Selected Reading Strategies in Reading Instruction

There are various types of reading strategies. Based on the design of research method used in this study, the two selected reading strategies are inference making and summarizing strategy through graphic organizers (GOs). The significance of selecting these strategies and empirical studies on this research topic are elaborated as follows.

Inference Making

Inference making is a mental process that makes conclusion through a specific evidence. It may be a guess from clues. Through the guessing process, readers reflect their prior knowledge, experience, personal beliefs, or assumptions, and then link them to the presented literal words (Harvey, 2011). The ability to make inferences leads to better comprehension abilities (Tang et al., 2013). Previous research has claimed that to comprehend a text successfully, readers think beyond the words and read between the lines to generate implicit meanings to make up for the missing information (Alderson, 2000; Pearson & Johnson, 1978). Inference generation is also considered to be among the most central parts of promoting reading comprehension, because generating inferences helps readers become more conscious of the need to

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search actively for meanings in the text (Kendeou, Bohn-Gettler, White, & Van Den Broek, 2008; Tarchi, 2015).

Inference making is a higher-order thinking strategy, and requires a systematic instruction for EFL language learners. McKown & Barnett (2007) suggested that teachers need to carry out inference making strategy instruction in the classroom.

Other studies have showed how to use inferring strategy in the classroom so that students’ make progress in reading (Clinton, 2015; Elbro & Buch-Iversen, 2013; Hall, 2016).

Elbro & Buch-Iversen (2013) conducted an experimental study consisting of 236 sixth-grade students to explore the effect of teaching how to use background

knowledge in the context of gap-filling inferences, as failure to use such knowledge could be a cause of poor reading comprehension. In the experiment, students practiced gap-filling inferences with expository texts through inference-demanding questions.

Clinton (2015) aimed to examine the connections between reading motivation and inference generation during reading. Sixty-nine undergraduates read two science articles while thinking aloud, completed a standardized reading comprehension assessment, and self-reported their habitual reading motivation. The results indicated that overall reading motivation, which contained intrinsic (reading as a sense of self) and extrinsic (reading to do well in other realms) motivation, positively related to the performance of inference generation application. In a synthesis study, Hall (2016) assessed the effect of inference instruction on enhancing reading outcomes for struggling readers who were elementary and intermediate grades. According to the study, although struggling readers were less likely to make inferences than proficient readers while reading the text, the former benefited more from inference instruction than proficient readers.

The above three studies illustrated the important relationship of stimulating

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background knowledge, activating reading motivation, and inference generating instruction to improve reading comprehension. Previous research has showed that the lack of inference-making skills of poor readers has a direct impact on their reading comprehension ability (Duke, 2004; Oakhill, Yuill, & Donaldson, 1990). Winne and And (1993) stated two reasons for poor readers having difficulties in inferencing. One, they may lack relevant prior knowledge as input and, two, they fail to stir relevant prior knowledge because of a production deficiency in making use of past experiences.

However, few empirical studies on reading comprehension interventions specifically have addressed inference-making strategy on EFL learners who are deficient in reading strategy regulation (Tarchi, 2015).

Summarizing Strategy through Graphic Organizers (GOs)

Summarizing strategy is an useful metacognitive strategy used to check reading comprehension, monitor reading progress, and help learners to identify and organize the most important information in the text. The ability to summarize text serves as a powerful comprehension strategy (Marzano, 2010). Researchers have found that summarizing strategy helps learners develop better reading comprehension and encourages readers to select, reorganize, and generate information, which boost active reading and learning (Casazza, 1993; Dickson, Collins, Simmons, & Kameenui, 1998;

Pressley, 1998; Radmacher & Latosi-Sawin, 1995). Researchers have reported that young EFL learners are seemingly deficient in analyzing text and summarizing

information independently, but few studies have focused on these problems (Dromsky, 2011; Duffy, 2002; Friend, 2001).

According to Brown and Day’s (1983) study, the rules of writing a summary are now widely used in writing instruction; these rules includes “deleting trivial

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materials,” “deleting important but redundant materials,” “substituting a superordinate term for a list of items,” “substituting a superordinate event for a list of events,”

“selecting a topic sentence,” and “inventing a topic sentence if a topic sentence is not provided” (Walker, 2008). Teaching students to write summaries by using approaches has been found more effective for reading comprehension improvement than teaching summarization rules (Jitendra, Hoppes, & Xin, 2000). The visual representation of information, such as graphic organizers (GOs), has been used to teach how texts are structured and summarized; according to studies, the use of GOs makes students learn more hierarchical relations (Robinson & Kiewra, 1995).

In this study, the GO is adopted as a method for presenting the summary to students. GOs are visual presentations that display the relationship between facts, terms, concepts, and ideas. They make the relationship between associated facts or concepts more obvious, facilitate retention by making abstract concepts more concrete, and connect new information using prior knowledge (Mayer, 1984). Compared with written form of summary, GOs involve both visual and verbal input, provide

information that the linear organizer (e.g., outlines, lists, etc.) cannot display, and are more readily understood by others (Gallavan & Kottler, 2007; Paivio, 2013; Robinson

& Kiewra, 1995). Moreover, recognizing the text structure is a critical factor in comprehension improvement, and GOs make the text of structure apparent (Meyer, 1982). Readers who know how a text is structured have better ideas of what

information comes next (Iwai, 2011). Other researchers have found that when GOs are used in conjunction with summarizing strategy, the quality of students’

summarizing capability and reading comprehension are improved (Dollins, 2011;

Furtado & Johnson, 2010). GOs assist learners to establish the sense of a summary and read effectively.

Researchers have found that the quality of students’ summarizing ability is

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improved when GOs are used (Dollins, 2011; Furtado & Johnson, 2010). In Dollins’

(2011) action-research case study, she endeavored to improve the summarization skills of first-grade students who were reading at or above the third-grade level. The teacher guided her students to understand nonfiction texts, and then the students successfully wrote the summary using the GO. Furtado and Johnson’s (2010) study is similar to Dollins’ (2011); they aimed to enhance the summarization skills of

first-grade students. However, in the former study, students read not only nonfiction literary selections but also fiction ones to help identify and understand exposition and narrative text structures. Students also used GOs to record information, organize, and structure their paragraph summaries within each genre. The above two studies

reported that a GO assists to bridge the gap from a linear text to a more visual representation, and organizes information to better distinguish important details.

Dollins’ (2011) students stated that GOs were better equipped to summarize and comprehend texts.

Among various kinds of GOs, story map was selected to be used during the process of applying summarizing strategy using picture books in this study. A story map is a visual framework for readers to facilitate their identification, organization, and analysis of story structure (Reutzel, 1985; Stagliano & Boon, 2009; Stetter &

Hughes, 2010). Blanks are given in a story map which the setting (characters, time, and place), problem, goal, action, and outcome of story are filled in (Alves, Kennedy, Brown, & Solis, 2015; Mathes, Fuchs & Fuchs, 1997). Story map is an instructional tool that has been found effective to improve students reading comprehension skills of a narrative or a story, and assists students with their writing (Alves et al., 2015; Boon, Paal, Hintz, & Cornelius-Freyre, 2015; Mahdari & Tensfeldt, 2013; Stetter & Hughes, 2010). Hence, a story map can be applied to analyze a story structure of picture books and assist students in writing a summary.

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2.1.5 Empirical Studies on Reading Strategy Instruction and Reading