and higher-level comprehension. Inferring falls under higher-level thinking. According to Leu and W. Ian (2011), inferences is implied information we draw from the text. Good readers draw many inferences from the text as they read. This can be a difficult skill for some readers, however, inferring can be taught with explicit instruction and strategies to help students understand this skill. Finally, readers combine material in a document to explain what the text is about in their own language. Summarizing is an important technique for helping readers recall text quickly. Readers will be aware of text structure, what is important in a text, and how views are linked to one another using this approach. Effective summarizing of narrative text includes things such as connecting happenings in a story line or recognizing the elements that stimulate a character’s activities and conduct (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2008) 3.2 Metacognitive strategies Metacognitive strategies used for planning and organizing the learning process of reading, monitoring language production and reading comprehension, as well as for evaluating the learning outcomes. These strategies are behaviors undertaken by the learners to plan, arrange, and evaluate their own learning. Such strategies include directed attention and self- evaluation, organization, setting goals and objectives, seeking practice opportunities (Singhal, 2001). 3.2.1 Arranging and planning before reading Singhal (2001) claimed that this group of techniques seeks to organize learning, set personal goals and mission purposes, schedule activities, and provide opportunities for language practice. They specifically refer to the following steps: – Exploring what language learning entails, new words or phrases learners may face, and what useful techniques they may employ. – Organizing the most suitable physical reading environment. 2790
– Setting goals (long-term objectives) and objectives (short-term objectives) in each capability sector, as well as deadlines for achieving them. – Identifying the main ideas or general ideas of each paragraph or each passage allows students to concentrate their efforts on the most important things. – Planning for determining the scope of the task, its specifications, the learner's available resources, and the need for additional support or resources. – Seeking opportunities to practice techniques and strategies outside classroom. For example, a student can choose to exercise reading comprehension skills by reading English books, short English stories or news on the internet. 3.2.2 Evaluating your learning Self-monitoring is the process of identifying and correcting personal mistakes in guessing the meaning of new words or after finishing exercises. This technique is important but it should be used with caution; being concerned with solving any error can destroy contact, which is the primary goal of enhancing comprehension and the interest for reading. Instead of striving to be flawless speakers, students can concentrate on mistakes that can annoy or confuse anyone. (McNamara & Joe, 2009) 4 CONCLUSION This paper has shown the important role of reading skills and its significant effect on students' abilities in comprehending passages. Successful readers are trying to use a wide range of expertise to understand the context of the texts. The thesis underscored the fact that understanding systems was affected by a lot of techniques. All of these strategies work together to build the process of meaning quickly and efficiently. REFERENCES [1] Ghavam, M. M., Mina, R., & Mohammad, R. H. (2011). Iranian EFL learners' achievement goals in relation with their metacognitive reading strategy use. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics. [2] Harvey, S. (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding. Stenhouse Publishers. [3] Honig, B., Diamond, L., & Gutlohn, L. (2008). Teaching reading sourcebook. California: Arena Press. Available at: https://www.corelearn.com/files/TeachingReadingSourcebook2ESample.pdf [4] Karizak, A. F., & Laleh, K. (2016). The effect of three kinds of reading strategies on EFL learners' reading comprehension and gender difference using think-aloud protocol. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature. Available at: http://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/IJALEL/article/view/2459 2791
[5] Lei, Simon. A., Rhinehart, P. J., Howard, H. A., & Cho, J. K. (2010). Strategies for improving reading comprehension among college students. Available at: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Strategies+for+improving+reading+comprehension+am ong+college+students.-a0221203907 [6] Leu, D., & W. Ian, O. (2011). The new literacies of online reading comprehension: Expanding the literacy and learning curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 5-14. [7] Singhal, M. (2001). Reading proficiency, reading strategies, metacognitive awareness and L2 readers. The Reading Matrix. Available at: http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/singhal/ [8] Snow, C. (2002). Reading for understanding towards an R&D program in reading comprehension and education. Available at: https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1465.html [9] McNamara, D. S., & Joe, M. (2009). Chapter 9: Toward a comprehensive model of comprehension. Elsevier, 297-384. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079742109510092?via%3Dihub 2792