The impact of pre reading strategy instruction on hung vuong high school students reading skill

ABSTRACT The objective of this thesis was to examine the impact of pre-reading strategy instruction on students’ reading skill at Hung Vuong High School HVHS in Binh Duong Province and t

ABSTRACT

The objective of this thesis was to examine the impact of pre-reading strategy instruction on students’ reading skill at Hung Vuong High School (HVHS) in Binh Duong Province and to suggest pre-reading strategy instruction in which reading may be more effectively taught This study also investigated how often students at HVHS use pre-reading strategies before reading the texts and its influence on the students’ consciousness of strategy use, reading learning and improvement

To achieve this, the study was carried out with two classes of the 10" grade: Class 10L majoring in physics was taught as normal and Class 10H majoring in chemistry was taught with the pre-reading strategy instruction Data were collected

by using the following instruments: two sets of survey questionnaires, a mid-term and a final test The first set of questionnaire was delivered to 58 students from the two classes at the beginning of the second semester of the school year 2009-2010 to investigate background information of the subjects as well as their attitudes, consciousness and habit in learning reading at the pre-reading stage between the control and experimental group before the experiment was applied After more than

a three-month experiment of the five recommended pre-reading strategies, the second one was delivered to 29 experimental students to identify how different frequency and consciousness of pre-reading strategy use of the students in the experimental group in comparison with those before the treatment was In addition, the study investigated whether the pre-reading strategies could help students improve their reading skill via their reading scores they got in the mid-term and final test

The results of data analysis showed that (1) fewer students in the experimental group before the treatment used pre-reading strategies than the experimental group after the treatment; (2) pre-reading strategy instruction affected

1V

positively on students’ consciousness in pre-reading strategy use and reading learning; and (3) pre-reading strategy use improved students’ reading comprehension This study also recommends that pre-reading strategies need to be taught explicitly to HVHS students.

0/110/1/201191060.40)))0 090/9) 0777.7.54 1 I0; 290190) )000) 0 l 1.2 THE AIM OF THE STUDY 1 2 IEN (6) 2.1.40:0600 5.0951 5S 3

IR X)(€)00319.9)9589)0305i26.11609À 1 3 I0) 06V.V019))S59)/0yi56.700)09)0111 4

1.6.1 Aims and objectives of Tieng Anh 10 ooo ccc cceessecceessecesneesesseseesseseeseeens 5

1.7 TEACHING STAFF AND LEARNERS Ăn HH He, 7

W9 32c b0 § 1.8 CURRENT READING TEACHING AND LEARNING AT HVHS §

vi

2.1.1 Reading sftaỹ€S cành HH0 tre 12

2.1.2.2.1 Readers” personal characteriSfICS . - 18

2.2LEARNINNG STRATEGIES AND READING ŠTRATEGIES - 21

2.2.2 Kinds Of straf€ØÏ€S cà Sàn HH HH HH HH H01 00111 1g 21 2.2.3 Roles of strategies — 24

2.2.4.1 Definitions of reading s†raf€B1©S che 25

2.2.4.3 Three- stage reading s†rat€B1€S Ặccnnhnhnhhhhrhierrrere 26

2.2.5 The effects of pre-reading straf€eg1es +s cnnhnthnhrhhhhhhhHhg 30 2.2.5.1 Passive readers become actIV€ r€ad€TS - -cS-S+trseeerreree 30 2.2.5.2 Increasing the input, motivation and improving comprehension 30 2.2.6 Framework for learning/reading sfrafegy training -‹-<cc+nree 31

"Ñ VU 0P 32

"1.8 ii h — 33

2.3 PREVIOUS 06.10909))5.11177 35

"100,0: 38

Chapter 3: METHODOLUOC Y , - s51 ng HH 0000388080801 08000 00 n1 39 CN t7) 2.2)(05069)02.1009) 51 39

3.2 RESEARCH DE.SIGN -.- - - { cƑ SSnSỲnn ng Họ nh ni kh km nh me vụ 40 cm) 1 40

KV N24 0n 41

3.2.2.1 Time and seffIng + nh t* ng 021 ng tt HH hiện 4I 3.2.2.2 Application of pre-reading strategy 1nsfrucfion ‹-: 4]

3.2.3 Instruments for data col[€CtIO cà HH HH HH ng tk 45 3.2.3.1 Quesflonnair€S - 1n ng HH HH ng ke 45 3.2.3.1.1 The Íirst questionnaIf€ - - SH 46 3.2.3.1.2 The second questionnair€ .- - nen 46 3.2.3.2 Mid-term and final f€SS - Ăn SH HH kg rưkt 47 3.2.4 Data collecflon prOC€dUT€S -. S1 0n ngư rưện 49 3.2.4.1 Questionnaire and test adminisfrafiOn Ặc2ĂĂscsssssesesee 49 3.2.4.2 Data analysis methodOÌOBY uc ng ng net 50 Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS Series 51 4.1 STUDENTS? RESPONSES TO THE FIRST QUESTIONNAIRE 51

“NH9 e 51

4.1.2 Students’ current practice in pre-reading strategy USC ccceeeeeseeeeetteenes 52 4.1.3 Students’ awareness of pre-reading strategy use and learning reading 54

4.1.3.1 Students’ awareness of pre-reading strategy us€ .- 54

4.1.3.2 Students’ awareness of learning reading - -ccseneieierre 55 4.2 STUDENTS? RESPONSES TO THE SECOND QUESTIONNAIRE 60

Vili

4.2.1 Experimental students’ practice in pre-reading strategy us€ - 60 4.2.2 Experimental students’ awareness of learning reading and strategy use 63 4.2.2.1 Experimental students’ awareness of pre-reading strategy use 63

APPENDIX 6: The Íinnal test ad 100 APPENDIX 7: The mid-term and final test scores of Class 10H . 108 APPENDIX 8: The mid-term and final test scores of Class I0L 109

LIST OF TABLES

Page Table 2.1: Learning strategy definition and classification + +<+scss«2 22

Table 3.1: The students” results of English In the first setme€Sf€T . - 4]

Table 3.2: Activities designed for the eXp€rirm€ñ( .- - -cs+-*+*+stseersererreees 42 Table 4.1: Students’ gender and ag€ .- 5 2+ Hy ty hệt 52 Table 4.2: Students’ English studying background - - s5 +- + ceserseeeeererres 52 Table 4.3: Students’ frequency of pre-reading strat€gy use -« sex 53 Table 4.4: Students’ awareness of the importance of pre-reading strategy use 55

Table 4.5: Students’ consciousness of learning reading .- . -+e+2 57 Table 4.6: Students” frequency ofreading Íor SfUdy -Ssssenseereeerrrrre 57 Table 4.7: Students’ self-assessment of English reading abIlIty - 59

Table 4.8: Experimental students’ frequency of pre-reading strategy uSE 61

Table 4.9: Experimental students’ awareness of pre-reading strategy USE 63

Table 4.10: Experimental students” awareness of learning reading - 65

Table 4.11: Students’ results of the mid-term and final tests in reading 70

LIST OF FIGURES

Page Figure 4.1: Students’ perception of the importance of reading in learning a foreign

ni 56

Figure 4.2: Students" comments on English reading cÏasses - - 58

Figure 4.3: Experimental students” frequency ofreading for study - 66

Figure 4.4: Experimental students” commenís on English reading classes 67

Figure 4.5: Experimental students’ self-assessment of English reading ability 68

English as a Second Language Experimental group

Foreign Language General Educational Development Hung Vuong High School

Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry Learning Strategies

Language Learning Strategies First/Second Language

Strategy-based instruction Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Vietnamese Australian Educational Alliance Program Class 10 majoring in chemistry

Class 10 majoring in physics

xii

Chapter 1; INTRODUCTION

| Reading is considered one of the four important skills a language learner must master in order to ease their process of language acquisition since a large amount of information is in the written form Therefore, in learning English as a L2 or FL, reading is always considered a necessary skill to master, which includes the appropriate use of reading strategies based on particular purposes

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of pre-reading strategy instruction on reading skill of Hung Vuong High School (HVHS) students in Binh Duong Province The study examines the students’ frequency of pre-reading strategy use as well as the influence of pre-reading strategy instruction on students’ consciousness of strategy use and on students’ reading comprehension ability This introduction provides the background and presents the problem the thesis attempts

to solve, the aims of the study, its significance as well as the limitation and an overview of the thesis

1.1 THE PROBLEM

As can be seen, reading skill is paid much attention to in the English textbooks, and many English examinations at high schools and the national graduation examinations that high school students have to take focus much on reading comprehension

Being a teacher at HVHS for five years, the researcher, as well as most of English teachers here, is still dissatisfied with her students’ progress in study, especially in reading comprehension Students at HVHS do not read very well and many students here are often passive readers Many students at HVHS said to the researcher that they were bored in reading classes because some passages had many

new and difficult words In reality, the new national textbook has added some stress

to students at HVHS The current curriculum is rather heavy for them in terms of linguistic knowledge while the allotted time for every unit is limited In classes of reading comprehension, what they do is just writing vocabularies into their notebooks and trying to answer the questions that the teacher gives or reads from the textbook This process shows that students seem to be not only passive but also dependent on their teachers This happens, perhaps, due to students’ inability to use appropriate strategies when attacking the text from different angles Oxford (1990) described that learning strategies are specific actions taken by the learners to make

learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more

transferable to new situations Many studies have been carried out and proved the relationship between strategies and reading skill development Pang, Muaka, Bernard and Kamil (2006, p.6) believe that “readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with the text, and other strategies to help them understand written text.”

The discussion above underlines the importance of the reading strategies

Therefore, to be successful in reading classes, and to become autonomous, good and

efficient readers during their three years at high school, students need to be taught how to utilize appropriate reading strategies that may help them enhance their reading in and outside classroom The researcher carries out this thesis to investigate the impact of pre-reading strategy instruction on reading comprehension

of HVHS students

1.2 THE AIM OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this study are: (1) to investigate HVHS students’ frequency

of pre-reading strategy use (2) to investigate the effects of pre-reading strategy

instruction on reading skill of HVHS students, and (3) to offer suggestions for strategy instruction in teaching process to develop HVHS students’ reading skill 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To serve the above-mentioned purposes of the study, the study will be focused

on answering the research question:

What is the impact of pre-reading strategy instruction on reading skill of

HVHS students?

This main question entails three sub-questions:

1 How often do the tenth graders at HVHS use pre-reading strategies?

2 How does pre-reading strategy instruction influence the students’ perception of reading comprehension learning and strategy use?

3 How does pre-reading strategy use affect the students’ reading comprehension ability?

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Reading comprehension and grammatical structures are laid much emphasis on

in the English tests and examinations at high schools in Vietnam in general and in Binh Duong Province in particular Due to the limited time, teachers at several high schools in Binh Duong Province sometimes focus on students’ linguistic knowledge rather than train students appropriate strategies, especially pre-reading strategies although this training makes students’ reading process easier, more enjoyable, more

self-directed and more effective as well as make them become active, autonomous and effective readers in and outside the classroom They, thus, sometimes

undervalue students’ prior knowledge activating strategy as well as students’

guessing, predicting and previewing abilities, which limits students’ motivation, creation and thinking ability Therefore, this study is carried out to raise the awareness of pre-reading strategy use among HVHS students and encourage pre- reading strategy teaching at HVHS to help students read the texts better and become effective readers in the future

1.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Aiming to have a valid study, the researcher tried to carry out the research in such a way to get the best findings and results However, some limitations need to

be considered:

First of all, the study is confined to high school students in Grade 10 at HVHS

in Binh Duong, not Grade 11 and 12 Students of Grade 10, the participants in the study, who are accustomed to learning reading in the traditional method at junior high schools, do not have any knowledge of reading strategies Therefore, it is necessary to instruct the tenth graders how to use appropriate reading strategies based on particular purposes right at the beginning of the first year at high school to help them form their awareness of reading strategy use to improve their reading comprehension during their three years at high school Secondly, the study focuses only on the pre-reading strategies Reading is a long and complex process with many strategies involved However, pre-reading phase is an important stage to motivate students and help students form a purpose in mind to plan appropriate strategies to deal with that purpose Therefore, pre-reading phase plays an essential role for the success of the reading task The results receiving from this phase is considered to reflect nearly the whole reading process Thirdly, the investigation was undertaken within the second semester of the school year 2009-2010 not during the whole school year as the whole school year’ survey is beyond the researcher’s capacity due to the lack of time Finally, the students who use Tieng Anh 10 are

2007 There are two kinds of Tieng Anh 10 One is for the basic program, Tieng Anh 10 (English 10 — Basic) reserved for students who major in natural sciences and those who study the basic program The other is for the advanced program, Tieng Anh 10 — Nang Cao (English 10- Advanced) reserved for students who major

in social sciences and English is one of their main subjects The topics in these two kinds of textbooks are rather similar but the language knowledge requirements in the advanced program are much higher than those in the other one Each kind of textbooks consists of 16 units whose contents compiled on special themes, and 6 Test yourself sections The textbook Tieng Anh 10 is more widely used in the researcher’s school than Tieng Anh 10 — Nang Cao because Hung Vuong high school students who major in natural sciences are more than those who major in

45 minutes, three tests of 15 minutes and one oral test of daily tests in each term and the final examination at the end of the semester The tests of 45 minutes are self- made by each teacher in each grade and are given according to the same format with the emphasis on vocabulary, reading and grammar In each test, 80% covers

multiple choice items, consisting of 20%-30% about reading with two reading passages, 20% about Pronunciation and Stress, 30%-40% about vocabulary and grammar and the last 20% is re-writing The test of each term in Grade 10 is self- made by each teacher and then are handed to the group leader of English group so that she makes a complete test for all students in Grade 10 As can be seen, the scores of reading comprehension and of vocabulary and grammar are focused much more than those of other parts in the examinations

1.7, TEACHING STAFF AND LEARNERS

1.7.1 Characteristics of the teaching staff

In Binh Duong province, Hung Vuong High School, built in 1996, is a school famous for training good students There are 27 classes of Grade 10, 11, and 12 with 756 students, majoring in subjects such as math (two classes in each grade), physics, chemistry, biology, literature, English, history and geography In these classes, the number of students is from 20 to 32 There are 80 teachers here, eleven

of whom are Vietnamese teachers of English, including two male teachers and nine female teachers (counting in the researcher of the study), aged from 27 to 52 Three teachers out of eleven held the Master degrees One held post-graduate degree from University of Social Science and Humanities Four teachers have been taking Master of Arts course in University of Social Science and Humanities, Open University and University of Canberra The other three took Bachelor of Arts from in-service University of Pedagogy The majority of the teachers have had the teaching experience from 5 to 30 years and 6 out of them have got the merits entitled “the provincial good teachers in teaching” The teachers here, in general, are motivated and always want to improve their teaching profession, ready to apply the useful new ways of teaching English, especially teaching reading skill However, the allotted time for every unit in Tieng Anh textbooks is limited, so there

are some teachers still preferring the traditional method in teaching Certainly, this

situation has made some impact on the understanding and the motivation to learn of students

1.7.2 Characteristics of learners

Students at HVHS range from 15 to 18 They are very active, hard-working and aware of the importance of good education Entering Grade 10 of HVHS, these students must be rather good ones who got the final results of all subjects in Grade 9 from 7.0 or more, and the results of the subject they choose to major in are from 7.0

or more for social science subjects and 8.0 or more for natural science subjects Furthermore, they had to pass the entrance exam with the standard score given by the Binh Duong Education and Training Service according to the subject they choose to major in Most of these students have studied English since primary schools However, they have had problems with reading because they might not know how to use appropriate reading strategies Moreover, Tieng Anh 10 is rather heavy for them in terms of linguistic-knowledge because some passages have a lot

of new and difficult words while the allotted time for every unit is limited

1.8 CURRENT READING TEACHING AND LEARNING AT HVHS

Being five-year experienced in teaching reading to students of Grade 10 at HVHS, the researcher, as well as most teachers here, has recognized that the students might not really know how to use appropriate strategies to do the reading tasks and might not spend much time on studying reading They only try to answer the questions

in the tasks that the teachers read from the textbook In addition, some of them can give correct answers but they do not really understand the content of the passage because they look at answer keys in their guidebooks Hence, they really get a lot of troubles in practicing this skill and find reading comprehension too difficult to improve

Because the lessons are usually long, with the limited time, at the beginning of the reading lessons, teachers at HVHS spend a little time teaching pre-reading activities Teachers only ask some questions to lead in the new lesson, and then provide students with some language preparation for the text This does not give students any chance to activate their background knowledge of the related content Moreover, many students show negative attitudes towards learning English though

it is one of the basic and compulsory subjects The tendency to choose the major subjects for the entrance examination into the universities makes students lose their interest in studying English Thus, students have a habit of starting reading without thinking about the subject Students do not care much of the assistance to activate what they already know about the topic they are going to read Students do not have any arrangements or plans for their reading learning Students just get the information on the topic from their teacher passively This hinders students’ prediction and setting purpose for reading Predicting and previewing seem to be strange to students in this reading stage Although predicting what is coming will help students become better and more engaged readers, they rarely take advantage

of the title, headings or pictures to predict the content or sequence of information of

the text

Then, students read the passage silently in five minutes, and then work in pairs

or in groups to match, fill in the blank, decide true — false statements, do multiple-

choice tasks or answer the questions from the textbook In this stage, some teachers

only check students’ reading comprehension through the tasks in the textbook due

to the limited time Therefore, some students can do the tasks in the textbook

exactly and quickly but they do not comprehend the content of the passage at all because they look at the answer key in their guidebooks This can hinder students from understanding the concept of reading strategies as well as identifying successful strategies for reading texts in the second language As a result, students are not aware of forming and using good reading strategies, concretely top-down

and bottom up strategies, guessing, skimming and scanning, etc Thus, they often have difficulty and get bad marks at reading comprehension in their tests and in

their examinations

At the end of the lessons, students are encouraged to present their understanding of what they have read Students are often asked to do the gap-filling, discuss questions, reproduce the text or write a summary

1.9 ANOVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

The study comprises five chapters in sequence as follows:

Chapter 1 introduces the study consisting of the problem, the background of the study, the aim and the significance of the study, along with the limitations Chapter 2 presents a review of the literature and research relevant to the study It will examine the theoretical and practical information in discussion of reading comprehension, the kinds and importance of pre-reading activities and pre-reading strategies and the effects of those strategies on reading comprehension

Chapter 3 describes the methodology that has been employed in this study It also includes a presentation of the research questions and the research design with the subjects, the instruments, and data collection procedures Chapter 4 presents the data and findings through the responses from the two sets of questionnaires and the results from two tests as well as conclusion Chapter 5 provides recommendations for teaching and learning reading skill It also shows suggestions for further

research

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In Chapter 1, the background to the study has been supplied In this chapter, the literature relevant to the research is reviewed into three sections: (1) reading comprehension, (2) language learning and reading strategies and (3) the related studies The first section reveals the understanding of reading comprehension as well as its stages, and factors affecting reading comprehension The second section presents definitions of language learning/reading strategies, kinds of language learning/reading, roles of strategies, effects of pre-reading strategies as well as the framework for strategy training in language teaching The last section mentions previous studies that have examined the influence of strategy use upon acquiring reading comprehension

2.1 READING COMPREHENSION

Reading comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language (Anderson & Pearson, 1988; National Reading Panel, 2000)

Grellet (1981) identifies that understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible He considers reading to be an active skill that constantly involves guessing, predicting, checking and asking oneself questions Carter and Long (1995) also realize that reading is probably not a

passive process but it involves readers in sharing the world the writer has created;

relating the experience of the text to experiences the readers have undergone or can imagine themselves undergoing; and interpreting what the text means

11

2.1.1 Reading stages

According to Bernhardt (1991), reading consists of three stages: pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading Although each of these stages has its own characteristics, they are related to one another That is, the pre-reading stage leads

to the while-reading stage and finally to the post-reading one

2.1.1.1 Pre-reading

The pre-reading stage can be considered a preparatory one which (1) draws students’ interest in the topic and arouses their curiosity about the subject, message, characters and actions in the text (Greenwood, 1989) to motivate them to predict the

contents of the text, (2) establishes the purpose for reading, (3) activates students’

prior knowledge of a topic before reading, (4) prepares students for the context of reading text, and (5) creates students’ positive attitude towards the texts to help them build confidence and create security within them before reading a text Kamil and Pearson (2000) called pre-reading activities enabling activities because they provide a reader with necessary background to organize activity and to comprehend the material They say that pre-reading stage elicits prior knowledge, builds background, and focuses attention The teacher, therefore, plays an essential role in carrying the pre-reading tasks during pre-reading stage to help students activate their existing knowledge and encourage students to predict the contents of the text

as well as to show their personal opinions and attitudes to the text Without the pre- reading stage, while-reading stage might be more difficult and progressively less enjoyable Pre-reading tasks may consist of the followings:

The first tasks are those which help arouse students’ interest in the topic and motivate students to read According to Chastain (1988), when students are motivated—prepared for the reading activity-they complete the activity better and

are eager to participate in the activity since they have gained confidence This can

be achieved through describing pictures, generating words that have relation with the topic, playing games, etc These kinds of activities enable students to familiarize themselves with the topic of reading text In addition, they help students to create expectations and arouse their interest in the subject matter of the written text

The second task that is essential in pre-reading stage is to set the context or the situation of the text In real life, students do not normally read because they have to but because they want to Thus, it is important to give students some reasons for reading and some information so that students can form the purpose for their reading before they actually read Once students know the context, they can predict the possible content by such techniques as brainstorming, and discussing about titles, headings, photographs and illustrations, etc

The next task considered one important thing in this stage is to activate background knowledge and make the connection; i.e., to build a bridge between the reading passage and students’ background and interest Many researchers have emphasized the importance of activating readers’ prior knowledge before they read the text (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Ur, 1996) They stated that activating background knowledge is a means of incorporating students’ knowledge of the world, their ideas and opinions before they read the text and at the same time, they generate vocabulary on the related topics, which further assists in their vocabulary development as well as facilitates reading process Therefore, if the teacher goes straight into reading the text, students will have no time to transfer or activate their knowledge in the second language

Another task is to provide students with appropriate scaffolds by clarifying the meaning of difficult words; and/or some syntactic explanation to help students understand complex structures in the text so that they can make links between what

13

is already known and new information presented in a text This will build students’ confidence for achieving reading comprehension Saricoban (2002) notes that language preparation does not mean that teachers should explain every possible word and every structure in the text, but that they should ensure that their students will be able to tackle the text without being very frustrated with language difficulties

2.1.1.2 While-reading

If pre-reading stage gives vital and initial foundation ¡in reading comprehension, while-reading one will mainly aim at developing students’ ability

in interpreting and constructing the meaning of the text

At this stage, while-reading tasks are supposed to focus on helping students develop the techniques of scanning and skimming to find out specific and general information respectively, their linguistic knowledge and their own inferring and judging abilities (Saricoban, 2002) The students have to “guess meaning from the context by recognizing synonyms and antonyms” (Cunningsworth, 1995, p 79), using morphological information or syntactic information Furthermore, students have to recognize structure and organization by identifying main ideas, separating main ideas and detail, outlining the text, categorizing ideas from general to specific

or ordering events according to time and importance During this stage of the reading process, students should have the opportunity to confirm predictions, gather and organize information to begin making generalizations about new understanding gained from the text

2.1.1.3 Post-reading

Post-reading stage focuses on further consolidating reading comprehension (Ur, 1996; Saricoban, 2002) and on checking the students’ comprehension and retention of the information of a text that they have already tackled

The aim of the post-reading activities is to provide a greater number of activities that help students reflect upon what they have read as well as a greater

variety of creative tasks that enable students to relate their experience, views, and

knowledge to the texts A variety of activities can be integrated with other skills in integration of reading with listening, speaking and writing so that students relate their creativity and imagination to the texts Barnett (1989) has proposed different activities which contribute to the integration of reading with the other language

skills, and which are similar to “real” activities performed by readers, such as

summarizing, describing or providing information, as well as discussion, and writing compositions, new versions, etc Moreover, it is very important to have students share and discuss different ideas related to the reading text

To sum up, reading is a process consisting of three stages: pre-, while-, and post-reading which contain the own aims for each Pre-reading aims at stimulating students’ interest, building confidence, and facilitating their comprehension While- reading aims to interpret and reconstruct the text meaning and post-reading focuses

on consolidating, reflecting, and reconstructing understanding As mentioned above, pre-reading is regarded as an important and necessary stage that has contributed greatly to the success of reading comprehension The aims and the activities of this stage are to help students comprehend the text better Thanks to the effects of pre-

reading activities, students’ interest will be motivated, and at the same time,

students will feel more safe and confident because of knowing about the purpose of the text in mind in advance as well as being activated by their background

15

knowledge In this way, students become active participants and focus their curiosity and attention on reading, which facilitates reading comprehension The current study, therefore, mainly concentrates doing research on the effects of pre- reading strategy instruction on students’ reading comprehension

2.1.2 Factors affecting learners’ reading comprehension

Many recent researchers state that many of the variables affect the second language reading process (Alderson, 2000; Sadeghi, 2007) Among these variables, two main factors influence reading comprehension: internal and external External factors refer to text variable, context variable, and writer variable Internal factors, called reader variables here, refer to characteristics of readers

2.1.2.1 External factors

2.1.2.1.1 Text variables

Nuttall (1982, p 15) believes that text is “the core of the reading process” Therefore, text is considered one of the factors affecting reading comprehension Firstly, according to Welrich (1998, cited in Alderson, 2000, p 127), he distinguishes five text types: descriptive, narrative, expository, argumentative, and instructive known to have an influence on readers’ performance Different types of text are expected to have different rhetorical structures which affect a reader’ comprehension (Brown, 2000; Carrell, 1984) Secondly, text characteristics in affecting comprehension include lexical density, syntactic complexity, and semantic abstractness The influence of new information and lexical density as well as passage length on reading comprehension has been emphasized by Johnston (1983) and Alderson (2000) Finally, text topic; genre; organization of information, vocabulary, grammar and coherence and cohesion have also been recognized as

factors affecting reading comprehension (Alderson, 2000) Getting clearly the features of text can help students to concentrate their knowledge on the field they are going to read as well as the right strategy use

2.1.2.1.2 Context variable

Context refers to something beyond the text itself Generally, context variable refers to all reader-, writer-, and text-external factors, such as environmental and situational elements, and the larger socio-economic context As Walberg et al (1981) rightly emphasize comprehension may not be blocked due to the absence of linguistic or background knowledge but due to environmental distractions Another contextual factor is the social setting in which the act of reading takes place Reading does not take place in a vacuum (Alderson, 2000) and the situation in which it occurs may have an impact on how it is comprehended

2.1.2.1.3 Writer variable

Undoubtedly, the essence of a text owes much to its producer, i.e., the writer Taylor (1985) argues that there is an active co-operation between the reader and the writer in which the reader tries to get the meaning out of the text by bringing meaning to the written material While reading a text, the readers intuitively construct a picture of who the writer had in mind; and the more the readers are familiar with the writer’s style and purposes, the more successful they will be in getting their message, which in turn leads to a successful communication between the two However, the writer’s assumptions about the reader will not always come true, and because no two people may have exactly the same background knowledge,

“there is always a mismatch of some kind between the writer’s and the reader’s background and expectations” (Nuttall, 1982, p 7) Therefore, the degree of reading

comprehension depends on the “active collaboration between writer and reader” (Taylor, 1985, p 5)

2.1.2.2 Internal factors / Reader variables

Characteristics of readers (internal factors) are considered the most important factors affecting reading comprehension Those factors are readers’ personal characteristics, readers’ reading process and readers’ cognitive abilities during reading comprehension process

2.1.2.2 1 Readers’ personal characteristics

Readers’ personal characteristics consist of their affective state, their background knowledge and vocabulary knowledge Firstly, the affective state refers, on the one hand, to readers’ purposes, perspectives, motivation, emotional mood, etc., prior to reading On the other hand, it refers to the affective responses brought about by the text while reading Garner (1987) and Alderson (2000) have documented the influence of one’s goals, views, and emotional states on reading comprehension

Secondly, according to Anderson and Freebody (1981, p 84), “background knowledge is crucial for reading comprehension.” As Carrell (1988, p 245) points out that “students’ apparent reading problems may be problems of insufficient background knowledge consisting of content, and formal schema” Carrell and Eisterhold (1983) defined content schema as a reader's background or world knowledge of the topic such as knowledge about people, the world, culture, and the universe, and formal schema as the background knowledge of organizational forms and rhetorical structures of written texts Content and formal knowledge may help the readers predict the organization and purpose of a text (Carrell & Eisterhold,

1983) This means that when content and form are familiar, the readers are able to

comprehend and memorize a text better; in contrast, unfamiliar content and form

can cause trouble for the readers and affect reading speed and effectiveness

Finally, many researchers state that vocabulary knowledge is crucial to reading comprehension (Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Johnston, 1983; Hedge, 2000) Hedge (2000) states that vocabulary is a component of reading ability with which language

learners often have trouble Coleman (1971, cited in Anderson & Freebody, 1981, p

80) reports that lexical complexity of texts account for 80% of the variance in reading comprehension, implying that the higher one’s degree of lexical knowledge

is, the higher the degree of comprehension is

2.1.2.2.2 Readers’ reading process

To recreate the writer’s message, the application of a number of reading comprehension models seems to be essential for any reader

The types of processing in which the readers engage directly affect reading comprehension They include top-down, bottom-up or an effective combination of both called interactive process Bottom-up or data driven processing refers to a process where the readers recognize and analyze perceived linguistic information like words, phrases and sentences passively and understand what a text means piece

by piece with little interference of background knowledge In other words, bottom-

up processing mainly stresses on literal comprehension and surface meaning Top- down or conceptually driven processing, on the other hand, is a process in which the readers use some strategies such as skimming, scanning, activating background knowledge, predicting, thinking of the author’s main idea, finding clues, contextual guessing, and associating images to facilitate and enhance reading comprehension

However, Ur (1996), Celce- Murcia and Olshtain (2000) and Saricoban (2002)

19

found that good readers use a combination of bottom-up and top-down strategies Selecting top-down strategies (reader based) and bottom-up strategies (text based) appropriately can improve students’ comprehension

2.1.2.2.3 Reader’s cognitive abilities

Another internal factor that influences reading comprehension is one’s cognitive abilities The reader’s cognitive abilities to link all sources of information

to one another in order to construct the writer’s intended meaning have been recognized by Trabasso (1981), and Rumelhart (1984) Rumelhart (1984, p 19) compares reading comprehension to “a detective act” where the readers have to use their cognitive abilities to connect all the relevant information in the situation to solve the problem This implies that the readers’ degree of comprehension is not only affected by their background, cultural, and language knowledge but also by their cognitive abilities

To sum up, in order to achieve comprehension, learners have to activate their background knowledge and cognitive abilities as greatly as possible There are three stages in reading process but in this thesis, the focused one is pre-reading phase Reader variables, the text variable, the context variable, and writer variable are the main factors affecting reading comprehension Among these factors, the factor that the readers use reading strategies and techniques to overcome the problems in reading process may be seen to be the most important one The right strategy use makes the reader get the features of texts and focus their knowledge on the field they are going to read In addition, the strategies facilitate the readers’

| comprehension because they help the readers overcome the problems the readers encounter in reading process Thus, it is important and necessary that the readers have awareness and an instruction of effective reading comprehension strategies which will be clearly mentioned and explained in the section below

2.2.LEARNING STRATEGIES AND READING STRATEGIES

Although the study focuses on reading strategies only, a terminology of reading strategies will be discussed with reference to learning strategies because reading strategies is a part in learning strategies

2.2.1 Definitions of learning strategies

O’Malley and Chamot (1990, p.1) stated that learning strategy (LS) as

“techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning, recall of both linguistic and content area information.” Oxford (1992/

1993, p.18) added behaviors by defining language learning strategies (LLS) as

“specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques that students use to improve their progress in developing L2 skills These strategies can facilitate the internalization, storage, retrieval, or use of the new language Strategies are tools for the self- directed involvement necessary for developing communicative ability.”

In short, LS, although it has been defined in a number of different ways, there are some overlaps Strategies can, in general terms, best be defined as tools a learner uses consciously to solve problems in language learning, and in this context, reading process

2.2.2 Kinds of strategies

LLS have been classified by many scholars (Rubin 1987; Oxford 1990; O° _ Malley & Chamot (1990); Stern 1992) Rubin (1987) classified language learning strategies as learning strategies, communication strategies and social strategies Oxford (1990) divides language learning strategies into two major classes: direct and indirect The former consists of memory, cognitive and compensation

21

strategies “that directly involve the target language” (Oxford, 1990, p.37) while the latter includes metacognitive, affective and social strategies “that do not directly involve the target language itself, but are useful in all language learning because they support and manage language learning” (Oxford, 1990, p.135) According to Stern (1992), there are five main language learning strategies These are management and planning strategies, cognitive strategies, communicative- experiential strategies, interpersonal strategies and affective strategies

Perhaps, the most comprehensive classification of learning strategies to date is O’ Malley and Chamot (1990)’s In O’ Malley and Chamot (1990)’s framework, three major types of strategies named as metacognitive strategies, cognitive and social/ affective strategies are distinguished in accordance with the information processing model The subtypes of these strategies were identifies by O’ Malley

and Chamot (1990, p.119) on the basis of their descriptive studies on learning

strategies used by second language learners (see Table 2.1)

Evaluation

after it has been completed

up rules based on language analysis

Using visual images (either mental or actual) to understand or imagery

remember new information

Auditory representation Planning back in one’s mind the sound of a word, phrase or longer

language sequence

Key word method

Remember a new word in the second language by: (1) identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word, and (2) generating easily recalled images of some relationship with the first language homonym and the new word in the second language

Elaboration new information to each other, or making meaningful personal

associations with the new information

Transfer Using previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills to assist

comprehension or production

; Using available information to guess meaning of new items, predict

outcomes or fill in missing information

; Writing down key words or concepts in abbreviated verbal, graphic or

numerical form while listening or reading

Making a mental, oral or written summary of new information gained Summarizing through listening or reading

23

Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language sequence by

Working together with one or more peers to solve a problem, pool

Cooperation information, check a learning task, model a language activity, or get

feedback on oral or written performance

Oxford (1990, p.1) concludes that strategies are important for two reasons In the first place, strategies “are tools for active, self-directed involvement, which

is essential for developing communicative competence.” Secondly, learners who have developed appropriate learning strategies have greater self-confidence and learn more effectively

2.2.4 Reading strategies

2.2.4.1 Definitions of reading strategies

Barnett (1989, p 66) defines reading strategies as “mental! operations readers purposefully approach a text to make sense of what they read.” Put simply and meaningfully, Duffy (1993, p 232) calls reading strategies “plans for solving problems encountered in construction meaning.” Reading strategies indicate how readers conceive a task, what textual cues they attend to, how they make sense of what they read, and what they do when they do not understand (Block, 1986)

2.2.4.2 Kinds of reading strategies

As mentioned above, reading strategies are presented with reference and as a part LLS in the study Therefore, in order to carry out the study more easily, basing

on the classification of learning strategies of O’Malley and Chamot (1990) as well

as the overlap of researchers’ classifications of learning strategies, the researcher of this study investigates reading strategies divided into three categories: metacognitive, cognitive, and social/affective strategies Further identification for each category of O’Malley and Chamot’s is presented in Table 2.2 below

Reading strategies and their functions

reading; plan, monitor, evaluate aspects of learning

emotion state when interacting with others and his/ her feelings and

Table 2.2: Reading strategies and their functions

25

Metacognitive strategies are strategies that readers use to plan, monitor, and evaluate their reading Students plan by deciding their purposes for reading and which reading strategies appropriate to comprehend the text effectively, monitor consciously their reading comprehension, and evaluate how well the overall objectives have been fulfilled and the effectiveness of the strategies used in reading

process

Cognitive strategies are strategies that readers use to manipulate or transform the material to be learned or to apply appropriate skills to aid them in constructing meaning from the text such as: skimming, scanning, guessing, inferring, etc Cognitive strategies are seen as mental processes directly concerned with the processing of information in the reading text while metacognitive and social/ affective strategies influence indirectly

Social-affective strategies are the ways that readers select to interact and cooperate with others, to manage their emotions when interacting with others and to manipulate their feeling, interest and anxiety while reading

2.2.4.3 Three-stage reading strategies

Varaprasad (1997, cited in Saricoban, 2002) and Qian (2005) suggest that teaching reading cover three stages of reading: pre-reading, while-reading, and post- reading and that each reading stage have its kinds of strategies including: pre-, while-, and post- reading strategies

2.2.4.3 1 Pre-reading strategies

Pre-reading is a stage the readers prepare before reading to facilitate comprehension in reading process, so the strategies used at this stage are claimed to

influence indirectly on reading process, as metagconitive and social/affective strategies Researchers have investigated different pre-reading strategies that L2 and

FL learners use when reading as follows:

Being interested and motivated before reading (Baldwin et al., 1985; Chastain, 1988; Baker & Wigfield, 1999) is numbered Strategy 1 in the current study When students are interested in the topic and are motivated, which encourages students to read, they will become active and willing to share prior knowledge on reading comprehension

Setting purposes for reading (Oxford, 1990; Nunan, 1999; Celce- Murcia & Olshtain, 2000) is numbered Strategy 2 Once students have set their purposes for reading, they will determine which specific knowledge, skills as well as strategies they need to achieve comprehension Celce- Murcia and Olshtain (2000, p.123) state, “the reason or purpose for reading the text will guide readers in the intensity with which they want to read the text and in the selection of appropriate reading strategies.” In addition, Oxford (1990) notes that knowing the purpose for reading a text is important because it enables learners to focus their energy in the right direction

Activating existing topic and linguistic knowledge (Anderson, 1999; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Urquhart & Weir, 1998) is numbered Strategy 3 The background

or prior knowledge that students bring to the reading process may be the most important factor affecting how well they comprehend It is, therefore, important and necessary for students to be able to relate what they have already known to the content of the text through discussion of titles, subheadings, photographs, identifying text structure, etc Once students’ prior knowledge of the topic of the text activated by the students, students will be able to predict what they are going

to read and connect it to what they already know, which facilitates reading

27

comprehension Not only is it important for the reader to have the background knowledge to read more efficiently, but that knowledge also needs to be activated Activating readers’ prior knowledge of a topic before they begin to read may help

students’ comprehension (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Ur, 1996; Williams, 1987)

Previewing before reading (Taglieber et al., 1988; Nunan, 1999; Chia, 2001) is

numbered Strategy 4 Nunan (1999) stated that previewing means that conducting a quick survey of the text to identify the topic, the main idea, and the organization of the text When students look ahead to see what the text is about as well as how it is organized through titles, subheadings, photographs, illustrations, opening and ending paragraph, etc., they will get an overview of the material they are about to read as well as establish general awareness about the contents of reading text, which helps students focus on the key information and adjust an appropriate personal framework to facilitate their understanding of the reading text as well as to save the amount of time from reading something of no value

Predicting what is going to read (Grellet, 1981; Urquhart & Weir, 1998; Nunan, 1999; Ur, 1999) is coded Strategy 5 Predicting is a strategy which readers use knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension, use structure, and use knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary and content Readers may ask themselves questions by using their background knowledge or experiences

in order to guess what the text is about (Urquhart & Weir, 1998), which facilitates reading process This strategy helps students focus interest and establish a purpose for reading Even if some of students’ predictions are incorrect, this strategy will help students keep their interests and focuses and expand understanding

The researcher of this thesis mainly focuses on investigating five main pre- reading strategies named Strategy | (S1), social/ affective strategy, Strategy 2, 3,4

and 5 (S2, 83, S4 and S5), metagconitive strategies, with the hope of helping students get awareness of some strategic ways in pre-reading stage and use them to facilitate their reading comprehension

2.2.4.3 2 While-reading strategies

In while-reading stage, students work directly with reading text, and the strategies used here are mostly cognitive strategies According to Ur (1996), Vaezi (2001), and Fitzgerald (1995), while-reading strategies are seen as skimming, scanning, making prediction, making inferences, integrating prior knowledge, skipping insignificant parts, making use of context to guess the meaning of unknown words, breaking words into their affixes or bases to guess the meaning of

a word more easily, reading in chunks, paraphrasing, and monitoring

or a reading text

In sum, each of three reading stages has its kinds of strategies Choosing and applying appropriate strategies helps readers comprehend more effectively In this study, pre-reading strategies are focused on determining its effects The effects of pre-strategy use on reading will be presented in the following section

29

2.2.5 The effects of pre-reading strategies

Pre-reading strategy use has good effects on changing the role of students from passive readers to active participants, on increasing the input and students’ motivation and on improving their reading comprehension

2.2.5.1 Passive readers become active readers

With being interested and motivated strategy use, students will become active and willing to spend more time engaging in reading assignments because when students find reading interesting, they will be highly motivated to read When they are motivated, they complete the tasks better and are eager to participate in the tasks since they have gained confidence Moreover, “Setting purposes for reading” makes students feel more confident of being certain purpose in mind in advance, and having competence to determine what they want to do with the text As discussed in Row and Smith (2005), students who read with a purpose tend to comprehend what they read better than those who have no purpose Once students feel self-confident, they will become active readers and their anxiety level of reading process is lowered, their input level, therefore, is increased

2.2.5.2 Increasing the input, motivation and improving comprehension

Activating existing knowledge strategy increases the input and helps improve comprehension Cultural background knowledge of the text has a significant effect

on reading comprehension because when students read a text with cultural knowledge which they are less familiar with, they will have difficulty in comprehending it Thus, it is essential for students to be able to relate their previous experiences to the text they are reading because this enables students to be able to clarify any cultural information, and unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts which may

be necessary to comprehend the text as well as to make connections and make inferences about what they are going to read Saricoban (2002) notes that students should make use of their background knowledge about the passage because when they are familiar with the topic, they are able to process the content better

Previewing strategy helps students increase the input and motivation, set a goal for reading and focus their thinking, it, therefore, helps improve comprehension When students get a good overview of the context, content, organization, and the genre of the text, they will be able to guess main points the writer wants to make, and establish their own expectations about what information they will find the text and the way the information will be organized, this makes the text more familiar to them and thus it will be easier for them to understand when they read it as well as to increase their motivation Previewing strategy may have provided the students with knowledge of the text structure and established a reason for reading (Taglieber et al., 1988) In addition, predicting strategy before reading also helps to increase the input and motivation and improve readers’ comprehension When students’ prior knowledge about the topic of the text is activated, they begin to make predictions about vocabulary, content of the text and the answers to comprehension questions, which increases input and encourages their interest and motivation Furthermore, this strategy helps students to make connections with what they know already, increasing the relevance of the information, thus they are able to comprehend the content of text better

2.2.6 Framework for learning/ reading strategy training

The descriptions of the effects of reading strategies on reading comprehension above give the need to train reading strategies during reading teaching According

to many researchers, reading strategies can be taught to students and when taught,

31