2.2.5.1 Approaches in Building Students’ Comprehension Skill
There are several ways to build the students’ comprehension skills. There are standard strategies that are used by the teachers in mainstream classroom. At least, there are three strategies which are considered to be main approaches: building background knowledge, teaching vocabulary explicitly, and checking comprehension. Building background knowledge consists of several steps.
First, the teachers need to draw on students’ existing knowledge. It can be assumed that the students have prior knowledge which they cannot demonstrate in English yet. Teachers need to give an opportunity to make associations between students’ experiences and new content. The students should be allowed to use their native language with peers for quick brainstorm in order to find out what they know about a topic before they present the ideas in front of the class. Then, teachers should build the students’ background
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Aebersold and Field (1997: 23) have compiled a list of factors that influence reading in second language learning. They are:
1) Cognitive development and cognitive style orientation at the time of beginning L2/FL study
2) Language proficiency in the L1
3) Metacognitive knowledge of L1 structure, grammar, and syntax
4) Language proficiency in an L1/FL
5) Degree of difference between the L1 and an L2/FL (writing systems, rhetorical structures, appropriate strategies).
6) Cultural orientation
As the result of reading process, there are also some factors that influence the students in their reading. Some experts have identified a number of factors affecting comprehension skill. One of them are Dawson and Bamman (1967: 220-223). According to them, there are five factors which affect the comprehension skill. They
I asked Student A eight comprehension questions about the text once she was finished reading. She did not have a problem with any of the questions. For example, one of the questions was “How old is Jessie now?” she responded right away with the correct answer “thirteen.” She did not even have to look back to the story to find the sentence; “Now that she is thirteen, Jessie competes with adults.” Student A was able to answer the “right there” questions with ease. Being able to remember key details from a text is crucial to developing the ability to comprehend what she is reading. She is already at a great stage when it comes to text comprehension and this will only help with further development. She had a purpose when she read and was reading for the details as opposed to reading to finish the text. She understood what was happening and if she continues to do this in the future, she will be able to understand more difficult texts by putting all of the key details together. Since Student A is able to recall key information from text, it will allow her to summarize and retell a text with ease. This strength will help Student A as she continues to develop as a reader because as the readings increase in difficulty she will remember the basic key details that she read and recount the story based on the main
... student from comprehending a text. How can a student understand a given text if the student does not understand a big portion of words in the text? Students enter school with vocabularies whether big or small and teachers need to nourish and build them up and comprehend harder and more complex texts.
...t comprehension, it is important to analyze and view all aspects of the text, this will ensure the education you’re receiving, as well as the personal ties you make while reading.
... for teachers to choose materials that will hook students and motivate them to engage in their own learning. Teachers should provide multiple learning opportunities in which stu¬dents can experience success and can begin to build confidence in their ability to read, write, and think at higher level. By connecting strategies for learning, such as searching, compre¬hending, interpreting, composing, and teaching content knowledge, students are given the opportunity to succeed in their education. These elements include: fundamental skills such as phonemic awareness, phonemic decoding, and other word analysis skills that support word reading accuracy; text reading fluency; strategies for building vocabulary; strategies for understanding and using the specific textual features that distinguish different genres; and self-regulated use of reading comprehension strategies.
The simple view of reading indicates that reading comprehension skill depends on decoding skills and linguistic comprehension (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough 1990). First study that analyzes the efficiency of the two formulas: R = D × C (Hoover and Gough, 1990) and R = D + C (Dreyer and Katz, 1992).The second study presents that analyzes by adding a factor or speed of processing into the simple view of reading formula increases ability to predict reading comprehension.
Thus, the book answers numerous practical questions that teachers have often struggled with; for example, how to increase the chances of academic success for language learners, how to use technology to teach language effectively, or how to teach language and content material concurrently. From the preface, the author makes it very clear that the book is designed to support language teachers in their journey as new teachers and throughout their teaching careers. In total, the book contains eleven chapters, which have been divided into four parts. The first part, "What Do Language Teachers Think About?" includes topics of foreign/ second language acquisition theories and language teaching methodologies. This part introduces the background knowledge readers will need in their journey as language teachers. The second part, "How Do You Teach a Language?" introduces approaches to teaching and learning that improve students’ writing, listening, speaking and reading abilities. Each chapter in this part includes suggestions for how students can be motivated and describes teaching and testing approaches to assess students ' language skills and academic literacy. The third part, "How Do I Know What to Teach?" is instrumental in helping teachers adopt teaching practices to particular teaching settings. The fourth part, "Where Do I Go from Here?" helps teachers gain a clearer perspective of what language teaching is all about; this section also considers teacher 's self-assessment and personal
That is the goal of being a fluent reader. Mrs. Baughman uses the components of a story to teach comprehension. The components of the story are the setting, the plot, the conflict, and the resolution. If students can easily pick out the answers for the components of a story then their comprehension is growing. Another way to teach comprehension is by using graphic organizers like Venn-diagrams, story maps, and cause and effect charts. Teachers can also ask questions to make sure students understand the text. Not only does the teacher need to ask questions, but so do the students. If a student can ask questions, and with guidance answer it themselves they understand the material. The same goes with summarizing texts. A good way to check comprehension is to see how well the students summarized the texts. Doing so, can show if they really understand the material or they are just reading without thinking about it. Group work is a good way for students to share their thoughts on texts and help explain it to others in an easier way. If students do not comprehend text then their reading skills for the future will not be good. Teaching comprehension is not by just asking questions. There are many ways to check it that give a better view on how students are
Teaching students a language that is foreign can really be challenging for students as well as for the teachers. The dynamic rule for implementing instructing in a diverse class to English-learners is to use resourceful life skills such as diligence, hard work and patience. There are also methods that are involved in teaching English as a second language that can be creative for the teacher, yet beneficial to the student. First building a strong foundation that is essential to English learners will promote the language acquisition process. To do this teacher’s should always start with preparation. Advance preparation is essential in order to provide necessary adaptations in content area instruction and to make content information accessible for second language lear...
Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner stated that the National Reading Panel describes reading fluency as identifying words accurately, reading rate and reading with expression. These components affect comprehension greatly. Accuracy allows the reader to naturally recognize words that are unfamiliar and words that are familiar. This early developed skill use decoding skills to crack unfamiliar words. Eventually these words will become sight words because the reader has seen them often enough to pull them from memory (Jennings, Caldwell & Learner, 2010, p. 215). Without accuracy, the reader will not get the author’s intended meaning which can lead to misinterpretation. Reading rate refers to the speed at which a student is able to identify both known and unknown words. Because they can recognize words instantly, they are free from constantly decoding words which allows them to gain comprehension. My case study student, Akema reads at a slow rate. Because he lacks speed, he is not able to construct an ongoing interpretation of text. unfortunately for Akema, because he cannot recognize words on contact his level of comprehension is low and finally fluent readers are able to convey meaning by reading with expression and use of various voice tones and punctuation signals. Poor prosody or expression confuses the reader because of inappropriate groupings of words (Jennings, Caldwell & Learner, 2010, p. 216). Reading with accuracy, speed and expression certainly make reading enjoyable and improve comprehension.
According to Temple et. Al, there are components for reading. “Reading is the act of getting meaning from a written text.” (Temple & Ogle & Crawford & Freppon, 2005, p.7) There are steps to learn to read; first step is “word recognition.” This activity is that readers recognize letters and words. Next step is “phonemes” which is the smallest sounds in language. Readers who in “phonemic awareness” are able to know how to make sounds with letters. In “comprehension” step, readers are able to understand what they are reading. They can improve reading ability by expanding knowledge of vocabulary. If they can understand words faster than previous time and accurately, they are on “reading fluency” step. The last step, which is “interpretation” or also known as “critical reading”, is a time when they are able to understand author’s thought and mind by reading their words and arguments. National Reading Panel categorized literacy by areas of alphabetic, fluency, comprehension, teacher education and reading instruction, computer technology, and reading instruction. Alphabetic includes
In this information–driven age, preparing students to read a variety of texts with complete understanding should likely be one of our educational system’s highest priorities. Understanding is more than just the ability to produce information on demand (knowledge) or the ability to perform learned routines (skills). “Understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows.” (Active Learning Practice for Schools, n. d.) A review of the literature in the area of reading comprehension of elementary-age students shows two principle areas of focus. There is a body of literature that examines the development of proficient vs. struggling comprehenders and another body of literature that compares methodologies for teaching reading comprehension.
Comprehension, it is something people do every day without thinking about it. Comprehension is the action or capability of understanding something. What if you didn’t understand something, how would you understand the world around you? Many students face this issue and school systems are not catching it soon enough. Comprehension skills require students to relate to their life experiences to their reading. It also requires students to incorporate decoding skills to understand the text they are reading. The idea of comprehension and how it is taught in schools is an important topic and why I chose to do a study about it. Students are struggling with comprehension still in the higher-grade levels. Why are they still struggling? There are many
English language has been rated as one of the most important international languages nowadays. It has been found at primary levels around the world. Teaching English as a foreign language is not an easy task and need a lot of hard work, especially for young learners. However, starting earlier is not the solution for producing better English speakers. EFL teachers of young learners have to follow some strategies and techniques to understand and teach young learners better. YL Students who aged 5-12 can not spend two or three hours sitting on chairs and listening to teachers lectures as adults do. They lose interest more quickly and less able to keep motivated on tasks for long time because these students have short attention spans and are easily distracted. YL Students will be usually learning very basic material but a skillful teacher has to design creative lessons that get students attention and participation during the class, such as moving around and speaking with one another. Interacting with each other improves their communication skills and even building confidence in using the language. In addition, young learners are generally very enthusiastic at this level about songs and games. In order to encourage everyone to participate, it is important to include your sessions with different types of songs and active games to make the lessons relaxed and fun. The teacher should be able to create different activities to encourage and activate students that everyone can enjoy learning in.
In most institutions of learning today, the classes are made up of students from different ethnic backgrounds. These have different traditions and also speak different languages. In a typical classroom, the majority of the students will speak the same language. The teacher must then employ strategies which will accommodate all the students in the class. This will ensure that every learner gets the best quality of education. This will enable them to be better prepared for career and expressing themselves. In this paper, strategies to assist learners of the English language in their literal development for third grade learners. In the paper, three strategies that can be used by the teacher will be discussed. New strategies and research that will help the English language learners to gain in depth mastery of the language will also be discussed. Due to the widespread learning of the English language in most schools, addressing issues of the language learners is of vital importance. Teachers should have the understanding that cultures are what give someone identity and therefore no student should leave their culture for another. Instead, there should be the blending of different cultures so that students can appreciate and learn from each other.
Many students have a hard time when it comes to reading. There are many reading inventions that can help students out. Reading inventions are strategies that help students who are having trouble reading. The interventions are techniques that can be used to assist in one on ones with students or working in small groups to help students become a better reader. Hannah is a student who seems to be struggling with many independent reading assignments. There can be many reasons that Hannah is struggling with the independent reading assignments. One of the reasons that Hannah can be struggling with is reading comprehension while she is reading on her on. Reading comprehension is when students are able to read something, they are able to process it and they are able to understand what the text is saying. According to article Evidence-based early reading practices within a response to intervention system, it was mentioned that research strategies that can use to help reading comprehension can include of activating the student’s background knowledge of the text, the teacher can have questions that the student answer while reading the text, having students draw conclusions from the text, having