Cognitive strategies for developing students’ reading comprehension skills using short stories

• Autores: Martha Rodríguez Sua
• Localización: REXE: Revista de estudios y experiencias en educación, ISSN-e 0718-5162, ISSN 0717-6945, Vol. 20, Nº. 44, 2021, págs. 233-253
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen
  • español

    This paper highlights the importance of implementing cognitive strategies to improve reading comprehension skills in a second language. The study was carried out at Capellania public school located in Cajica, Cundinamarca, Colombia. An initial needs analysis indicated that participants did not enjoy reading due to a lack of knowledge on reading strategies. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine how five cognitive reading strategies (CRSs) could improve the reading comprehension of forty ninth-grade students using short stories. The five cognitive strategies selected were predicting, asking questions before reading, visualizing while reading, summarizing the story by using graphic organizers, and answering reading comprehension questions after reading. A student blog, two questionnaires and class artifacts collected in a portfolio constituted the data collection methods. Data analysis included participants' insights into the usefulness of the strategies. The findings revealed that the use of cognitive strategies facilitated comprehension of a text; giving readers the opportunity to activate their schemata, to understand the main ideas and to understand new vocabulary. Moreover, participants were able to construct meaning from the text, identify a purpose for reading and, therefore; increase their motivation to read. Additionally, the results of this study might provide ideas for other English or foreign language teachers interested in improving their students' reading comprehension skills.

  • English

             This paper highlights the importance of implementing cognitive strategies to improve reading comprehension skills in a second language. The study was carried out in a public school located in Cajica, Cundinamarca. An initial needs analysis indicated that the participants did not enjoy reading due to their lack of knowledge about reading strategies. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine how five cognitive reading strategies (CRSs) could facilitate students’ reading comprehension of forty students of ninth- grade using short stories. Five cognitive strategies were selected: (predicting, asking questions before reading, visualizing while reading, summarizing the story by using graphic organizers, reading and answering comprehension questions after reading). The data collection methods in this qualitative research were: a blog, two questionnaires and artifacts collected in a student portfolio.The findings of this study showed that making predictions and questioning help readers to activate previous knowledge. The use of graphic organizers helped learners to facilitate the understanding of the main ideas and the acquisition of vocabulary. In addition, the visualization strategy facilitates reading comprehension as readers create mental images and construct meaning from the text. Finally, answering comprehension questions increase their motivation towards reading. Additionally, the results of this study might provide ideas for other English, Foreign Language teachers who are interested in improving their students' reading comprehension skills. Key words: Comprehension, cognitive processes, short stories, reading, skills. (Source: Unesco Thesaurus).