M n T n
M

m

n
m

HOW TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SKILLS IN DOING
READING COMPREHENSION TASKS

Group: Foreign Language

1


CONTENTS
Part A. Introduction
Part B. Development
I. Effective strategies on improving students’ sk lls n do n reading
comprehension tasks
I.1. Comprehension monitoring
I.2. Cooperative learning
I.3. Graphic Organizers and Story Structure
I.4. Question Answering
I.5. Question Generating
I.6. Summarizing
I.7. Multiple Strategy
II. When and How to use strategies on improving students’ sk lls n do n
reading comprehension tasks
III. Steps to improve students’ sk lls n do n reading comprehension tasks


3


Part B. DEVELOPMENT
I. EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SKILLS IN
DOING READING COMPREHENSION TASK
Theoretically speaking, if the daily reading curriculum uses research-proven
methods, students should develop skills for comprehending the text. But you may be
wondering which strategies are the most beneficial. That question was answered in 1997
by a 14-member panel appointed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD). The results of their research, published under the title
“Teaching Children to Read” revealed that the seven most effective strategies are as
follows:


Comprehension monitoring



Cooperative learning



Graphic organizers and story structure



Question answering


preview comprehension questions so that they can focus on answering those questions as
they read.
Reading: Teachers can guide students' interaction with the text by asking
questions about literary elements, having students present oral summaries of the plot, or
asking them to collect details or write observations on post-it notes. If students have
previewed comprehension questions, they can answer these questions as they read.
Post-reading: Summarizing (see below) is an effective strategy that can take
many different forms.

I.2. Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning is a strategy that maximizes student engagement, reduces
class tensions, and promotes student learning. Typically, students work in groups of four
or five to do the task given. If you plan to use cooperative learning frequently in classes,
consider arranging your classroom to facilitate learning in small groups.
The following are examples of how students can work cooperatively to learn more
about a narrative work of literature:

5




Each group uses a plot diagram to locate and summarize a stage of plot
development.



Groups work briefly with the teacher to ensure their answers are correct.





Matrix Diagram: This organizer is effective in representing comparisons and
contrasts. For example, students can use the matrix diagram to compare and contrast the
styles of various authors by entering key elements of style at the top and then filling in
the lower cells with the similar or different approaches of the authors they are
considering.

I.4. Question Answering
The typical approach to question answering is to answer comprehension questions
upon completion of the selection, but questions can be a part of a reading lesson at many
points. In reading comprehension, questions can be effective because they:


Give students a purpose for reading



Focus students' attention on what they are to learn



Help students to think actively as they read



Encourage students to monitor their comprehension




Identify or generate main ideas



Connect the main or central ideas



Eliminate unnecessary information



Remember what they read
This is an effective strategy for readers who have difficulty remembering and

writing about what they have read. A summary can take many forms, including
travelogues, journals, double-entry journals, and letters. For example, students can
create a travel itinerary that summarizes the action of a narrative, write a journal from a
particular character's point of view, set up a double-entry journal about the theme of a
work, or can summarize events in a letter that one character writes to another.

I.7. Multiple Strategy

8


This strategy addresses individual learning styles by having students use different
media - such as text, images, or video - to analyze or comment on a work of literature.
For example, readers can follow a procedure like this one:


By allocating time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting
activities as preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time
to these activities indicates their importance and value.

3.

By using cloze (fill in the blank) exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps
students learn to guess meaning from contexts.
9


4.

By encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them
approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what
strategies they actually used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice
of strategies.
When language learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the

reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the language.
Besides, reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it
supports learning in multiple ways.
Reading to learn the language: Reading material is language input. By giving
students a variety of materials to read, instructors provide multiple opportunities for
students to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure as
they occur in authentic contexts. Students thus gain a more complete picture of the ways
in which the elements of the language work together to convey meaning.
Reading for content information: Students' purpose for reading in their native
language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying, and this
purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content

helps

students

detect

inconsistencies

comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.

11

and


Part C. CONCLUSION
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans — sets of steps that good readers
use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become
purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. The
seven strategies here appear to have a firm scientific basis for improving text
comprehension.
As it transpires, the reading process can be influenced by many factors. All of
those factors, however, are reader-dependent. These strategies introduced here can
support and improve the performance of students before, during, and after reading. Such
strategies help students develop essential skills for understanding and extracting
meaning from text and boost their performance on reading comprehension assessments.
In addition, students who benefit from scaffolded learning are better able to function as
independent readers and to express ideas in a variety of ways. As a whole, appropriate
reading strategies are of paramount importance, as they condition the success in the
overall comprehension of a text.