The effects of summarization strategy on efl students reading comprehension of literary prose texts m a

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF SUMMARIZATION STRATEGY
ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION
OF LITERARY PROSE TEXTS

Submitted to the
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS &LITERATURE
In partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By
LÊ THỊ HIẾU

Supervised by
LÊ THỊ THANH, PhD

HO CHI MINH CITY, MAY 2014


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF SUMMARIZATION STRATEGY
ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION
OF LITERARY PROSE TEXTS

Submitted to the
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS &LITERATURE
In partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By
LÊ THỊ HIẾU

Supervised by
LÊ THỊ THANH, PhD

HO CHI MINH CITY, MAY 2014


STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis
is my own work. The thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other
purposes. I certify that the content of this thesis is the product of my own work
and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been
acknowledged.
Ho Chi Minh City, May 20th, 2014

Lê Thị Hiếu

i


RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL,
I accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities

relating to the retention and use of the thesis deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree the original version of the thesis to be
copied in whole or in part without further reference to the author, by the
Department’s Library or the English Resource Center (ERC), for study and
research purposes only, subject to normal conditions of the acknowledgement.
Ho Chi Minh City, May 20th, 2014

Lê Thị Hiếu

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of many individuals whom I have
been holding on to their valuable support.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude, first and foremost, to my
thesis supervisor, Dr. Le Thi Thanh for being such a close, warm-hearted and
inspirational mentor. Without her guidance and support, this thesis would have
been impossible.
I am also grateful to Dr. Nguyen Thu Huong for his valuable comments and
suggestions. Getting to know him and work under his wing at Hoa Sen University
have been a special opportunity for me.
My thanks also go to many teachers in the Department of English
Linguistics and Literature, who have made possible the expansion of my
knowledge and academic development during the TESOL course.
I also wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my special class-mate, Trinh
Hoang Yen, who supported me and made the implementation of my research
possible. I am also indebted to the 34 Literature students who joined in my
experiment in my investigation.

I appreciate the friendship of many individuals for their warm friendship
and support me through highs and lows of my work. My heartfelt thanks also go to
other class-mates who have accompanied me over the research years.
Finally I would like to dedicate this thesis to my beloved ones for their love
and encouragement that have been indispensable for maintaining my morale when
I met with health problems during my research.
Lê Thị Hiếu

iii


ABSTRACT
This study investigated the effects of summarization strategy, applied to
story summary writing, on Hoa Sen University EFL students’ reading
comprehension of short stories. It also examined the students’ attitudes towards
the summary writing task and their problems in doing the task. The participants for
this study were 34 third-year English major students enrolled in an introductory
course in Literature at Hoa Sen University. The students were from an intact
Literature class.
The data used for the study were the students’ scores on a reading
comprehension test, written questionnaires with 34 respondents and entries of the
student’s feedback (93 writings). The comparison of means scores between pretest
and posttest revealed that the students benefitted more by reading short stories
with summary writing. More importantly, the findings showed that there was a
statistically significantly difference on reading comprehension of short stories
before and after the training. Furthermore, half of the students reported they had
positive attitudes towards the task while the rest showed their neutral or negative
responses. The findings also indicated most of the students had difficulties in
summary and writing skills when doing the task.
This study suggests that reading short stories and writing summaries may

improve students’ text comprehension. The findings have implications for the
direct and explicit instruction of story summary writing, and writing can be a tool
for improving reading comprehension. The thesis makes recommendations for
future research on EFL students in an introductory literature class by considering
the possibility of using more writing tasks and different text types.
Key words: summarization strategy, reading, reading comprehension,
plot, summary writing, writing skills.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ....................................................................i
RETENTION OF USE ....................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................ iii
ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................... v
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .....................................................................1
1.1 Background of the Study............................................................................ 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem ........................................................................... 2
1.3 Purposes of the Study ................................................................................. 3
1.4 Research Questions .................................................................................... 4
1.5 Significance of the Study ........................................................................... 4
1.6 Definitions of Terms .................................................................................. 5
1.7 Scope and Limitation of the study ............................................................. 5
1.8 Outline of the Thesis................................................................................... 6
1.9 Summary ....................................................................................................6
CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ............................... 8
2.1 ESL/EFL Reading Comprehension ........................................................... 8
2.1.1 Nature of Reading ............................................................................. 9

2.1.2 Purposes of Reading ........................................................................... 9
2.1.3 Reading Processing… ........................................................................ 10
2.1.4 Factors in Comprehension .................................................................11
2.1.4.1 Reader factors in comprehension ................................................ 12
2.1.4.2 Text Factors in Comprehension ................................................... 12
2.1.4.3 Instructional Factors in Comprehension ......................................13
2.1.5 Bloom’s Taxonomy on Comprehension… ........................................ 13
2.1.6 Reading Comprehension Strategies .................................................. 15
2.2 Literary Prose Texts ................................................................................... 17
2.2.1 Definition of literary prose text ......................................................... 17
2.2.2 Literary Prose Text structure and features ......................................20
2.2.3 Reading comprehension of literary prose texts.................................23

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2.3 Approaches to teaching literary texts ........................................................ 24
2.3.1 Maley’s Approach ............................................................................. 24
2.3.2 Carter and Long’s Approach ........................................................... 25
2.3.3 Amer’s Approach ............................................................................... 25
2.3.4 Van’s Approach ................................................................................. 27
2.3.5 Timucin and Savvidou’s Integrated Approach ................................ 27
2.4 Summarization Strategy ............................................................................. 28
2.4.1 Definition of Summarization ............................................................. 28
2.4.2 Summarizing, Paraphrasing and Retelling .......................................29
2.4.3 Story Summary Writing ....................................................................31
2.4.3.1 Story Elements in Summary Writing ............................................ 31
2.4.3.2 Approaches to Summary Writing ................................................ 33
2.4.3.2.1 Story Structure Approach ................................................... 33
2.4.3.2.2 “Somebody-Wanted-But-So” Approach .............................. 34

2.4.3.3 Summary Writing Process ........................................................... 35
2.4.3.4 Evaluation of Summary Writing .................................................. 36
2.4.3.4.1 Evaluation Criteria .............................................................. 36
2.4.3.4.2 Methods of summary evaluation ......................................... 37
2.5 Previous Studies on Summarization and Summary Writing ................... 38
2.6 Conceptual framework of the study ......................................................... 42
2.7 Summary .....................................................................................................43
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................44
3.1 Research Design.......................................................................................... 44
3.2 Research Site .............................................................................................. 44
3.3 Participants .................................................................................................45
3.4 Research Instruments................................................................................. 45
3.4.1 The pilot study ......................................................................................... 45
3.4.1.1 Instruments........................................................................................ 45
3.4.1.1.1 The RCT ................................................................................... 45
3.4.1.1.2 The Questionnaire ....................................................................46
3.4.1.2 Results of the pilot study ...................................................................46

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3.4.1.3 Implications for the Main Study ........................................................ 48
3.4.2 The Main Study ....................................................................................... 48
3.4.2.1 Tests.......................................................................................................48
3.4.2.1.1 Pretest ........................................................................................... 48
3.4.2.1.2 Posttest ........................................................................................... 52
3.4.2.2 Questionnaire ........................................................................................ 52
3.4.2.3 Students’ Written Feedback.................................................................53
3.5 Data Collection Procedures ........................................................................ 53
3.5.1 Phase 1 .................................................................................................54

3.5.2 Phase 2 .................................................................................................55
3.5.3 Phase 3 .................................................................................................55
3.6 Data Analysis Methods............................................................................... 56
3.7 Summary .....................................................................................................56
CHAPTER4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ............................................... 57
4.1 RESULTS ...................................................................................................57
4.1.1 Findings from the Reading Comprehension Test (RCT)....................... 57
4.1.1.1 Pretest Results ................................................................................... 57
4.1.1.2 Posttest Results ................................................................................. 59
4.1.1.3 Participants’ Performance in Terms of Test types .............................. 60
4.1.1.4Effects of the Summarization Instruction on Reading Comprehension
..................................................................................................................... 62
4.1.2. Findings from the Questionnaire ........................................................... 63
4.1.2.1 Basic information about participants’ pre-class assignments ............. 64
4.1.2.2 Students’ Attitudes towards perceived story summary and reading
ability............................................................................................................ 65
4.1.2.3 Students’ Attitudes towards Summary task ........................................ 67
4.1.2.4 Students’ Problems towards Summary task .......................................69
4.1.2.5 Students’ Suggestions towards Summary .......................................... 70
4.1.3 Findings from the Students’ Written Feedback .....................................72
4.1.3.1 The First Entry of Feedback ............................................................. 72
4.1.3.2 The Second Entry of Feedback .......................................................... 74

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4.1.3.3 The Third Entry of Feedback............................................................. 75
4.2 DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS ........................................................... 76
4.2.1 Answer to Research Question 1 ............................................................ 77
4.2.2 Answer to Research Question 2 ............................................................ 77

4.2.2 Answer to Research Question 3 ............................................................ 79
4.2.4 Discussion ........................................................................................... 80
4.3 SUMMARY ................................................................................................ 82
CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY OF FIDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND
CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................. 83
5.1 Summary ....................................................................................................83
5. 2 Implications ............................................................................................... 84
5.3 Strength and Limitation of the Study ....................................................... 86
5.4 Recommendations for Further Research ................................................. 87
5.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................87

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Text Difficulty According to Students
Table 3.2 Pilot test’s Cronbach alpha coefficient
Table 3.3 Story Summary Rubrics
Table 4.1 Means, SD of Participants’ Performance on the Pretest
Table 4.2 Means, SD of Participants’ Performance on the Posttest
Table 4.3 Correlation coefficient of participants’ Pretest Results
Table 4.4 Correlation coefficient of participants’ Posttest Results
Table 4.5 Means, SD of Participants’ the Pretest and Posttest Results
Table 4.6 Comparison of Participants’ Performance on the Pretest and Posttest
Table 4.7 Frequency and percentage of respondents’ pre-class assignments
towards story reading and summary task
Table 4.8 Means of the Participants’ Attitudes in term of perceived Summary task
Table 4.9 Means of the Participants’ Attitudes in Terms of perceived story
Reading and Summary writing Ability
Table 4.10 Frequency/Percentage of Respondents’ Attitudes towards summary’s

advantages
Table 4.11 Frequency/Percentage of Respondents’ Attitudes towards summary’s
disadvantages
Table 4.12 Frequency, percentage of the participants’ problems in summarizing a
story
Table 4.13 Students overall attitudes in the three writing entries of feedback

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Freytag’s Pyramid
Figure 2.2 Conceptual Framework
Figure 4.1 Pretest’s results
Figure 4.2 Posttest’s results

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
RCT = Reading Comprehension Test
SGA = Story Grammar Approach
EFL/ESL = English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
It is agreed that well-developed reading comprehension is the key to students’
academic success. This comprehension ability is not a passive state which a learner
possesses, but is an active mental process which needs to be nurtured and improved. If
the process is to occur, comprehension involves a complicated combination of skills
in which students utilize their understanding of various elements, how to find main
ideas and details and make a distinction between the two. As Clark (1982) believes
this kind of active cognitive process of thinking and learning is accompanied by the

reconstruction, interpretation, and evaluation of reading materials.
The importance of academic reading has been recognized by many researchers.
Anderson (2000) stated that the ability to read academic texts is considered one of the
most important skills that university students of EFL/ESL need to acquire. Indeed,
reading comprehension skill has come to be the “essence of reading” (Durkin, 1993),
essential not only to academic learning in all subject areas but also to professional
success and lifelong learning.
However, due to the complexity inherent in the reading process, reading is also one of
the most difficult skills to develop to a high level of proficiency (Grabe, 2002). Many
students have difficulty in understanding what they read, particularly, in
comprehending academic texts.
Reading literary texts and writing summaries have recently received much attention in
teaching an introductory course of literature. This interest has evolved as researchers
have attempted to describe fundamental processes, i.e. forming a plot structure, that
take place when readers comprehend and summarize a literary text. In Vietnam, many
university English Departments offer a wide range of courses including a required
course in British and American literature. Studying language for aesthetic purposes

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enables students to enjoy literary texts at a level suitable to their language proficiency
and develops in them the ability to express themselves creatively” (Nadia, 2003).
Students need large amounts of comprehensible input, and reading many literary texts
provide the most readily available source. Stephen Krashen (1982) states that
introductory

courses

of

literature

provide

students

with

interesting

and

comprehensible language input in a low anxiety setting, i.e. texts that are based on a
narrative genre like novels, short stories. Therefore, reading and understanding
literary texts written in different cultural and historical periods require skills,
information, and imagination. Readers have to rely on their prior knowledge and
world experience when trying to comprehend the texts. The reading process,
therefore, involves identification of the text genre, text structure and topic, all of
which activate schemata and allow readers to comprehend the texts successfully.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Students majoring in English at Hoa Sen University are often assumed to be proficient
readers, and writers of the foreign language when they reach an introductory course in
British and American Literature. However, the fact is that very few students meet this
assumed standard of proficiency in this course, and many students are unable to
understand the assigned texts (Redmann, 2005). As a matter of fact, what the students
often lack is experience with the target language, especially when reading literary
texts. Their L2 reading of literary texts could be somewhat slower and less successful
than L1 reading because of the levels of readers’ proficiency, text difficulty, and task
demands (Alderson, 2000).

Meanwhile, the relationship between reading and writing has long been recognized,
and it is agreed that reading and writing cannot be separated. Reading and writing
interaction has received considerable attention from theorists and researchers.
Findings of research in L2 reading and writing repeat each other to a large degree.
Many researchers point out that successful L2 readers and writers use similar
strategies interactively in reading and repeatedly in writing. In contrast, according to
Leki (1997), less successful readers and writers seem to do the same thing. They
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access the text on the page rather than the meaning potential of that text, the forms of
the letters and words rather than the important connections between them.
Up to now, language skills are still mostly taught as distinct skills (Lee, 2008). Low
comprehenders have difficulty using writing to make sense of their reading, and this is
a serious problem because tasks that require students to write about texts are required
at all levels of schooling and assessment. Also, research on reading comprehension
and research on writing make little mention of interventions for helping EFL students
to develop their abilities for writing about text. Therefore, Grabe (2004) suggested
that it is essential to give consideration to reading as well as writing in reading-writing
research.
Based on Hoa Sen University English majors’ problems in reading comprehension of
literary texts on the one hand, and the strong connections between reading and writing
in a Literature course on the other hand, one of the ways to improve the students’
reading comprehension of literary texts might be to introduce writing tasks into the
Literature classroom. Some might suppose that story summary writing as a kind of
reading comprehension strategies would be an effective strategy to smooth the
progress of the cognitive process of text comprehension. However, in an introductory
literature class, students are generally told to summarize the literary texts but they are
not given enough instructions for making the best use of this strategy, as a result,
limiting, or sometimes counteracting the effective use of it.

1.3 Purpose of the study
The purpose of this study is two-fold:
-

To find out the effectiveness of the summary instruction on EFL students’ reading

comprehension of literary prose texts.
-

To investigate students’ attitudes on the summary writing of literary prose texts

and their difficulties in doing this task.

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1.4 Research questions
The three research questions below will guide the study.
1. How does the summary writing instruction facilitate EFL students’ reading
comprehension of literary prose texts?
2. What are students’ attitudes toward the summary writing of literary prose texts? To
what extent do students have positive and negative views on the task of summary
writing?
3. What are students’ difficulties in writing summaries of literary prose texts?
1.5 Significance of the study
Though there have been many L1 researches on the roles of summarization, they have
seldom been examined in ESL/EFL, especially in summarizing literary texts to
support reading. This study aimed to fill in the gap and examine the effects of the
summarization strategy on EFL students’ reading comprehension of literary prose
texts through summary writing. The primary significance of this study is that it may

add new information to L2 studies on reading comprehension of literary works.
Second, besides adding information to L2 studies on reading comprehension, this
study may improve insight into the reading-writing relationship in a Literature
classroom by involving to source-based writing, that is, summary writing. Shanahan
(1988) noted that combining reading and summary writing instructionally is complex,
and he argued for the need to design experiments that show how to do that most
productively.
Finally, the findings of this study may have implications for students learning English
Literature. Students can improve reading comprehension of literary texts by applying
the summary writing task developed from this study. As the result, story
comprehension may motivate them to appreciate the literary texts in some other ways,
like writing responses or rewriting the texts.

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1.6 Definitions of Terms
The following terms are used in the present study:
Summarization: summarizing is a broader, more synthetic activity for which
determining importance is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. The ability to
summarize information requires readers to sift through large units of text,
differentiate important from unimportant ideas, and then synthesize those ideas and
create a new coherent text that stands for, by substantive criteria, the original. This
sounds difficult, and the research demonstrates that, in fact, it is (Dole, Duffy,
Roehler, and Pearson, 1991).
Literary Prose Text: A literary prose text is a literary work written in complete
sentences which formed into paragraphs. Short stories, novels and manyplays are
written in prose and considered as literary prose texts. The coverage of this study is
on short stories due to the characteristics of course materials.
Story Summary: Basically, a story summary is based on a plot summary, adding more

basic information about the story’s name of author, setting and characters and theme.
A standard story summary should include important elements of the setting of a story,
the main characters, and the plot, presented as a condensed from the complete story
(Kazantseva and Szpakowicz, 2007).
1.7 Scope and Limitation of the Thesis
This thesis was conducted to chiefly determine the impact of summary writing
instruction on Hoa Sen University English majors’ comprehension of short stories
during the first semester of the academic year 2011-2012. Due to the fact that many
L1 researches focused on the effects of summarization strategy on expository texts,
the researcher chose literary prose texts to measure how summary writing instruction
affects students’ reading comprehension of these texts.
In this academic year 2011-2012, there were not many students who registered the
course of British-American Literature. The total number was 34 students. Due to that

5


situation, the sample could not be divided into 2 groups, the control group and the
experimental one. Therefore, the thesis was carried out using the One Group PretestPosttest Design.
1.8 Outline of the Thesis
This thesis is organized into five chapters. Chapter One provides an overview of the
study, including background of the study, statement of the problem, the purposes and
research questions, the significance of the study, and definitions of key terms.
To answer the research questions, the researcher has reviewed the related theories and
previous research studies in the field. This is developed in Chapter Two and includes
a literature review on L2 reading, comprehension of literary texts, and summary
writing (writing based on sources).
Chapter Three provides an overview of the methodological design of the study,
including the description of the participants, the variables, the data collection
instruments, and data analysis methods, as well as data collection procedures. Also, it

reports the results of the pilot study and describes the main study.
Chapter Four presents the result analyses of the data elicited through the pretest and
posttest, the students’ attitudes and difficulties towards summarization from the
questionnaires. It also elicits students’ written feedback on the matter. Chapter Four
also discusses the results of the research findings of the present study.
Chapter Five summarizes the main findings of the present study in response to the
research questions, establishing the pedagogical implications of such results and their
limitations. Some suggestions for further research in the field are outlined in this
chapter.
1.9 Summary
In chapter I, the researcher has given a description of the background of the study.
The statement of the problem, the research purpose and questions, the significance of
the study, and the key terms used in the study were briefly discussed. An outline of
this study was given in the final part of the chapter. In the next chapter, a review of

6


the theories and research on L2 reading, comprehension of literary texts, and
summary writing will be presented.

7


CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 ESL/EFL Reading Comprehension
For ESL/EFL learners to read, they have to be prepared to use various skills and
strategies they already possess from their reading experiences in their native language.
Researchers have established that the act of reading is a non-linear process that is

recursive and context-dependent. Among many studies in reading, two of the most
widely cited and agreed-upon definitions of reading are as follows:
Reading is the process of constructing meaning from written texts. It is a complex
skill requiring the coordination of a number of interrelated sources of information
(Anderson et al., 1985).
Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction
among: (1) the reader's existing knowledge; (2) the information suggested by the text
being read; and (3) the context of the reading situation (Wixson, Peters, Weber, &
Roeber, 1987).

For newer definitions, different researchers use the term “reading” in different ways.
According to McNeil (1992), reading is making sense out of texts. Although writers
structure texts for their given purposes, readers interpret what they read in order to
arrive at their own construction of what the text means to them. Heilman, Blair, and
Rupley (1998) defined reading as the active process of constructing meaning from
written text in relation to the experiences and knowledge of the reader. Grabe (2004)
suggested the following five abilities should be seen as definitional for reading: a
rapid and automatic process, an interacting process, a flexible and strategic process, a
purposeful process, and a linguistic process. As far as reading comprehension is
concerned, Grabe (2004) also suggested that it “implies processing efficiency,
language knowledge, strategic awareness, extensive practice in reading, cognitive
resources in working memory to allow critical reflection, and appropriate purposes for
reading” (Grabe, 2004, p. 19).

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2.1.1 Nature of Reading
According to Alderson (2000), reading is such a complicated process that researchers
have found it impossible to identify its overall features. Nevertheless, there are some

characteristics which have been commonly recognized.
First, there is an interaction between a reader and the text during the process of
reading. While reading, the reader thinks about what the text means to him, how he
understands it or how the text is useful, entertaining, or boring to him. Consequently,
as Alderson (2000) pointed out, the reading process may be dynamic and variable.
Different readings of the same text vary, not just from reader to reader but from
reading to reading by the same reader, depending on how each reading configured
within the reader’s experience.
Second, there are different levels of understanding of a text. Alderson (2000)
suggested that “reading for inferred meanings is deeper than it is for literal meaning.”
At the same time, reading for critical evaluation of a text is even more highly valued
than literal understanding. In other words, the levels of understanding vary from one
to another in a hierarchical way.
2.1.2 Purposes of Reading
Reading is an activity with purpose. Grabe and Stoller (2002) say that reading is
always purposeful not only in the sense that readers read in varied ways derived from
differing reading purposes, but also in the sense that some individual purposes or
tasks, whether imposed internally or externally, activate readers’ motivation to read a
given text. According to Grabe and Stoller (2002, p.11), there are four main reading
purposes as follows:
1) Reading to get general comprehension which is the most basic purpose for
reading;
2) Reading to search for information when a reader scans the text for some specific
information and skims for a general idea;
3) Reading to learn when a reader needs to learn a considerable amount of
information from a text; and
4) Reading to integrate information when a reader responses, evaluates, composes,
selects and critiques information being read.

9

Different purposes for reading determine that one text may be read in a variety of
styles. Most researchers would agree that the major purpose of reading should be the
construction of meaning – generally comprehending and actively responding to what
is read.
2.1.3 L2 Reading Processing
Reading is dynamic, requiring active, meaningful communication between the author
and the reader (Heilman et al., 1998). Fluent reading requires efficient cognitive
processing by the reader. In the history of research on reading comprehension, there
have been three processing recognized: bottom-up, top-down, and interactive
processing.
Bottom-up Processing
Readers are assumed to decode precisely from letters into words, from words into
larger grammatical units and finally to the understanding of the text. Readers
recognize letters, words, sentences, and text structure. In this view, reading is initiated
by examining the printed symbols and requires little input from the reader (Walberg et
al., 1981, as cited in Roe et al., 2005). In bottom-up models, reading comprehension
is achieved through accurate and sequential processing of text and comprehension is
regarded as text driven and controlled by the text only (Gove, 1983).
Top-down Processing
Different from decoding in precise or sequential fashion in bottom-up processing, topdown processing requires readers to attack the text with expectations of meaning
developed before and during the processes, making use of the text information when
they need to confirm and extend their expectations (Eskey, 2005). In top-down
processing, the act of reading begins with the reader generating hypotheses or
predictions about the material, using visual cues in the material to test these
hypotheses as necessary (Walberg et al., 1981, as cited in Roe et al., 2005).
According to top-down proponents, prior knowledge plays a vital role in reading.

10

Interactive Processing
According to the interactive model of reading, the information-processing system in
reading consists of different levels of processing that operate in a parallel manner. It
depicts reading as a combination of top-down and bottom-up processing in continuous
interaction (Roe et al., 2005). This view assumes that students are simultaneously
processing information from the text being read and information from their
background knowledge. The readers form the meaning of the text through interaction
of a variety of their mental processes to work at different levels such as using the
bottom up process to identify the meaning and grammatical category of word,
sentence syntax, and text details. At the same time that the data-driven processing
level is doing visual analysis, the syntactic and semantic processing systems are
operating to generate hypotheses about the interpretation of the visual information
coming from visual analyses (Nassaji, 2003). Harmer (2007) considered a wider range
of potential interactions by asserting that “meaning is not entirely in either the text or
the reader but is created as a result of the interactions among reader, text, teacher
and classroom community”.
It can be seen from the above review of L2 reading processing that reading is more
than active. Reading is a dynamic interaction between the writer and the reader. The
reader creates meaning for the text by “retaining newly acquired knowledge,
accessing recorded and stored knowledge and attending to the writer’s clues as to the
meaning intended for the text” (Cohen, 1990). In short, reading calls for the reader’s
active interaction with the text being read.
2.1.4 Factors in Comprehension
As Hammadou (1991) claimed, L2 reading comprehension is a complex process that
not only entails understanding texts but also entails “building a model within the mind
of the comprehender” (Hammadou (1991, p.27). The mental process behind reading
comprehension is an important aspect to teaching usable strategies to students because
it allows the instructor to analyze which techniques will be most beneficial to learners.

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Paul Van den Broek and Kathleen E. Kremer (2000), in the book Reading for
Meaning: Fostering Comprehension in the Middle Grades, note that at each point
during reading, the comprehender attempts to make sense of the information explicitly
stated in the current sentence by connecting it to two other sources of information:
associated concepts in background knowledge and a subset of concepts from
preceding sentences. When the reader is satisfied with the attained level of
comprehension, he or she proceeds to the next sentence and the process repeats itself
(p.7).
At its core, reading for general comprehension is “an interactive process involving the
reader, the text, and the context” (Block et al., 2002, p.5). Comprehension is a
complex process that involves three factors as follows and can succeed or break down
based on the reader’s own skills.
2.1.4.1 Reader factors in comprehension
The reader factors influence comprehension ability. According to Van den Broek and
Kremer (2000), students have many characteristics that can limit or enhance their
capacity to comprehend text. These qualities include the reader’s attention span,
short-term memory, ability to concentrate, motivation, knowledge of comprehension
strategies, reasoning skills, decoding and grammar skills, and prior knowledge.
Moreover, reading requires the student to “construct a mental ‘picture’ of the text”
(p.2), involving the learner’s ability to decode words in order to understand the
purpose of the information. With proficiency and perseverance in these skills,
students can magnify their success with reading comprehension and reach their goals
of learning and understanding.
2.1.4.2 Text Factors in Comprehension
Van den Broek and Kremer (2000) point to two textual qualities that influence a
reader’s comprehension level: content and structure. A book’s content refers to the

subject matter and the amount of supplemental information provided. According to
the authors, when a text’s content contains unclear or extraneous information, the
reader becomes easily distracted and confused with the text. Similarly, a text’s
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structure influences the reader’s comprehension. Grammar and organization can
easily expand a reader’s comprehension ability. If mechanics is incorrect or
disorganized, students will spend most of their energy on decoding the individual
words instead of understanding the material as a cohesive whole. Generally, text’s
content and structure equally cooperate to create the mental picture in the student’s
mind and can make or break the reader’s comprehension abilities.
2.1.4.3 Instructional Factors in Comprehension
The context of reading instruction can also affect the student’s comprehension
abilities. Van den Broek and Kremer (1999) list instructional factors in
comprehension, including the presence of distracters, the teacher’s explicit or implicit
instructions, the teacher’s expectations, and educational goals. As students become
more proficient in reading they may be able to ignore distractions, but early and
struggling readers must read in environments that minimize disruption. Explicit
instruction is another key to unlocking a student’s reading potential. Armbruster,
Lehr, and Osborn (2001) explain that, “in explicit instruction, teachers tell readers
why and when they should use strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply
them” (p. 53). Clearly explaining and instructing reading comprehension strategies are
critical teacher activities that prepare students for reading success. By explaining and
modeling appropriate use of comprehension strategies, teachers can influence students
to actively apply comprehension tactics in order to increase their understanding of
reading material. Similarly, teacher expectations and goals can influence reading
comprehension. If a teacher has too-low or too-high expectations for student
achievement, learners may not take reading assignments seriously or be so
overwhelmed by the task that they set themselves up for failure.

2.1.5 Bloom’s Taxonomy on Comprehension
Bloom’s Taxonomy (the revised one) includes six cognitive process categories - one
most closely related to retention (Remembering) and the other five increasingly
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related to transfer (Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating and Creating).
These cognitive processes are intended to be mutually exclusive.
For the goal of instruction is to promote retention, the most important cognitive
process is Remembering. However, when the goal of instruction is to promote
transfer, the focus shifts to the other five cognitive process categories, Understanding
through Creating. Of these, the arguably largest category of transfer-based
educational objectives emphasized in schools and colleges is Understanding (Mayer,
2001). Students are said to comprehend or understand when they are able to construct
meaning from instructional messages including oral, written, and graphic
communications, and material presented during lectures, in books, or on computer
monitors. Students understand when they build connections between the new
knowledge to be gained and their prior knowledge. More specifically, the incoming
knowledge is integrated with existing schemas and cognitive frameworks. Cognitive
processes in the category of Understanding include interpreting, exemplifying,
classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
 Interpreting (also called clarifying, paraphrasing, or translating) occurs when
students are able to convert information from one form of representation to another.
 Exemplifying (also called illustrating) occurs when students find a specific
example or instance of a general concept or principle.
 Classifying (also called categorizing) occurs when students determine that
something, e.g., a particular instance or example, belongs to a certain category (e.g.,
concept or principle).
 Summarizing (also called abstracting or generalizing) occurs when students
produce a short statement that represents presented information or abstracts a general

theme. The length of the summary depends to a certain extent on the length of the
presented material. For example, a sample objective in history could be "Learn to
write summaries of events portrayed pictorially." A corresponding assessment item
involves asking students to watch a videotape about the American Revolution and
then write a cohesive summary.
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