Results Before delving into the results directly related to the research questions, it is important to establish that the participants were all successful readers by analyzing how well the participants performed on the reading task. First, all of the participants scored high on their orals summaries. Although each participant chose to highlight different details, they all successfully reported the main ideas and arguments of the article. In addition to the high scores on the summaries, the participants did not find the article to be difficult to read. They were asked to rank the difficulty of the article on a likert scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being most difficult. The average rank for all 4 participants was 4.75 with a standard deviation of 0.65. Question 1: The first question this study aimed to address was what reading strategies or skills do successful graduate ESL students use. Overall, the participants in this study used a variety of reading strategies to extract meaning from the text they read. In many cases the participants were unaware that they were using a defined reading strategy. For example, every participant monitored for understanding by comparing what they were reading with information they had read before, but none of the participants reported having learned the strategy in a reading course nor knew the term “monitoring.” Also of note is that the strategies the participants claimed to use the most or found the most useful were typically strategies aimed at comprehension and main ideas (top-down strategies) of the text itself, whereas bottom-up strategies related to vocabulary or grammar were less represented overall. The most commonly used bottom-up strategy was using context clues to understand th... ... middle of paper ... ...-128. Leki, I. (1995). Coping strategies of ESL students in writing tasks across the curriculum. TESOL Quarterly, 29(2), 235-260. Padron, Y. N., & Waxman, H. C. (1988). The effect of ESL students' perceptions of their cognitive strategies on reading achievement. TESOL Quarterly, 22(1), 146-150. Phakiti, A. (2003). A closer look at the relationship of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use to EFL reading achievement test performance. Language Testing, 20(1), 26-56. Plakans, L. (2009). The role of reading strategies in integrated L2 writing tasks. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 8(4), 252-266. Saricoban, A. (2002). Reading strategies of successful readers through the Three Phase Approach. Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal, 2(3). Varaprasad, C. (2006). Reading strategies: Caught or taught?. Reflections on English Language Teaching, 5(2), 63-86.
The Reading Strategies Book, by Jennifer Serravallo, is a tool that offers support to teachers in their planning and execution of literacy lessons situated within a larger curricula area. According to Jennifer, “the goal-oriented chapters address a plethora of strategies that can be taught in all genres, grades, and content areas, and they are differentiated for the teacher by clear descriptions that assist them in selecting the most apt and applicable lessons.” This resource provides teachers with an “Everything guide to developing skilled readers,” (Serravallo, 2015). Throughout this book, Jennifer introduced about 300 strategies that can be used in the form of lessons that are accompanied by teaching tips, lesson language, and supportive
This article, reporting on the research done by Margo Glew and Charlene Polio of Michigan State University, examines writing assessment in a different way than most research on the topic. The goal of this research was to look into how an ESL student chooses prompts for a writing exam when offered a choice. Polio and Glew not only investigate how they choose, but how long it takes each student to choose and if they should even be given a choice at all.
Reading is not just reading words on a paper. It is a process that uses many resources in the brain and the use of strategies. Teachers have to use all six areas of reading to help students learn how to read, what strategies to use when reading, how to interpret a text and many more. Reading is a complex process and this paper will describe the six areas of reading.
Donald M. Murray, in this article entitled “Reading as a Reader” is talking about how reading is an unique, an essential, and a necessary aptitude for human beings in their society. While illustrating his point of view, the author stresses on the idea that our attitudes towards reading is directly linked to the systematic approaches we have while facing a article or a book. In this article, he said that: “If we approach a text believing that we are not readers, or that we can’t read, that attitude may make it more difficult for us to understand the challenging text.”(Murray, 2). Throughout those words, Murray emphasizes that we should consider the process of reading as a learning process, and as a way of deepening the capacity we have as readers. We should have an open-mind while engaging with a reading, and understand that it may always not be our fault if it comes that the text we are reading is difficult. In clear, it is all part of the process of improving ourselves. Then, Murray, in his well structured writing, portrays differents types of reading and also gives us some tips on how to approach them.
In Lesson One, it became apparent through questioning that Kowahi students were confident readers who could use strategies successfully to decode and summarise a text. However, their ability to connect personal opinion and knowledge was lacking, which led to them reading text as opposed to understanding the deeper meaning. Good readers simultaneously employ strategies; they decode and read for meaning at the same time (Dymock, 2007), unskilled readers “fail to monitor comprehension” (Garner, 1987, as cited in Harp, 1999).
English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). English as a Second Language (ESL). Limited English Proficiency (LEP). English Language Learners (ELL). All of these are programs for students who did not learn English as their first language. Every day, students face many different challenges while going to school. Some struggle to grasp the concepts of math. Some struggle to manage their time wisely. Many struggle to get up in the morning. Many also struggle to fit in. But many of these struggles would be a little easier for those who have learned English as their first language. Those who did not, juggle learning English while trying to learn new concepts that are taught in English. It starts to sound like a catch 22, which is part of the
When observing and studying ELLs, there are many advantages and disadvantages in a classroom and school for these students. In the classroom, ELL students have many individual opportunities to develop their literacy, especially in small reading groups. English learners also, are pulled aside by an ESL teacher during class hours to focus on reading and writing skills of English. According to Netten, Droop, and Verhoeven (2010), reading is “an activity which benefits from practice” (414). Many of these students struggle to become literate at a young age, but the more practice they receive the better they will become when focusing on developing literacy. Also, ELL students have an advantage when learning two languages because this makes them bilingual. The goal of bilingual education is to develop
The 'Stand English learners, academic literacy and thinking. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann & Co. Hattie, J. (2009) Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York: Routledge, 2003. Marzano, R., Gaddy, B., Dean, C., (2000).
Scott, T. M., & Shearer-Lingo, A. (2002). The effects of reading fluency instruction on the academic and behavioral success of middle school students in a self-contained E/BD classroom. Preventing School Failure, 46, 167-173.
Although adequate writing skills are indispensable for life, leisure, and employment, quite a few students do not learn how to write effectively. Since writing is an exercise in thinking, it is important to balance the process of writing with the mechanics of writing. The areas of the brain involved in the writing task are varied yet interrelated; therefore, a student’s individual needs will determine the method of instruction they receive. Many students who have low expectations for their own academic success will not make even minimal efforts to complete a...
However, their purposes for writing are sometimes not the kind valued by Western academic communities. The nature of academic literacy often confuses and disorients students, “particularly those who bring with them a set of conventions that are at odds with those of the academic world they are entering” (Kutz, Groden & Zamel, 1993, p. 30). In addition, the culture-specific nature of schemata–abstract mental structures representing our knowledge of things, events, and situations–can lead to difficulties when students write texts in L2. Knowing how to write a “summary” or “analysis” in Mandarin or Spanish does not necessarily mean that students will be able to do these things in English (Kern, 2000). As a result, any appropriate instruction must take into consideration the influence from various educational, social, and cultural experiences that students have in their native language. These include textual issues, such as rhetorical and cultural preferences for organizing information and structuring arguments, commonly referred to as contrastive rhetoric (Cai, 1999; Connor, 1997; Kaplan, 1987; Kobayashi & Rinnert, 1996; Leki, 1993; 1997; Matalene, 1985), knowledge of appropriate genres (Johns, 1995; Swales, 1990), familiarity with writing topics (Shen, 1989), and distinct cultural and instructional socialization (Coleman, 1996; Holliday, 1997; Valdes, 1995). In addition to instructional and cultural
readers: A perspective for research and intervention ―[Electronic version]. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11(4), 289-312.
Curtin, E. M. (2006). Lessons on effective teaching from middle school ESL students. Middle School Journal, 37(3), 38–45.
Reading comprehension refers to the ability to decipher the meaning of written text. There are three required elements needed for adequate understand of written material: a knowledge of word...
Just, M.A., & Carpenter, P.A. (2010). The psychology of reading and language comprehension. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.