Using mindmapping to check efl students reading comprehension

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

LÊ THỊ NGÂN

USING MIND-MAPPING TO CHECK EFL STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION

Chuyên ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp giảng dạy bộ môn Tiếng Anh
Mã số:

60.14.10

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ KHOA HỌC GIÁO DỤC

NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC

Supervisor: Dr.Trần Thị Ngọc Yến

Nghệ An, năm 2013
i


ABSTRACT
Mind- mapping has been considered an effective method to check students’
reading comprehension and its technique helps improve students’ motivation to
learn reading skills. This study investigates how the reading sections in the textbook
“English 12’ are taught at some upper-secondary school in Nghe an with references
to designing and utilizing activities.
To achieve the aims of the study, a treatment for 80 students were designed
and used as the data collection tools. Both qualitative and quantitative methods

were employed to analyze collected results and create a detailed description of the
real teaching context. The purpose of treatment interventions in higher education is
to develop students’ competencies with the reading skill of their academic studies.
One such competency is mind mapping. The literature provides strong arguments
that mind mapping provides students with valuable organizational and heuristic
tools and offers guidelines on how to draw mind maps. Post‐test results showed
significant differences between the experimental and control groups as a result of
using the mind‐mapping to check students’ reading comprehension and its
technique to improve students’ motivation to learn reading skills. Finally, the thesis
looks at the effects of using mind-mapping to check EFL students’ reading
comprehension such as increase in getting points, develop the reading skill through
mind-mapping the students can complete main ideas of texts easily.
Experimental students, who used mind-mapping, made higher gains in
reading than control students who did not use mind-mapping. The thesis also seeks
to determine the development if reading skill if mind-mapping development in the
course leads to increase rate in reading text. The result of treatment was recognized
by six tests and 80 questionnaires which were done by students. With respect to
reading rate the experiment found that the difference between the control groups
and the experimental groups was statistically significant. And the result also
compared to show correctly in the number of the tables and charts.

ii


The findings of the research indicate that most of the students appreciate the
role of activities learning reading. However, the scope is still limited, and there exist
certain difficulties that hinder the teachers and students in exploiting reading
activities. Such reasons as class size, students’ different levels of proficiency,
curriculums, the textbook, time limit.
From the outcome of the research, other studies on issues related to teaching

and learning writing as well as other skills can be carried out. Such researches can
improve material mind-mapping, curriculum design, and classroom activities in the
real contexts of teaching. Hopefully, this study has made a small contribution to
these fields.

iii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many people.
First, and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr.Tran Thi Ngoc
Yen, my supervisor, who allowed me to ‘jump from high bridges’. Her support and
guidance made it possible for me to not only complete this thesis, but also to
develop a theoretically guided understanding for approaching the complexity of
reading comprehension. Her expertise in both the reading and comprehension
components of reading comprehension have allowed me to bridge two fields that
traditionally have been examined separately. She opened the door for me to work
with teachers in improving literacy outcomes for adolescent students. She showed
me the importance of acquiring both depth and breadth in my knowledge base. This
is a chance for me to express my deep gratitude to many people, without whom this
study would not have come into being.
I would like to thank all my teachers at the Post Graduate Faculty, College of
Foreign Languages, Vinh University, Hanoi, for their useful knowledge conveyed
via interesting lectures.
Finally, I should like to express the warmest gratitude to my colleagues,
friends, students, especially my beloved family. I feel greatly indebted to them for
their essential help and encouragement.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Content

Page

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................v
Content Page......................................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................viii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................1
1.Rationale.....................................................................................................1
2. Aims of the Study......................................................................................3
3. Scope of the Study.....................................................................................3
4. Methods of the study.................................................................................3
5. The Design of the thesis............................................................................4
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................5
1. Reading......................................................................................................5
2. Reading comprehension..........................................................................12
3. The teaching and learning of reading.....................................................25
4. Mind- mapping........................................................................................31
CHAPTER 3 THE STUDY.............................................................................38
3.1. Research questions...............................................................................38
3.2. Participants..........................................................................................38
The research participants were eighty members of two classes of twelve
year students at high school. Class A was the experimental group and Class
B was the control group. Both classes were at the same school and both
classes consisted of 80 students...................................................................38
3.5.4. The progress pattern that the two groups make................................49
Fully developed patterns were investigated. Ideally, sample patterns have

developed from a real process. Before this recognizer can be put into
application, it needs to be trained and tested. Since this study used the
supervised testing approach, each pattern presentation was tagged with its
respective label............................................................................................49
CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION.........................................................................63
.....................................................................................................................63
.........................................................................................................................65
REFERENCES...............................................................................................66
APPENDIX A.................................................................................................
APPENDIX B..................................................................................................
APPENDIX C..................................................................................................
APPENDIX D.................................................................................................
v


APPENDIX E..................................................................................................

LIST OF TABLES

Table1. The general test result of two groups................................................................
43
Table 1.1. Means and standard deviations of comprehension scores for two
groups..............................................................................................................................
45
Table1.2. Numbers of participants in each group were counted comparing to
increases by the last two sessions minus in the first two sessions.................................
47
Table 1.3. Means and standard deviations of average score increases on the first
and last two sessions of texts for the experimental groups and control group..............
.48

Table1.4. Means and standard deviations of average score increases on the first
and last three sessions of texts for the experimental groups and control group............
49
Table 1.5: The Content of using mind-mapping Activities...........................................
50
Table 1.6. Numbers of participants for different change patterns………………….....
50
Table 1.7: The result of questionnaires in motivation of two groups ..........................
55
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Table 1.8. Percentage of improved items in the motivation tests..................................
56
Table1.9. The learners’ satisfaction on reading comprehension after using mindmapping technique..........................................................................................................
57

vii


LIST OF FIGURES

Figures 1.1 A sample of gradual increase pattern – participant A3..........................50
Figures 1.2 A sample of fluctuate increase pattern – participant B12......................51
Figures1.3. A sample of substantial increase pattern – participant A39...................51
Figures 1.4 A sample of plateau pattern – participant A1.........................................52

viii

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

“If you want to find your way, get a map!”
(Kathleen M. Fisher saying)
1. Rationale
Teaching is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. It’s no secret that
there is a range of learning styles. Many teachers find that their teaching style
doesn’t match the learning style of some of their students. The good step is that
using Mind-mapping to prepare and present lessons can have a powerful effect on
the students. While the lesson presentation follows the natural teaching style,
students can create a mind map that matches their learning style. Instead of trying to
fit a mould, they can take notes that feel natural, are easily remembered and suited
to their individual style. This makes the best teacher in the world.
Many teachers and lecturers are already adapting mind mapping to create
powerful classroom presentations, innovative handouts, and an unforgettable
experience for their students. Others are using advanced mind maps to tackle larger
classroom projects like innovative long range educational planning or weekly lesson
management that really meets the needs of individual students.
It is undeniable that the English language has gained more and more
significance in every aspect of society in general and in education in particular.
Realizing the importance of English in education, many policies and renovations
have been promulgated in teaching and learning English during the recent years. In
an attempt to innovate Vietnamese education to meet the demand of the society in
the process of integration and development, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education
and Training has reformed English textbooks concentrating on the four skills:
speaking, listening, reading and writing for secondary school students since the
school year 2006-2007. With this reform, both teachers and students have certain

1


advantages and disadvantages in mastering the four skills in the process of teaching
and learning English.
Of the four skills, reading, in general, is considered the most difficult one for
not only students but teachers to master. In reading section in the textbook “English
12”, students are asked to perform tasks of various kinds such as make out the main
ideas, understand the main topic, sentence, paragraph, etc. However, it seems that
some of the reading tasks in the new textbooks have not supported students’
language acquisition appropriately. Besides, teachers also face certain difficulties in
teaching reading skills.
For many years, teaching reading comprehension was based on a concept of
reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as identifying words,
finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and
contrasting, and sequencing. Teaching reading comprehension was viewed as a
mastery of these skills. My students think that it is very difficult to learn reading
skill. I think one of the most powerful tools can be used to improve our reading
comprehension is Mind-mapping.
When I have graduated university, I applied for a job at Dien Chau 2 high
school. I teach English subject as a second language. There are four skills each
lesson but my favorite skill is teaching reading because from the text, students can
easy use words, structures, sentence to communicate with many people. There is
some difficulty in the reading text. They don’t understand how to answer the
questions. So this is a problem that I should worry and find out the way to help
them. I think that whenever reading, they also understand all the information. Some
of them may not have had enough time to read, they read very quickly but little
result. I think it depends on the level of reading. They haven’t used right skill. It
made them get little information.
Being a teacher of English at upper-secondary for eleven years, the

researcher has understood the reality of teaching reading in English. The researcher
realizes that the upper-secondary school students in general and 12 th form students
2


in particular do not acquire reading skill efficiently. They seem to follow the
requirements of reading tasks in each lesson in order without achieving the
objectives of the lesson through completing the main tasks with appropriate skills.
Because of the practicality in teaching English reading, this study was carried out,
entitling “Using mind-mapping to check EFL students’ reading comprehension”
The study is intended to investigate types of activities teachers use in their
reading classes and the efficiency of these activities as well. In addition, it also
seeks to find out to what certain extent these activities have influence on students’
study achievements. Finally, through the study, some suggestions are offered so that
teachers can use mind-mapping for doing tasks in the textbook appropriately to
improve students’ reading skill.
2. Aims of the Study
The study aimed to help Students develop and checking students’ understanding
reading comprehension. We find out the value of the Students’ comprehension

reading level in the Text. There were some benefits of teaching comprehension by
using Mind-mapping. Mind maps provide an effective study technique when
applied to written materials the value of level reading comprehension of students
with the text. (If there is any).Improving the motivation how the reading sections in the
textbook “English 12” have been taught at upper-secondary schools with particular
reference to use mind-mapping.

3. Scope of the Study
The study only focuses on teaching common activities used in reading
teaching and their benefits to 12 h form students at some upper-secondary schools in

rural areas of Nghe An province. From the findings of the research, suggested
activities will be given to improve teaching English reading to 12th form students.
4. Methods of the study
The main method is experimental research and questionnaires.

3


5. The Design of the thesis
The study will consist of the following parts:
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Literature Review
1. Reading and reading comprehension.
2. The teaching and learning of reading
3. Mind-mapping.
Chapter 3: The Study
Chapter 4: Conclusion

4


CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Reading
Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing
information and ideas. Like all language, it is a complex interaction between the
text and the reader which is shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences,
attitude, and language community which is culturally and socially situated. The

reading process requires continuous practices, development, and retirement.
Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text,
resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, paragraphs
that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine
what that meaning is.
As a skill reading is clearly one of the most important; instances around the
world we may argue that reading is the most important foreign language skill,
particularly in cases where students have to read English material for their own
specialist subject but may never actually have to speak the language; such cases are
often referred to as ‘English as a library language’. Even though we are looking at
each language skill independently in these chapters, there is clearly an overlap
between reading and writing, in that a ‘text’ has to be written down before we can
read it. In many societies literature is still seen as the prime example of writing and
therefore one of the first things a student is asked to do is to read. In classroom
terms one of the reasons for this is partly practical: it is often thought to be easier to
supply a written text to be read than a spoken one to be understood. Much of the
current thinking on reading tends to focus primarily on the purpose of the activity;
even if reading is done for pleasure it is still purposeful.
According to Jolly (1978, p 67) “one’s first language reading ability plays a
more important role in reading success than his level of the target language does
because foreign language reading requires the transference of old skills, not the

5


learning of new ones. Therefore, students who fail to read adequately in the foreign
language fail because they either do not possess “old skills”, or because they have
failed to transfer them. This view is shared by Cody (1979) who asserts that foreign
language reading is a reading skill problem, not a language problem encouraged
new methods to convey them. Mind- mapping in teaching reading comprehension

has considered and it useful to remember the content of lesson. The students are in
grade 12 who learn English badly.’’.
Dealing with a reading text, readers have to face various difficulties. The first
and foremost problem is that readers may have to work with unfamiliar and difficult
topics, which is called “text problems”. The content of the text might be rather
strange to the students and the grammatical structures might be new. Therefore, the
readers will find the text very challenging and might not have any motivation left to
keep on reading. The second problem is “vocabulary problems”. Knowledge of
vocabulary is a great deal more important as a factor of reading comprehension than
awareness of grammatical structures (O’Donnell, 1961:313-316).
Readers encounter a lot of difficulties in dealing with proverbs and idioms,
synonyms metaphor, metonymy and other types of transference of meaning also
cause great difficulty for readers. Reading is an active skill, involving guessing and
predicting. It is common that there are new words, new structures and ideas in a
reading text for every language learner. If he/she does not have a good guessing
ability and can not make full use of grammatical, logical and cultural clues, he/she
will read the text with less understanding than he/she might expect, and he/she will
feel frustrated at the text, and will not want to keep on reading. However; teaching
reading comprehension is the problem that teachers should interested because the
students at high school learn English as the second language and they are poor in
knowledge, poor environment and they learn English sometimes without materials.
Reading is a receptive skill with many sub schillings just as those involved in
listening. Reading is also very important in real life. People always read for
pleasure or for work. Language learners can learn to use different reading styles.
6


Some read and understand a text very quickly while others read slowly and fail to
understand what they read. The following are some qualities of good reader.
First, good readers do not read every word in a text but take small samples

from a text and try to understand from these samples. They learn to focus on
important words. By reading certain words a good learner can understand most
good reader may only focus on the underlined words.
Second, good readers read silently rather than whisper words while reading.
They will also try to predict what comes next in the next, and if the readers do not
understand what they have just read, they will quickly go back and read it a gain
In addition, good readers will use their own knowledge to help understand
what they are reading. In order to understand a text, they skillfully recall what they
already know about topic. Moreover, they learn to guess at the meaning of new
words. They look at the context of the words and the affixes of words. They focus
on the general meaning first, and then the specific meaning.
The ability to read and to extract meaning from text is a fundamental skill
necessary for most forms of personal learning, intellectual growth, and educational
attainment (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
2010). On an international level, the literacy rate in Canada is high: results from
international assessments of reading proficiency indicate that Canadian youths (age
15) rank in third position of 41 countries (Busier, Cartwright, & Kingston, 2004).
Although the reading proficiency of Canadian youths places Canada as one of the
top ranked countries in the world, the results mask a significant problem that
demands attention: almost 30% of 15-year-old Canadian students did not meet what
are considered to be adequate levels of proficiency on international tests of reading
(OECD, 2010). That a substantial number of youth struggle to understand what they
have read carries negative social and economic costs: poor youth literacy is related
to high school dropout rates, long-term unemployment, and higher crime rates (The
Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network, 2009).The importance of

7


monitoring the reading proficiency of youth is evident in the increased use of largescale government-mandated assessment.

1.1. The reading process
Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to
construct or derive meaning (reading comprehension). It is a means of language
acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas. Like all
language, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which is
shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and language
community which is culturally and socially situated. The reading process requires
continuous practice, development, and refinement.
Readers use a variety of reading strategies to assist with decoding (to translate
symbols into sounds or visual representations of speech) and comprehension. Readers
may use morpheme, semantics, and syntax context clues to identify the meaning of
unknown words. Readers integrate the words they have read into their existing
framework of knowledge or schema (schemata theory).Other types of reading are
not speech based writing systems, such as music notation or pictograms. The
common link is the interpretation of symbols to. Currently most reading is either of
the printed word from ink or toner on paper, such as in a book, magazine,
newspaper, leaflet, or notebook, or of electronic displays, such as computer
displays, television, mobile phones or e-readers.
Handwritten text may also be produced using a graphite pencil or a pen.
Short texts may be written or painted on an object. Often the text relates to the
object, such as an address on an envelope, product info on packaging, or text on
a traffic or street sign. A slogan may be painted on a wall. A text may also be
produced by arranging stones of a different color in a wall or road. Short texts like
these are sometimes referred to as environmental print. Sometimes text or images
are in relief, with or without using a color contrast. Words or images can be carved
in stone, wood, or metal; instructions can be printed in relief on the plastic housing
of a home appliance, or a myriad of other examples. A requirement for reading is a
8

good contrast between letters and background (depending on colors of letters and
background, any pattern or image in the background, and lighting) and a suitable
font size. In the case of a computer screen, it is important to be able to see an entire
line of text without scrolling. The field of visual word recognition studies how
people read individual words. A key technique in studying how individuals read
text is eye tracking. This has revealed that reading is performed as a series of eye
fixation with saccades between them. Humans also do not appear to fixate on every
word in a text, but instead fixate to some words while apparently filling in the
missing information using context. This is possible because human languages show
certain linguistic regularities.
The process of recording information to be read later is writing. In the case
of computer and microfiche storage there is the separate step of displaying the
written text. For humans, reading is usually faster and easier than writing. Reading
is typically an individual activity, although on occasion a person will read out loud
for the benefit of other listeners. Reading aloud for one's own use, for better
comprehension, is a form of intrapersonal communication. Other methods of teaching
and learning to read have developed, and become somewhat controversial. Reading is
an intensive process in which the eye quickly moves to assimilate text. Very little is
actually seen accurately. It is necessary to understand visual perception and eye
movement in order to understand the reading process. There are several types and
methods of reading, with differing rates that can be attained for each, for different
kinds of material and purposes: Rates of reading include reading for memorization
(fewer than 100 words per minute [wpm]); reading for learning (100 -200wpm);
reading

for

comprehension

(200

-

400

wpm);

and skimming (400–700

wpm).Reading for comprehension is the essence of the daily reading of most
people. Skimming is for superficially processing large quantities of text at a low
level of comprehension (below 50%).Advice for choosing the appropriate readingrate includes reading flexibly, slowing when concepts are closely presented and
when the material is new, and increasing when the material is familiar and of thin
9


concept. Speed reading courses and books often encourage the reader to continually
accelerate; comprehension tests lead the reader to believe his or her comprehension
is continually improving; yet, competence-in-reading requires knowing that
skimming is dangerous, as a default habit. Reading speed requires a long time to
reach adult levels. The table to the right shows how reading-rate varies with
age, regardless of the period (1965 to 2005) and the language (English, French and
German). The Taylor values probably are higher, for disregarding students who
failed the comprehension test. The reading test by the French psychologist Pierre
Lefebvre’s tested reading aloud, with a penalty for errors, and could, therefore, not
be a rate greater than 150 wpm. According to Carver (1990), children's reading
speed increases throughout the school years. On average, from grade 2 to college,
reading rate increases 14 standard-length words per minute each year (where one
standard-length word is defined as six characters in text, including punctuation and
spaces).

1.2. Classification of reading
Several types of reading may occur in a language classroom. One way, in
which these may be categorized, as suggested by Brown (1989) can be outlined as
follows:
Oral and silent, and intensive there were two kinds: linguistic and content.
But in Extensive there were three kinds such as: skimming scanning and global.
The first distinction that can be made is whether the reading is oral or
silent. Within the category of silent reading, one encounters intensive and extensive
reading. Intensive reading is used to teach or practice specific reading strategies or
skills. The text is treated as an end in itself. Extensive reading on the other
hand, involves reading of large quantities of material, directly and fluently. It is
treated as a means to an end. It may include reading simply for pleasure or reading
technical, scientific or professional material. This later type of text, more academic,
may involve two specific types of reading, scanning for key details or skimming for

10


the essential meaning. A relatively quick and efficient read, either on it’s or after
scanning or skimming, will give a global or general meaning.
Brown (1989,p.72) explains that intensive reading "calls attention to
grammatical forms, discourse markers, and other surface structure details for the
purpose of understanding literal meaning, implications, rhetorical relationships, and
the like." He draws an analogy to intensive reading as a "zoom lens" strategy.
Long and Richards (1987, p.33) say it is a "detailed in-class" analysis, led by
the teacher, of vocabulary and grammar points, in a short passage."
Intensive reading, sometimes called "Narrow Reading", may involve students
reading selections by the same author or several texts about the same topic. When
this occurs, content and grammatical structures repeat themselves and students
get many opportunities to understand the meanings of the text. The success

of "Narrow Reading" on improving reading comprehension is based on the premise
that the more familiar the reader is with the text, either due to the subject matter or
having read other works by the same author, the more comprehension is promoted.
Skimming is a more complex task than scanning because it requires the reader to
organize and remember some of the information given by the author, not just to
locate it. Skimming is a tool in which the author's sequence can be observed, unlike
scanning in which some predetermined information is sought after. Scanning is a
quick reading, focusing on locating specific information. Scanning involves quick
eye movements, not necessarily linear in fashion, in which the eyes wander until the
reader finds the piece of information needed. Scanning is used when a specific piece
of information is required, such as a name, date, symbol, formula, or phrase, is
required. The reader knows what the item looks like and so, knows when he has
located what he was searching for. It is assumed then, that very little information is
processed into long-term memory or even for immediate understanding because the
objective is simply matching. Scanning is used often with technical, scientific or
professional materials to locate specific information. Scanning is a valuable skill for
second language learners to develop because often they do not require a detailed
11


read of a text. There are many everyday uses for scanning, relevant to a purpose,
such as reading a schedule.
It is an accepted view today that efficient readers are not passive. They react
with a text by having expectations and ideas about the purposes of the text as well
as possible outcomes. They reflect on expectations as they read, anticipate what will
come next. In other words, they” interact with the text".
Skimming involves a thorough overview of a text and implies a reading
competence. Scanning is more a limited activity, only retrieving information
relevant to a purpose.
Pugh (1978, p84) suggested that “since scanning is a less complex style of

reading it can be introduced first. Skimming requires greater fluency and more
practice is required, so it should be introduced later. Often skimming and scanning
are used together when reading a text. For example, the reader may skim through
first to see if it is worth reading, then read it more carefully and scan for a specific
piece of information to note. Students need to learn that they need to adapt their
reading and techniques to the purpose of the reading. ”
2. Reading comprehension
Reading Comprehension is the ability to understand what we read- where
words have contexts have meaning. Reading comprehension skills allow us to read
proficiently, learn effectively, problem, solve, strategize, conceptualize, and
succeed in life. Without reading comprehension skills, many students are left
behind. Reading comprehension is the heart and gold of reading, since the purpose
of all reading is to gather meaning from the printed page. If a student says words in
a passage without gathering their meaning, one would hesitate to call that reading.
Comprehension depends on knowledge. Comprehension as defined by
Bernhardt (1987) is the process of relating new, or incoming information to
information already stored in the memory (background knowledge). Obviously,
during the process of reading, readers must not only look at words on the pages

12


(bottom-up processing), but also activate background knowledge (top-town
processing), and then build all the elements into comprehension (Rinehart, 1980).
Furthermore, according to Emhart’s organization reading comprehension can be
defined as: a topic-dependent. It involves making appropriate decisions from the
beginning of a text. It involves the selection of critical features for processing).It
involves the rapid processing of text. It involves met cognitive awareness of the
comprehension process .The first two items above are so-called “schemata”
(background knowledge). The third item involves scanning, which is looking for

information in the text. The fourth item is also called skimming, which is reading
quickly for general idea as far as the third and the fourth parts are concerned, slow
speeds in reading seem to imply limited use of them, and also limited
comprehension. A study revealed that readers, who are unsuccessful, usually make
more eye contact per line, rather spending more time at each fixation (Tulles, 1971).
Similarly, Smith (1971) argued that the visual system is made up of three features:
The brain does not see everything that is in front of the eyes. The brain does not see
anything is in front of the eyes immediately and the brain does not receive
information from the eyes continuously. So, reading must be “fast, selective and
dependent on nonvascular information”
The nature of comprehension in reading has been explored in numerous
studies. Some researchers see it as a state of having questions answered (Smith,
1978) in which readers have to find a configuration of hypotheses which offer a
coherent account for the various aspects of the text (Rinehart, 1977). In order to
comprehend a text, readers modify the organizational structure of the texts for
their own purposes. While reading they keep making predictions, or questions
based on their theories about the world, and if the questions are answered while
or after reading, comprehension is achieved (Smith, 1978).
Commonly in the context of teaching comprehension in secondary school
classroom of English, there are only a few techniques that are being repeatedly used

13


to study content of a reading text such as: Question – answer, finding synonyms,
antonyms, gap – filling or True – false sentence.
A large and growing body of literature has investigated the components of
comprehension. One of the main themes in the literature is the simple view of
reading, which holds that comprehension can be decomposed into linguistic
comprehension and reading comprehension (Dumbly, 2009; Dreier & Katz, 1992;

Gough & Tuner, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990). Linguistic comprehension refers
to the action of using vocabulary knowledge to interpret the text and reading
comprehension is the same ability, which, on the other hand, relies on printed
information arriving through the eye. In order to assess linguistic comprehension,
testers should ask questions about the contents of a text presented orally while to
test reading comprehension, they must ask questions about a text in printed form.
Some

other

researchers

divide

comprehension

into

two

components:

comprehension and interpretation .Comprehension involves what the reader
utilizes according to his reading aims. Interpretation concerns the differences
between people who read the same text, or within one person when reading
different texts. These differences may be due to such factors as background
knowledge and cultural presuppositions.
Reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extracting and
constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language”
(reading study group, 2003, p.11). This process of interaction and involvement with

the text is a function of both reader and text variables that take place within a larger
social context (Goldman, Saul, & Corte, 1995; McNamara & Malians, 2009; Reading
Study Group, 2002). When successful, the product of reading comprehension is a
coherent mental representation of a text’s meaning that is integrated with the
reader’s prior knowledge. This product is often referred to as a mental model
(Johnson-Laird, 1983) or a situation model (Kitsch, 1998; Kitsch, & van Disk,
1978) and is considered to be the basis for learning from text. The nature of the

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model, that is the ideas and the links connecting those ideas, defines what has been
learned.
Reading comprehension is a complex skill: it requires the successful
development and orchestration of a variety of lower- and higher-level processes and
skills (Balata, Flores darkish, & Rayners, 1990). As a consequence, there are a
number of sources for potential comprehension failure and these sources can vary
depending on the skill level and age of the to improve our understanding of reading
achievement, and to provide better information for Reading comprehension is a
complex skill: it requires the successful development and orchestration of a variety of
lower- and higher-level processes and skills (Balata, Flores darkish, & Rayners,
1990).
As a consequence, there are a number of sources for potential comprehension
failure and these sources can vary depending on the skill level and age of the reader
(Keenan, Bateman, & Olson, 2008). Theories and models of reading comprehension
are necessary to make sense of this complexity.
2.1. Factors affecting the learning of reading comprehension.
The comprehension goals of the intermediate grade sad dress these abilities
as well as those required for independent study: skimming, using reference
materials, outlining, summarizing, altering reading rate and focus as the purpose

of reading changes, use of headings, note taking, and so on. For many spreading
comprehension is a major problem. There are mainly three causes for poor reading
comprehension: First is, if the person has a language problem.
Language plays a vital role in reading. One cannot read a book in a language
unless one knows that particular language. If a child’s knowledge of English is
poor, then his reading will also be poor, and naturally also his reading
comprehension. Second is, if the foundational skills of reading have not been
atomized. When a person attempts to speak a language in which he has not become
automatic yet, he will necessarily have to divide his attention between the content of
his message and the language itself. He will therefore speak haltingly and with
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great difficulty. As Yap and Van dear Leif explained in the Journal of Learning
Disabilities. If the skill on the primary task is automat zed, it will not be disrupted
by concurrent processing on the secondary task because automatic processing does
not take up antinational resources. If, on the contrary, the skill is not automat zed, it
will be disrupted by concurrent processing of a second skill because two skills are
then competing for limited intentional resources. This also applies to the act of
reading. The person, in whom the foundational skills of reading have not yet
become automatic, will read haltingly and with great difficulty. The poor reader is
forced to apply all his concentration to word recognition, and therefore has no
concentration left´ to decode the written word, and as a result he will not be able to
read with comprehension. Lastly, threaded is unable to decode the written word.
The decoding of the written word is a very important aspect of the reading
act. Without being able to decode the written word, reading comprehension is
impossible. This explains why some children can read without understanding what
they are reading. Many students don’t realize how important it is to be able to fully
comprehend what you read. Being able to completely and accurately comprehend
what you read is essential to your ability to learn, perform well on tests and

ultimately succeed in school and in a career. Anyone who desires to acquire
effective study techniques would do well to improve his reading comprehension
skills. Developing reading comprehension techniques is one of the two basic ways
of improving reading skill, the other being developing reading speed. However,
rapid reading is valueless unless what is read is understood. Thus, comprehensions
the vital factor in efficient reading by Bobby Coles
According to Bobby Coles Created on: (03, 2010, p67)

“Reading comprehension is a learned skill that is dependent upon several
factors. While there are certain factors that significantly aid reading
comprehension, there are also factors that affect reading comprehension. Not every
child or adult will glean the same amount out of a given text, for several underlying
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reasons. Aside from a learning disability, there are some more common factors that
affect reading comprehension, such as focused attention span, experience,
vocabulary level, and ability to make connections’'.
A learning disability (such as Dyslexia) will severely hamper your ability to
comprehend that which you read, but if there is not a disability present, the next
major factor contributing to reading comprehension is focused attention span. A
short attention span will severely cramp your ability to understand what you are
reading. As you read, if you are not able to follow along with each word, you will
eventually drift off topic and interest will not have been sustained. Reading requires
focused attention, and you have to be able to make sense of each word and
sentence. Written works typically follow a progression, and if you are not attending
to it while reading, it will become easy to succumb to distractions. This is a major
factor that affects reading comprehension.
Experiences are another factor that greatly impact reading comprehension. If
you have many life experiences that you can draw upon from your memory bank,

you may be more apt to follow along with a given reading selection. A story that
does not make sense to you because you have not lived that sort of experience
before will not be able to hold your interest. Comprehending reading requires that
you delve deep into the characters and plot, and allow your imagination to soar,
transcending time and boundaries. The creative aspect of your brain needs to be
engaged in order to fully understand different concepts and abstract reasoning. A
mastery of vocabulary is an essential factor that affects reading comprehension. If
you possess an expansive vocabulary, you are more likely to understand textual
writing, and you will be less likely to become confused or frustrated. Knowledge of
words is imperative to reading comprehension, and this can make a written piece
come alive for some people. If the writing is too difficult to understand, a person is
more likely to put it down or lose interest. Soon, you have lost all understanding of
the piece, and therefore your reading comprehension has been compromised.
Making connections is an essential factor that affects reading comprehension.
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