To improve reading comprehension skill for the grade 12 students by utilizing graphic organizers

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
LE LOI HIGH SCHOOL

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A RESEARCH PAPER FOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS OF ENGLISH

TITLE:

TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION SKILL FOR
GRADE 12 STUDENTS AT LE LOI HIGH SCHOOL BY
UTILIZING GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

The writer: Phạm Thị Lý
Position: Teacher
Experience Initiative: English

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THO XUAN, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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A. INTRODUCTION

I. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH

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II. AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

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III. SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD

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1. The scope of the research
2. The objectives of the research
3. The method of the research

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B. DEVELOPMENT

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PART1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

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I. Reading Comprehension
1. The nature of reading comprehension
2. The factors influencing reading comprehension
2.1. External factors

2.2. Internal factors
3. Reading comprehension skill
3.1. Main idea
3.2. Explicit information
3.3. Vocabulary
3.4. Inference
II. Graphic Organizers
1. Definition of Graphic Organizers
2. Types of Graphic Organizers
3. The Benefits of Graphic Organizers to reading comprehension
4. Graphic Organizers in the Classroom Activities
PART 2: PRACTICAL BACKGROUND
1. The background of the study
2. The problems faced by students and teacher in learning and
teaching reading comprehension at Le Loi high school.
2.1. The problems faced by the grade 12 students in learning
reading comprehension
2.2. The problems faced by teachers in teaching reading
comprehension
3. The method employed in teaching reading comprehension skill to
the grade 12 students at Thieu Hoa high school.
PART 3: THE SOLUTIONS
1. The Purposes of the Solutions.

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2. The Time & the Participants of the Study
3. Reading Materials
4. The Procedures of the study
5. Technique of Collecting Data
6. Techniques of Analyzing Data

Result and discussion.
1. Results of the study.
2. Discussion
2.1. The strength
2.2. The weaknesses
C. CONCLUSSION
I. Conclusion
II. Suggestion
1. For English teachers
2. For the students
3. For the school

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A. INTRODUCTION
I. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH
It is widely recognized that reading is one of the most important skills for
English as a foreign language students to master . English is thought to be one of
the decisive factors for people's success at the period of globalization. In
Vietnam, in recent years teaching methods have been more and more improved.
There have been a lot of activities organized in order to enhance the
effectiveness and help students be more active and self-confident in learning
English in general and reading skills in particular. To students, nowadays,
English is not only a core subject in the curriculum at school but also key to gain
access to the information world that proves of great value to all of them.
Of four language skills, reading is believed to be the most important and
also most difficult skill to students. According to the time allocation, the school
time for English lessons is limited with only 3 periods a week, each lasts 45
minutes. In an academic year, students complete 16 units, in which there are 16
reading lessons.
Through classroom observations at Le Loi schools, I find that in reading
lesson, my students often have difficulties in identifying explicit information in
a text, and comprehending the text as they lack of vocabulary; they are also
unable to find main idea in a paragraph as well as to infer the meaning of the
text. Moreover, they feel scared when doing a long and difficult reading task
because the reading lessons are not exciting enough to get students involved in
their learning. The reality poses a question to teachers about how to encourage
students to learn and improve their reading skills so that they will be able to pass
the English paper in the coming national examination in which reading skill
acomplishes large proportion.
One of the possible solutions for such problems is using graphic
organizers because these organizers can help students clarify and organize

information into categories (main idea, supporting details, topic sentence,
facts, opinion, etc), organize information in a paragraph for better
understanding, construct meaning of difficult words and sentence dividing into
lexis and understand the context by associating with prior knowledge.
Furthermore, graphic organizers are considered as wonderful techniques to make
students actively engaged in their learning. Because organizers include words,
visual images, illustrative shapes, meaningful labels and logical displays, they
are effective for a variety of students with different language levels and different
multiple intelligences, especially for those with a visual modality preference.
For the aforementioned reasons, the author decided to choose the study
entitled “ To improve reading comprehension skill for the grade 12 students by
utilizing graphic organizers”.
II. AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
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The study aimed at seeing whether the graphic organizers are beneficial
for my students. Specifically, the aims include:
To identify whether and to what extent Graphic Organizers can improve grade
12 students’ reading comprehension skill in identifying the main idea, dealing
with vocabulary, fact and opinion, and making inferences.
To describe the situation when Graphic Organizers are used in reading
classes.
III. SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD
1. The scope of the research.
Based on the background and identification of the theme, the study is
limited on teaching reading comprehension to the students in grade 12th by
using using graphic Organizers. The research was conducted at my workplaceat Thieu Hoa high school, Thieu Hoa district, Thanh Hoa province. The subject
consists of 46 students who come from class 12A, school year 2015-2016. All of
them are at the age of seventeenth years old. They have to take every skill in each

period; learning time is 3 periods per week.
2. The object of the research.
The research study is organized into three parts as followed:
Part 1 provides basic information including the rationale, objectives,
method, scope and design of the study.
Part 2 reviews the related literature on reading comprehension presents
the effectiveness of using graphic Organizers in teaching and learning reading
comprehension as well as deals with some difficulties faced by teachers and
students before applying the technique.
Part 3 involves the result analysis as well as the discussion of the data and
draws the conclusion, implication on the subject matter and suggestions for
further research.
3. The method of the research.
When conducting this paper, I have employed these following methods.
- Collecting information about the theme.
- Practicing teaching
- Observing and assessing.
- Exchanging experience with colleagues
B. DEVELOPMENT
PART I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I. Reading Comprehension.
1.The nature of reading comprehension.
Reading is an activity of inferring meaning out of written symbols with
the collaborative work of cognitive behaviors and psycho-motor skills
(Demirel, 1992). Reading is described as the process of perception in terms of
written and published words with the help of senses, comprehension of these
after building meaningful connections; intellectual and spiritual acquisition,
active and communicative involvement with the written and published
symbols, reception consisting of a number of perceptive and cognitive
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processes, an interpretation and also a reaction. According to Alderson (1984),
most scholars would suppose that reading is one of the most important skills for
educational and professional success. In highlighting
the importance of
reading comprehension Rivers (1981) stated that ― reading is the most
important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information
and pleasurable activity but also as a means of consolidating and extending
one‘s which are knowledge of the language.
As Karakas (2002) pointed that the real objective of reading is fast and right
grasp of the meaning. Especially, reading at high speed along with full
comprehension is a critical factor affecting the success of the students. Students
who can read at a high speed, understand what is being read, have a rich verbal
repertoire and have a good master of the language, learn more easily and have
higher rates of success . The level of reading can be designated by asking
questions about the reading text being read and evaluating the related answers
in verbal or written way (Çalışkan, 2004).
According to Eskey (1988) in advanced levels of second language the ability
to read the written language at a reasonable rate and with good comprehension
has long been recognized to be as oral skills if not more important.
From the theories above, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a
complex process in which the reader interacts with the text and employs his/her
previous knowledge, experience and information to extract the significant
information/important information, understand the intentions of the writer, and
goes beyond what is written to guess at hidden, unstated or implied meaning on
the text.
2. The Factors Influencing Reading Comprehension
Dallman (1982: 165) points out the factors influencing the reading
comprehension as follows:

2.1. External Factors:
- Difficulty of material: difficult material that is beyond the students’ level
is one of the major causes of lack of comprehension.
- Intelligence: a students’ ability to comprehend in reading is sometimes
limited by his mental ability enabling him to carry. The intelligence of the reader
will influence the capacity of the reader in comprehending passage.
- Teacher’ s method: method of teaching that concentrate on the recognition
of individual words without neglecting attention to meaning assists the students’
quality in comprehending the text.
2.2. Internal Factors:
- Motivation is one of the important factors of learners in reading
comprehension.
- Self-esteem has important role in developing reading comprehension. It is
a human being personality that is active, highly confident.
3. Reading Comprehension Skill
Spears (2000: xxvi) states there are eight important reading comprehension
skills that help learners to read more systematically. They are comprehending
the main idea, determining the author’s purpose, distinguishing between the
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main idea and supporting details, making inference, distinguishing facts and
opinion, analyzing structure, annotating, paraphrasing and summarizing.
The main concern of the research is about how to find the main idea, explicit
information, vocabulary, and inference. Therefore, I would like discussing
further on those aspects:
3.1. Main Idea
Spears (2000: 17) defines main idea as the author’s main point, a
sentence, or perhaps two that state what the whole thing is about. The main idea
may take place in the beginning of the paragraph, the end of the paragraph,

combination between the beginning and the end of the paragraph, or even
omitted from the entire paragraph.
3.2. Explicit information
Spears (2000: 12) defines explicit information is a single piece of information or
fact about something.
3.3. Vocabulary
According to Schwartz and Raphael (1985: 39) vocabulary is the
knowledge of words and words meaning. Knowledge of words is critical to
reading comprehension, because it support to comprehension. Students are
expected to learn the meaning of new words. They acquire these words by
reading books, magazine, newspaper or hearing them read aloud from books by
other.
3.4. Inference
McNeil (1992: 77) defines inference as the derivation of some idea that is not
directly stated. To infer, Caroll in McNeil suggests that there are three important
ways to infer. They are from subtleties of verbal expression, reasoning, making
involvement of the reader’s experience to determine how the character in the
text might feel.
II. Graphic Organizers
1. Definition of Graphic Organizers.
There are many definitions about graphic organizers. Among them are from
Bromley et al, Sousa, and Zwiers.
Bromley, et al. (1995:7) define graphic organizer as a visual representation of
knowledge. It is a way of structuring information, of arranging important
information aspects of a concept or topic into a pattern using label. Besides,
Sousa (2005:192) states that graphic organizers as valuable tool for organizing
and representing knowledge and for illustrating relationship between concepts.
In addition, Herley in Zwiers (2004:17) states that graphic organizers are
drawings that use geometric shapes or tables to show connections between
pieces of information.

2. Types of Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers come in many different forms, each one best suited to
organizing a particular type of information. Mcgill, Murphy, and Freeman
(2009) state that graphic organizers are generally labeled as conceptual,
hierarchical, cyclical, and sequential.
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The first, conceptual organizers help students show their learning or
knowledge of a central idea. Concept maps, KWL charts, and Venn diagrams are
only a few conceptual graphic organizers. KWL charts will help the student
organize his or her prior knowledge and the information that he or she wants to
learn before new learning begins. Then, after learning has taken place the
student will chart what he or she has learned. Venn diagrams are used to
compare and contrast two objects, topics, characters, etc.
Second, a hierarchical organizer is used when a student needs to break down
broad concept into sub concepts. Some of these organizers include the branching
diagram, classifying chart, and topic/subtopic web. Students could use this type
of graphic organizer to explain the food chain.
Third, the student will use a sequential graphic organizer when he or she
needs to explain the sequence of events. Storyboards, T-charts, and cause and
effect organizers are all sequential. This type of organizer could be used when
telling the beginning, middle, and end of a story.
The last, there are times when it would be best to use a cyclical organizer.
These organizers may be better known as the circle organizer or the circle
diagram. These could be used to show life cycles or the water cycle.
In Figures 1 to 5, examples of some graphic organizers that are used for
interpreting a text with a specific objective are shown. Figure 1.1 is a graphic
organizer that could be used to classify the author’s purpose in a reading
comprehension passage. This could be further developed based on the

requirements for different passages. Figure 2 is a graphic organizer that could be
used to classify the main idea and supporting details in a passage. Figure 3 & 4
are graphic organizers that could be used for classifying information in a
passage as fact or opinion and comparison or contrasting respectively. Finger 5
is used to remember the event easily.
Figure 1. Author’s purpose

idea
Figure 2. Main Idea &Main
Supporting
Details

Supporting detail

Supporting detail

Supporting detail

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Figure 3. Fact and Opinion

Figure 4. Compare and Contrast

Figure 5. Remember event.
An event map is another great tool that focuses on one event, such as a major
conflict. The chart asks students to follow the W+H model of thought (who, what,

when, where, why, how)

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3. The Benefits of Graphic Organizers to reading comprehension.
In terms of reading comprehension, graphic organizers can be effectively
used in all lessons for students of all ages to check not only students’
understanding but also to motivate and enhance their thinking skills. Krasnic
(2011, p.24) claims that students are able to clear their thoughts and sharpen
their thinking by organizing and connecting key concepts related to what they
are reading from the text. This process can help the students to improve their
critical thinking, a kind of cognitive activity that appears in many categories of
the cognitive process dimension.
Graphic organizers are wonderful tools to get students actively engaged in
their learning. Because these visual representations include words, images and
symbolic patterns such as conceptual, hierarchical, cyclical and sequential, they
seem to be effective with students with verbal, visual and logical learning styles.
Students who are good at their merits feel easier to demonstrate their reading
understanding by using graphic organizers instead of answering comprehension
questions in verbal languages.
Reading researchers point out that in an English reading lesson, if the
teacher uses graphic organizers that appropriately go with the organization of the
passage being read, he or she will enhance and facilitate student understanding
and develop their full potentials. For example, if the text is presented in a
sequential manner, a list or a timeline will be best, or if written in a
compare/contrast mode, a 2-column chart or Venn diagram might be better. If
the reading passage is related to a central theme and followed by paragraphs that
have a relationship to the controlling point, a mind map or a network tree should
be used to brainstorm the topic and become a great strategy for students.

With the mentioned benefits, teachers should use graphic organizers to
help students prepare themselves for reading, to explore the text with a deeper
understanding, to externalize their thinking, and to promote effective learning.
Appropriately use, graphical organizer instructions can significantly
reduce the amount of time required to achieve the objective of a reading lesson
for both the teacher and learners. However, the appropriate choice of organizers
for the reading lesson depends on the teacher’s knowledge of the topic presented
in the passage, knowledge of pedagogical content that requires the teacher to
plan and conduct an effective lesson with a supportive learning environment,
and knowledge of language learners in order to develop students’ creativity and
critical thinking – the essential 21st Century skills.
4. Graphic Organizers in the Classroom Activities
In 1992, Jay McTighe in his book, Graphic Organizers: Collaborative
Links to Better Thinking outlined three main ways teachers may use graphic
organizers in their teaching and a number of ways that students can use them to
aid their learning process. In the reading process, graphic organizers can be
used at three levels: Before instruction, during instruction and after instruction.
Before instruction, graphic organizers are used to understand the level of
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the students in terms of the content. Pre- reading graphic organizers are
constructed by teachers to help structure the lesson and material to be learned,
pre-teaching vocabulary and activate prior knowledge. This strategy aims to
prepare learners to begin thinking about the material they will be reading.
During instruction, graphic organizers allow students to approach the
content cognitively because they assist thinking. It also allows students to
construct maps that are appropriate to their learning styles.
After instruction, they help students as a summarization tool or
technique and they help the students to understand their improvement in terms

of understanding passage. If a student can connect prior knowledge with what
was learned and identify relationships between those ideas, it means graphic
organizers have successfully assisted them in the course of their learning
process.
Graphic organizers in this research means any graphic displays that help
the readers obtain the meaning of the text in term of organizing and linking ideas
in purpose of finding main idea, explicit and implicit information
PART 2: PRACTICAL BACKGROUND
1. The background of the study.
I have responsibility for teaching English to class 12A2, at Le Loi high
school, which is located in Tho Xuan town, Tho Xuan district, Thanh Hoa
province In this school year 2018-2019 .
The participants of the study were 45 students in class 12A2 from every
corner of Tho Xuan district, by this I mean they are both from town and rural
areas. 40 of them are females and they are 17 years old. They have been learning
English for more than 7 years. According to their school report when they were
at grade 11. 5 of them were ranked as very good, 11 as good, 19 as average, and
10 as poor at using English.
2. The problems faced by students and teacher in learning and
teaching reading comprehension skill at Le Loi high school.
2.1. The difficulties faced by the grade 12 students in learning reading
comprehension.
It is clear that the students in my school have encountered many difficulties
in learning reading comprehension and they are often bad at it.
In the first place, the majority of the students have trouble with reading
lessons because of their low level of English proficiency. Their vocabulary and
sentence structures are poor. Besides, their low background knowledge also
makes them feel stressed when reading. Many of the students said they found it
hard to identify explicit information in a text; to comprehend the text; and they
were also unable to find main idea in a paragraph, or to infer the meaning of the

text.
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In reading process, as a matter of fact, most EFL students mentally translate
the content into their first language. Students have to struggle to respond to the
comprehension questions through the time-consuming process of thinking in
their first language and then translate it into English but the problem is that
students cannot verify the accuracy of their translation of the meaning of the
passage into their mother tongue. What is more, students often read a passage in
bits and pieces and fail to connect the ideas. This results in fragmentary
understanding. Next, they fail to follow the schemata while reading. They fail to
identify the main idea of a passage and how it is developed in the body
paragraphs.
In addition, their low motivation is also a problem. The students do not
highly asses their teachers’ assistance. They find their teachers’ feedbacks are
not comprehensive and their teachers’ instructions are not adequate.
2.2. The difficulties faced by teachers in teaching reading comprehension
for the grade 12 students.
Not only the students but also the teachers cope with numerous problems
when teaching reading comprehension at my school.
The first difficulty I and my colleagues are coping with is the low English
level of the students. Our students often lack vocabularies and have difficulties
in understanding the text. The students’ low motivation and low background
knowledge are also other problems encountered by the teachers.
The second difficulty is the problem of large and multilevel classes. In
multilevel classes, we face difficulties in shortening a big gap between our
students. In the same class, some students who are good at English are active
while many others are de- motivated. In addition, English classes at Le Loi high
school are very large. There are 45 students in a class. Hence, it is difficult for

the teachers to give each of the students individual attention and make sure who
is on task and who is off task.
For the next difficulty, teaching equipment and reference materials are
important in the teaching process; however, the teaching condition in my school
is not good. Teaching aids such as pictures, sub- board are not equipped.
Teachers often use only textbook, chalk and board in their lessons. To make our
lessons more interesting, we had to create teaching aids by ourselves.
3. The method employed in teaching and learning reading
comprehension skill to grade 12 students at Le Loi high school.
In reading lesson, students were trained in the traditional ways like
making the students read the passage again and again to understand the content
of the text and answer the comprehension questions. While comprehending a
passage, most EFL students mentally translate the content into their first
language. Students may even respond to the comprehension questions through
the time-consuming process of thinking in their first language and then
translate it into English. Students cannot verify the accuracy of their translation
of the meaning of the passage into their mother tongue.
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It can see that students’ major reading problem arising when they are so
worried about understanding every single word of a text they are reading that
they do not get the general idea from the passage. My students may also
struggle in other areas while comprehending a passage. Firstly, while they may
be good at recognizing and pronouncing the words, they struggle to understand
the central theme of the passage. They read a passage in bits and pieces and fail
to connect the ideas. This results in fragmentary understanding. Next, they fail
to follow the schemata while reading. They fail to identify the main idea of a
passage and how it is developed in the body paragraphs.
With the desire of helping my students with reading comprehension skill,

I conducted this study within two months. The data collected in my teaching
practice shows that using graphic organizers gives students alternatives to these
inefficient methods of reading or comprehending a passage. In contrast to their
usual approach to reading or comprehending a passage, they classify the content
of the passage and then try to decode it.
This paper explores how classifying a reading passage using graphic
organizers has shown better results compared with reading a passage without
using these organizers. Using a graphic organizer, they learn the skill of
classifying information of a passage under a schema. Once they master this skill,
they can divide the passage into different lexias such as main idea, supporting
details, topic sentences, data, fact, opinion, etc. They elevate themselves from
a stage of mere fragmentation to a stage of logical classification of
information. This leads to a holistic comprehension of the passage, which in turn
helps students decode the passage for its logical and linguistic signals.
PART 3: THE SOLUTIONS
1. The Purposes of the Solutions.
Based on all the facts above, students need to have sufficient strategy to
be successful in reading comprehension. In the previous explanation, students
have some difficulties in reading comprehension such as identifying the main
idea, finding the supporting details, dealing with vocabulary, and making
inferences.
In this case, graphic organizers are selected as the effective teaching
method that can provide the bridge from the abstract concepts of the text to more
visible ideas that ease the reader getting the intended meaning. Specific aims of
using graphic organizers in teaching reading comprehension listed as following:
- Clarify and organize information into categories (main idea, supporting
details, topic sentence, facts, opinion, etc)
- Organize information in a paragraph for better understanding.
- Construct meaning of difficult words and sentence dividing into lexes.
- Understand the context by associating with prior knowledge.

- Identify conceptual and perceptual errors that may occur in the course of
reading a passage.
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Furthermore, the use of graphic organizers has yielded promising results in:
promoting learning performance; improving learning and thinking skills; and
increasing learning attitudes. From the characteristics of graphic organizers
above, it is believed that graphic organizers can improve students’ reading
comprehension in term of finding explicit information, vocabulary, main idea
and inference.
2. The Time & The Participants of The Study.
This study was carried out at my workplace - Le Loi high school - a school in
Tho Xuan district, Thanh Hoa province in academic year 2018-2019. The study
lasted for two months.
The participants of the study were 45 students from class 12A2 from every
corner of Tho Xuan district, by this I mean they are both from town and rural
areas. 40 of them are females and they are 17 years old. They have been
learning English for more than 7 years. According to their school report when
they were at grade 11, 6 of them were ranked as very good, 7 as good, 20 as
average, and 12 as poor at using English. In my study, students from class 12A2
were trained with using graphic organizers in reading lessons to decode
information from reading passages.
3. Reading Materials.
The reading materials used in the present study consisted of selected
texts based on the themes in English textbook 12, Education Publishing House.
This reader consisted of both expository and narrative texts for high school
students. The selection of the reading material was based on the following
parameters: (a) Complexity level (b) Variety of topics and (c) Lexical count.
4. The Procedures of the study

The Procedures of the study are as follows:
Step 1: Problem Identification
Problem identification is conducted by identifying problems of the students’
reading comprehension. In this case, the researcher makes use of Pre test
(Appendix 1).
A pre--test was administered to students to ascertain the standard of the
students in reading comprehension. The pre-test scores of students were recorded.
The test material was designed based on the scope of the study. It was
made up of one passage, totaling 10 questions which can be classified into five
types of reading questions:
(1) Identifying the main idea,
(2) finding the supporting details,
(3) understanding vocabulary,
(4) distinguishing fact from opinion and
(5) making inferences.
Out of 10 questions, there were 2 main idea questions, 2 supporting detail
questions, 2 vocabulary questions, 2 fact and opinion questions and 2 inference
questions. Each question was worth 1 mark and the sum total of the test was 10.
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Before administering the pre-test, it was important for the researcher to examine
the proficiency level of the students.
The result of the test showed the Students’ reading comprehension problems
at my school as following.
- Students had difficulty to identify explicit information of the text.
- Students had difficulty to comprehend the text as they lack of vocabulary.
- Students were unable to find main idea in paragraph.
- Students had difficulty to infer the meaning of the text.
Step 2: Analyzing the causes

Knowing that reading comprehension was still difficult for the students,
I tried to know what caused their difficulties. The difficulties of reading
comprehension were based on two aspects. They were from teacher and the
students.
From the teacher’s aspect, I saw that the process of teaching learning was not
inspiring. It could be seen the teacher seldom gave students motivation during the
class, hence students felt bored with the teaching technique.
Meanwhile, from the students’ aspect, I saw that the students’
vocabulary mastery was poor. Besides, the students have lack of motivation.
Furthermore students got difficulties in reading comprehension as the material
given by the teacher was difficult.
To overcome the problems above, I would like to
- Use selected text suited with their daily life experience and their interest
during the research as it easier to understand by the students.
- Use graphic organizers to improve students’ reading comprehension skill.
Step 3: Planning
After identifying the problems and its causes, I make a plan about what kind
of action that will be carried out. Then, I prepare everything dealing with the
research requirements such as preparing the material, making lesson plan,
preparing observation sheets to record students’ activities, and preparing teaching
aids and instrument.
Here is an example of the lesson plan I made to use in my study
Lesson plan is a proposal for actions in teaching activities. Knowing that case, I
designed the lesson plan as follows:
a)General Instructional Objectives:
The students will be able to comprehend the text.
b) Specific Instructional Process ·
- The students are able to find explicit information in the text.
- The students are able to comprehend the text.
- The students are able to find main idea in a paragraph of the text.

- The students are able to infer the meaning of the text.
c) Indicator: Using conflict dissection graphic organizer, students are able to;
- Find explicit information in a text
- Find word meaning in a text
.
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- Find main idea in a paragraph
- Inferring the meaning of the text
d) Time: week 15th, school year 2018-2019
e) Materials
The text about “tobacco smoking”
Sample Paragraph.
The well established dangerous effects of tobacco smoking such as lung
cancer, heart disease, and emphysema-bronchitis are familiar to many of us.
Cigarette smoking has probably caused more bodily harm than all the wars of
recorded history combined. The yearly death rate of lung cancer alone is over
80,000 in the United States. The major cause of lung cancer is cigarette
smoking. It has been estimated that during the past ten years cigarette smoking
was a causative factor in the deaths of at least 2 million Americans and countless
numbers of people in other countries where cigarette smoking is commonplace.
Statistics taken in 1992 determined that 20% of all deaths in the world occur due
to smoking. Smoking is still on the rise in the developing world but falling in
developed nations. About 15 billion cigarettes are sold daily – or 10 million
every minute according to 2002 WHO data. The rate of smoking amongst
women and people from Asian countries has risen steadily in recent years. It has
not merely reached epidemic proportions; it has become a scourge, a health
disaster unparalleled in the history of the world.
f) Teaching Learning Process

* The Opening: warm up
* Pre-reading activities
In this stage, the teacher introduced the students about graphic organizers
(GO). The teacher told the students that graphic organizer was kind of technique
which was employed to improve students’ reading comprehension. Then, the
teacher explained about GO strength, GO types and Go selection for explicit
information, vocabulary, main idea and inference.
Next, the teacher gave the students’ model how to apply one certain kind
of graphic organizer. During modeling, the teacher instructed the students to
note down teacher’s explanation. In modeling, first, the teacher displayed the
graphic organizer. Second, the teacher explained some words in its graphic
organizer: main idea supporting idea, fact and writer’s opinion, etc. Next, the
teacher identified the elements of the passage. After finding the elements of
passage, then, the teacher put the elements into the blank graphic organizer.
After that, the teacher inferred the practical value which was implicitly stated in
the passage. The last, the teacher answered all the questions in terms of and the
passage and graphic organizer employed.
* During-reading activities
During reading, the teacher distributed the text entitled “water” and the
blank graphic organizer. After distributing the text and the blank graphic
organizer, the teacher then introduce important vocabularies to the students.
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After that, the teacher instructed the students to read the text silently. Within
reading, the students checked their prior knowledge with the information
provided in the text. Then, the teacher asked the students to fill the Graphic
Organizer. When the students did the teacher’s instruction, the teacher observed
the students’ activity. After completing the graphic organizer, then the teacher
asked the students to share it together

* Post-reading activities
In this stage, the teacher asked the students about the content of the
passage. It is done to know whether the students understand the text or not.
Besides that, it trained the students’ bravery in answering the questions. After
that, teacher showed the best graphic organizer to student and asked them to take
notes as a model.

*Closing: Teacher summarized the main points in the lesson, assigned
home work
g) Tool/Media: internet- based computer, markers, large sheet of paper,
etc.
Step 4: Acting
In this stage, the researcher observed the action by making filed note of
instructional activity intended to know the class situation, what happened to
students and the instructional activities when graphic organizer was applied. Here,
the implementation of the action was planned: the instructional activity in the
classroom was conducted based on lesson plan.
Step 5: Observing
In this stage, I observed and monitored the activities in the classroom
during and after teaching learning process by making notes of students’ progress
on reading comprehension.
Step 6: Reflecting
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After carrying out teaching and learning activity using graphic
organizers, I recited the occurrences in the classroom as the effect of the action. I
and my colleagues evaluated the process and the result of the implementation of
graphic organizers in teaching reading comprehension and the improvement of
students’ performances.

Step 7: Revising the plan
The revision is carried out according to the weaknesses found in the previous
lessons. By revising the plan, it is hoped that the rest of the problems can be
handled in the following lessons
.
5. Technique of Collecting Data
In data collecting, I involved quantitative data. The quantitative data are
gained from tests: pre- and post test. It is conducted in order that I get the data
pertaining to whether or not there is significant improvement on students’ reading
comprehension after being introduced with graphic organizers technique.
6. Techniques of Analyzing Data
In analyzing quantitative data, I used descriptive statistics analysis. It is used
to find percentage of students’ achievement. The steps in analyzing quantitative
data are as follows: The quantitative data in numbers form gotten from
a. Checking the students’ answer on the written test that is carried out the
implementation of cycles whether they are right or wrong.
b. Computing the students’ correct answers.
c. Calculating the students’ score on written test. I calculated the percentage
of the correct answers of each student by using percentage correction. The
percentage is used to measure the students’ reading comprehension.
Result and discussion
1. Results of the study.
To know the students’ improvement, I gave the students post test after
applying GO and compared the score of the previous condition and those of the
post test. There were two sets of scores that I would like to compare between the
previous condition and the post test. There were the reading comprehension score
of each and the score of specific skill in reading comprehension measured in this
research. The complete comparisons of reading comprehension score could be
described in the following table.
Items of reading questions

Identifying the main idea
Finding the supporting details
Dealing with vocabulary
Dealing with Fact and opinion
Making Inferences

Before GO applied After GO applied
51%
77%
69%
82%
65%
89%
58%
79%
41%
78%

Based on the table above, it can be concluded that there was improvement
between students’ reading comprehension scores in preliminary research and the
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post test. In identifying the main idea the pretest score is 51% and 77% in the
post test with an increment of 26%. In finding the supporting details, the score
rises by 13% from 69% in the pretest to 82% in the post-test. For the third type
of question (vocabulary), there was a considerable increase of 24%, 65% and
89% in the pre-test and in the post-test respectively. For fact and opinion
questions the score of pre-test is 58% and 79% in the post test with an increment
of 21%. For questions pertaining to making inferences, the improvement was

also significant. The data gave the score as 41% in the pre-test and 78% in the
post-test.
Hence, we can conclude that using graphic organizers while reading helps
the students very much to comprehend a passage and to improve students’
reading comprehension performance.
.
2. Discussion
Based on the result of the study, I could identify some strengths and
weaknesses of the implementation of graphic organizer in teaching reading
comprehension.
2.1. The strength
- The students became more interested and motivated to join the class as
they were introduced a new technique that is GO.
- The students were familiar with the text, so it encouraged the students to
activate their background knowledge. By activating their background knowledge,
the students understood the text well.
- Graphic organizers were effective to solve the students’ difficulties on
reading comprehension, such as explicit information, vocabulary, main idea, and
inference.
- The researcher and the teacher actively discussed before and after meeting.
Together, they made reflection and evaluation of teaching-learning process. By so
doing, it is hoped that it can improve teaching proficiency.
2.2.The weaknesses.
A number of limitations should be stated related to this study.
- First of all, this sample study was formed by the English language
learners at pre intermediate level-there is a need for more studies to be formed
by other learners from different levels.
- Second, because of the rigid laws existing in schools, the time allocation
for the experiment was not that much satisfactory.
- Third, some questioners regarding the attitudes of learners and instructors

towards graphic organizers are needed.

C. CONCLUSSION
I. Conclusion
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The success of this study is giving students opportunities to express their
understanding of the reading orally, allow them to learn from each other and to
integrate the content of reading material into their knowledge base. Ideally it
promotes the notion of an exchange of information, helps to break down
traditional teacher-centredness, and begins to establish a variety of interaction
patterns in the classroom.
The implementations of graphic organizers in teaching reading improve
students’ reading comprehension. The improvements of students’ reading
comprehension are as follows:
Students are able to find explicit information of the text. Here, the students
are trained to identify the information in a text. By doing that, the students are
able to find information which is explicitly stated in a text.
Students are able to find the word meaning in a text. Their skills improved as
they were trained to reconstruct passage of the text into the graphic organizers.
Students are able to find main idea in a paragraph of the text. Their skills
improved during the process of teaching learning using graphic organizers. They
were trained to identify a problem and solution arising in a text. By doing so, the
students are able to find main idea in a paragraph of the text.
Students are able to infer the meaning of the text. Their skills improved as
they were trained to take a moral message or moral value of the text. The
improvement can also be concluded from their scores. Before the use of graphic
organizers their reading score was low but after the implementation of graphic
organizers, the score was much higher. It can be concluded that there is

improvement on the students reading comprehension skills as the scores are
gradually up from pre-research to the post test.
II. Suggestion
Based on the result of the study, teaching reading using graphic organizers
as a newly-develop technique is suitable technique to improve students’ reading
comprehension. the researcher could give suggestions for betterment of students’
reading comprehension as follows.
To implement graphic organizers, the teacher needs some steps. Here are
the steps for implementing graphic organizers:
- Modeling,
- Guided practice,
- Independent application.
1.
For English teachers
- For the sake of improvement of students’ reading comprehension, English
teachers are suggested to:
- Select and present material according to the students’ level and need
- Check readability of the text that is going to be applied for teaching.
- Encourage students to learn reading comprehension not only in the
classroom but also outside the classroom to make them more familiar with
different written English texts.
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- Select the appropriate graphic organizers for classroom usage.
- Explain graphic organizers explicitly when teachers gave modeling phase.
2. For the students
For the sake of successful learning of reading comprehension, students are
suggested to:
- Develop reading comprehension ability through forming reading habit to

enrich students’ vocabulary mastery.
- Use actively all vocabularies that have been learned into different skills.
- Train a lot in reading using different genre of the texts.
- Monitor the comprehension by generating questions and explain back
anything that has been learned.
- Don’t be shy to ask or consult a teacher or other related expert when
having difficulty.
3. For the school
For the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process, the school is
suggested to:
- Introduce graphic organizers among teachers in school
- Implement various graphic organizers to teach English especially reading
comprehension.
- Provide adequate facilities to support the success of the teaching learning
process.
Thanh Hoa, 25th May in 2019.
I hereby acknowledge that this
study is mine. The date and findings
discussed in the thesis are true, used
with permission from associates and have
not been published elsewhere.
Phạm Thị Lý

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REFERENCES
Bromley, K., Irwin-DeVitis, L. & Modlo, M. (1999). 50 graphic organizers for
reading, writing & more: Reproducible templates, student samples, and easy
strategies to support every learner. New York: Scholastic Professional Books.

Irwin-DeVitis, L. and Pease, D. (1995). Using graphic organizers for learning
and assessment in middle level classrooms. Middle School Journal, 26 (5), 5764.
Langford, P. A., Rizzo, S. K., & Roth, J. M. (2003). Improving student
comprehension in content areas through the use of reading strategies. Illinois:
M.A. Research Project, Saint Xavier University and Skylight Professional
Development. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED478769.)
Chi Fan, Y. (2010). The Effect of Comprehension Strategy Instruction on EFL
Learners’ Reading Comprehension. Asian Social Science, 6(8), 19-29.
/>Griffin, C. C., & Tulbert, B. L. (1995). The Effects of Graphic Organizers on
Students’ Comprehension and Recall of Expository Text: A review of the
Research and Implication of Practice. Reading and Writing Quarterly:
Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 11(1).
/>Anderson, N. (1999). Exploring second language reading: issues and
strategies. Heinle & Heinle. 53-56.
Hoang Van Van, 2006, English textbook 12, Education Publishing House.

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