Teachers should pay more attention to developing efficient teaching strategies that would foster the acquisition of those skills by children. With regard, the metacognition, graphic organizers, and recognizing the structure of the texts and stories should be among the most effective strategies enhancing reading comprehension.
The training module is designed for 3rd grade children and, therefore, the texts designed for the lessons should not be long and difficult. The volunteers, therefore, should be more focused on analysis of children’s aptness to listen to a teacher and provide the corresponding modifications to the curriculum.
According to Cubukcu (2008), metacognitive strategies contribute to the development of vocabulary and reading comprehension. Applying to this technique, a teacher should answer the following questions:
- “What do I want out of this?”
- “How do I propose going about getting there?”
The importance of introducing graphic organizers is also essential because visual aids can advance comprehension and promote children’s understanding of the major in the text (Leddy, 2011). For instance, volunteers can provide visual materials as a support for the reading texts. Reading accompanied by illustrations fosters’ children’ understanding of the literary resources. In addition, the teacher should also explain children why reading is beneficial, as well as how reading can ensure greater opportunities.
Finally, recognition of the text structure is another important technique to de applied in the classroom (Latawiec, 2010). The task of a teacher is to help children design characters, plot, setting, and problems highlighted in the reading. Reading structuring is a part of a cognitive process, and children can learn to structure the text and extract the most important information out of the reading.
The Steps Involved In Teaching Each Strategy
Metacognition
The task of a teacher is to propose students to read the text aloud and retell what has been read. The volunteer should apply a silent reading technique to define whether this approach is more efficient as compared to reading aloud. The teacher should contrast and compare these techniques by asking questions about the text and defining the extent to which children cover the main idea of the reading.
Visual Aids and Graphic organizers
The teacher should apply additional techniques to accompany reading. For instance, they can provide children with a PowerPoint presentation explicating the content of the reading through illustrations. Alternatively, educators can ask children to draw characters and associated events. They can also apply to bodily language to provide a detailed account about the themes from the reading.
Text structure
Text structure analysis is also an important contribution to the reading comprehension strategy. The teachers should be concerned with the ways children can extract important information from the text. For instance, the teachers can pose questions that should allow children to search for the answers in the text. In such a manner, students can find out the most suitable topics and ideas.
Application of the Proposed Strategies
Provided teachers ask students to read a specific passage from the text. In order to accomplish the above-proposed strategies:
- Conduct a test lesson to define children’s strengths and weaknesses;
- Divide children into groups in accordance with their abilities and skills;
- Apply various teaching strategies with regard to the skills.
While evaluating children performance, teachers should do assessments individual to measure the performance of each student.It is important for children to find out correlation between the textual information and illustrations. In such a manner, it is possible to define how children’s reading comprehension skills are improved. In addition, it is possible to analyze the pictures that children have provided after reading the text.
Finally, the character and theme analysis can also provide children with deeper knowledge of the text and enhance their reading comprehension skills. Applying this technique can also involve listening. For instance, a teacher can read a passage and offer a list of questions that should be answered.
All these approaches combined, the education can significantly enhance their teaching strategies, as well as provoke children’s interest into a learning process. In addition, it can also contribute to an individual-centered technique and develop new directions in reading and understanding texts.
Discussion of Modifications
The analysis of peer reviews has provided a new vision on the analysis of teaching strategies designed for 3rd grade children. The volunteers should be more concerned with estimating children’s level of reading comprehension, as well as efforts they make to improve their reading skills. The modifications made to the training module also introduce systematic instructions for volunteers who should adhere to a set of recommendations and techniques. They should also be familiar with learner-centered approach, which will allow them to introduce an advanced approach to reading comprehension training module.
In addition to the structural correction, specific attention should also be paid to the audience involved into the training model development. Introducing the characteristics of children is indispensible to improving the academic curriculum. Therefore, the correction made in this field will provide a narrow-focused approach to a learning process. Alternatively, generalized strategies will not bring in the desirable outcomes.
References
Cubukcu, F. (2008). Enhancing Vocabulary Development and Reading Comprehension through Metacognitive Strategies. Issues in Educational Research. 18(1), 1-11.
Latawiec, B. (2010). Text Structure Awareness as a Metacognitive Strategy Facilitating EFL/ESL Reading Comprehension and Academic Achievement. International Journal Of Learning, 17(5), 25-48.
Leddy, T (2011). Reading Comprehension Strategy in a Remedial Elementary Classroom. Northern Michigan University, pp. 1-39.