推論與摘要策略教學結合英文繪本閱讀對台灣國中生之成效探究

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩. 士. 論. 文. Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 推論與摘要策略教學結合英文繪本閱讀對台灣國中生之成效探究. A Study of Inference Making and Summarizing Strategy Instruction with English Picture Books Reading for Junior High School Students 指導教授：李宜倩博士 Advisor: Dr. Yi-Chien Lee 研究生：杜貞儀 Chen-Yi Tu. 中華民國 106 年 6 月 June, 2017.

(2) 摘要本研究旨在探究推論與摘要策略教學結合英文繪本閱讀對台灣國中生之成效，以及過程中學生的學習經驗。本研究提出了兩個研究問題：(一)推論、摘要策略教學結合英文繪本閱讀，可以促進國中生推論與摘要策略的學習嗎？(二) 過程中，學生對於推論、摘要策略教學結合英文繪本閱讀的學習看法如何？研究對象為一個國中七年級的普通班，共二十五位學生。在推論與摘要策略教學中，共搭配四本英文繪本讓學生閱讀。整個過程為期一個月，共八堂課。資料收集方式包含前後測、問卷、訪談、學習單、教學日誌以期提高研究結果的可信度。研究結果顯示，第一，推論與摘要策略教學結合英文繪本閱讀可有效的促進學生推論與摘要策略的學習。第二，學生對此課程多抱持正向的看法，主要為推論、摘要策略的學習可以幫助他們在閱讀上更有效率；而英文繪本因為有完整的故事、豐富的內容、圖片的輔助，所以對推論、摘要策略的學習有正向的幫助。本研究在最後根據結果提出教學建議、研究限制，以及未來相關研究的方向，供日後作為參考。. 關鍵字：閱讀策略教學、英文繪本、推論、摘要. i.

(3) ABSTRACT This present study aims to examine the effects and explore the learning experience of inference making and summarizing strategy instruction with picture books on junior high school students in Taiwan. The following two research questions are investigated in this study: (1) Can the reading strategy instruction using picture books reading facilitate junior high school students’ learning of inference making and summarizing strategy? (2) What is the students’ perception of their learning experience on the reading strategy instruction using picture books? The participants were one regular seventh-grade class with twenty-five students. Four picture books were employed in the reading strategy instruction. The intervention lasted for one month and included eight classes. Data from various sources were collected to validate the results, including the Pre- and Post-test of the reading strategies application, the Pre- and Post-study questionnaire on participants’ responses, interview, participants’ worksheets, and teacher’s reflective journal. The two major findings can be summarized as follows. Firstly, reading strategy instruction with picture books facilitated the learning of inferencing making and summarization. Secondly, participants’ perceptions toward the overall curriculum were positive. The two reading strategies made the participants become active and effective readers. Picture books effectively promoted the learning of the two strategies because of its complete storyline, rich contextual clues, and words with illustrations. Based on the findings of this study, pedagogical implications were proposed, and suggestions for future research were discussed.. Keywords: Reading strategy instruction, English picture books, Inference making, Summarization ii.

(4) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is accomplished with the assistance of many people. I would like to appreciate their kind and warm support. First of all, my utmost gratitude goes to my advisor, Dr. Yi-Chien Lee. In the beginning phase of my thesis writing, her guidance helped me clarify and narrow down the topic of my interested research area. During every meeting, the insightful advice and feedback from her made me find solutions to deal with the difficulties I confronted. Moreover, she was always considerate and offered consistent encouragement to me so that I was able to drive away the pressure and be more confident in the writing process. She is a great researcher and a wonderful teacher. I really learn a lot from her. I would also like to express the deepest gratitude to my committee members, Dr. Mei-Chen Wu and Dr. Wen-Jiun Huang. Their valuable comments enriched my thesis and better improved the quality of my work to make it more organized and complete. I am truly thankful for their constructive suggestions. Moreover, the appreciation is extended to my colleagues who are two experienced English teachers in the junior high school. They helped me check the comprehension tests in this study to assure validity and provided me with many practical recommendations during the instructional process. Special thanks go to my friendly classmates in NTNU for their generous help inside and outside class all the time. Last but not least, I am grateful to my family. Their love accompanies me along the way and gives me power to keep moving on.. iii.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS 摘要................................................................................................................................. i ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. iv LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 1 1.1 Background and Motivation ............................................................................ 1 1.1.1 Problems in Reading Instruction ........................................................... 1 1.1.2 Research Rationale................................................................................ 4 1.2 Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................ 9 1.3 Significance of the Study ............................................................................... 10 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 11 2.1 Reading Instruction ........................................................................................ 11 2.1.1 Reading Process .................................................................................. 11 2.1.2 Metacognition in Reading Process...................................................... 12 2.1.3 Metacognitive Reading Strategy Instruction ...................................... 14 2.1.4 Selected Reading Strategies in Reading Instruction ........................... 16 Inference Making ................................................................................. 16 Summarizing Strategy through Graphic Organizers (GOs) ................. 18 2.1.5 Empirical Studies on Reading Strategy Instruction and Reading Comprehension .................................................................................... 21 2.2 Reading Strategy Instruction and Picture Books ........................................... 23 2.2.1 Values of Picture Books in Teaching Reading .................................... 23 Language Development ....................................................................... 23 Illustration Assistance .......................................................................... 24 Diverse Story ....................................................................................... 25 Motivation Raising............................................................................... 26 Instruction Applying ............................................................................ 27 2.2.2 Empirical Studies on Reading Strategy Instruction and Picture Books Reading ................................................................................................ 28 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY ..................................................................... 30 3.1 Participants and Setting.................................................................................. 30 3.2 Research Design............................................................................................. 31 3.2.1 Purpose of the Study ........................................................................... 31 3.2.2 Picture Books as Teaching Materials .................................................. 32 3.2.3 Overall Procedure ............................................................................... 34 iv.

(6) Prior to the Instruction ......................................................................... 34 During the Instruction .......................................................................... 34 After the Instruction ............................................................................. 36 3.3 Data Collection .............................................................................................. 37 3.3.1 Pre- and Post-test on Inference Making and Summarizing Strategy .. 38 3.3.2 Pre- and Post-study Questionnaire on the Students’ Response to Reading Strategy Instruction with Picture Books Reading .................. 38 3.3.3 Post-interview ..................................................................................... 39 3.3.4 Worksheets .......................................................................................... 40 3.3.5 Teacher’s Reflective Teaching Journal ............................................... 40 3.4 Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 41 3.4.1 Quantitative Analysis .......................................................................... 41 3.4.2 Qualitative Analysis ............................................................................ 41 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .................................................... 43 4.1 Effects on the Students’ Learning of Inference Making and Summarization 43 4.2 Students’ Perceived Learning Experience...................................................... 47 4.2.1 Students’ Responses to Reading Strategy Instruction ......................... 47 Overall Responses to Inference Making and Summarizing Strategy Learning ............................................................................................... 47 Difficulties in Learning Inference Making and Summarizing Strategy .............................................................................................................. 52 4.2.2 Students’ Responses to English Picture Books Reading ..................... 58 Overall Responses to English Picture Books Reading ........................ 59 Preference between Picture Books and Textbooks .............................. 61 Preference for the Four Selected Picture Books .................................. 64 4.2.3 Students’ Responses to the Curriculum .............................................. 66 Responses to the Overall Curriculum .................................................. 66 Suggestions for the Overall Curriculum .............................................. 67 CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 71 5.1 Summary of Major Findings .......................................................................... 71 5.2 Pedagogical Implications ............................................................................... 72 5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research ......................................... 75. v.

(7) REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 77 APPENDIXES ............................................................................................................. 93 Appendix A .......................................................................................................... 93 Lesson Plan .................................................................................................. 93 Appendix B .......................................................................................................... 95 Worksheet 1.................................................................................................. 95 Worksheet 2.................................................................................................. 97 Worksheet 3.................................................................................................. 99 Worksheet 4................................................................................................ 100 Worksheet 5................................................................................................ 101 Worksheet 6................................................................................................ 102 Appendix C ........................................................................................................ 103 Pre-test on Inference Making and Summarizing Strategy ......................... 103 Appendix D ........................................................................................................ 106 Post-test on Inference Making and Summarizing Strategy ........................ 106 Appendix E ........................................................................................................ 109 Pre-study Questionnaire on Students’ Response to Reading Strategy Instruction with Picture Books Reading...................................................... 109 Pre-study Questionnaire on Students’ Response to Reading Strategy Instruction with Picture Books Reading (English Version)......................... 111 Appendix F......................................................................................................... 113 Post-study Questionnaire on Students’ Response to Reading Strategy Instruction with Picture Books Reading...................................................... 113 Post-study Questionnaire on Students’ Response to Reading Strategy Instruction with Picture Books Reading (English Version)......................... 116 Appendix G ........................................................................................................ 119 Semi-structured Interview Questions ......................................................... 119 Appendix H ........................................................................................................ 120 Text Modification in the Picture Book ....................................................... 120. vi.

(8) LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4. The Basic Information of the Four Picture Books ....................................... 33 The Overall Schedule ................................................................................... 36 The Relationship between Research Questions and Data Collection .......... 37 Results of the Reading Comprehension Test of Inference Making and Summarizing Strategy .................................................................................. 43 Table 5 Comparison of Students among Three Different Proficiency Levels ............ 45 Table 6 Students’ Overall Responses to Reading Strategies ..................................... 47 Table 7 Students’ Further Understanding on Inference Making and Summarizing Table 8 Table 9. Strategy ........................................................................................................ 51 Students’ Difficulties in the Self-monitoring Part of the Worksheets ........... 52 Students’ Needs from the Teacher in the Self-monitoring Part of the Worksheets ................................................................................................... 53. Table 10 Students’ Responses to Reading English Picture Books ............................. 59 Table 11 Students’ Preference between Picture Books and Textbooks ...................... 61 Table 12 Students’ Responses to Choosing Picture Books and Textbooks ................ 61 Table 13 Students’ Preference for the Four Picture Books ....................................... 64 Table 14 Students’ Responses to Choosing Their Favorite Picture Books................ 64 Table 15 Students’ Responses to the Overall Curriculum ......................................... 66 Table 16. Students’ Suggestions for the Overall curriculum ...................................... 67. vii.

(9) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This chapter illustrates an overview and rationale of this study in three parts. The background and motivation of this study are presented in the first part, followed by the purpose of this study and research questions. In the third part, the significance of this study in the research and teaching area are revealed.. 1.1 Background and Motivation The 12-Year Compulsory Education Curriculum Guideline for English indicates that language learning includes not only delivering knowledge but also guiding students on how to process diverse information. Based on the Curriculum Guideline, the competence indicators in English reading for junior high school students contain understanding the plot and main theme of a story, identifying the story grammar (setting, character, event, and ending), and familiarizing how to apply reading strategies. These competence indicators reveal the significance and necessity of reading strategy instruction for junior high school students. However, a discrepancy exists between the Curriculum Guideline and curriculum implementation in an actual English classroom.. 1.1.1 Problems in Reading Instruction Based on my teaching experience as a junior high school English teacher in Taiwan, and informed by the findings from the field of reading research, there are three primary problems of reading instruction. First, Grammar Translation Method (GTM) is still commonly used to guide students in reading the texts of each lesson in 1.

(10) an English class at junior high schools (Chu, 2015; Hsueh, 2016; Kuo, 2010; Shen, 2003; Wu, 2012). Second, teachers put more emphasis and time on testing reading comprehension than on instructing readers how to comprehend the text (Chung, 2016; Hsueh, 2016). Third, teachers’ insufficient professional knowledge of reading strategy instruction leads to difficulties in implementing a strategic intervention in the classroom (Dole, 2003; El-Dinary’s, 2002; Fang, 2008). The GTM focuses on learning vocabulary, grammar, and translation of texts. Most teachers tend to analyze texts through lexical decoding and sentence-by-sentence translation, and explain sentence structure in detail as a reading instruction. They expect students to comprehend the texts while reading. However, under the reading instruction with GTM, Chiang (2002) indicated that Taiwanese students tend to be passive decoders without actively constructing the meanings. They can only get the explicit or literal meanings, but can not activate their prior knowledge and read between the lines to get the inferential information. Students even encounter difficulties identifying the main idea and key information from an entire text. Students are accustomed to processing texts in a bottom-up manner, which involves compiling parts of the text to construct meanings (Chung, 2016). Their performance on reading comprehension does no improve, and their interest toward reading may decrease during the learning process. This traditional English reading instruction with GTM, which is teacher-oriented, leads to the weak link between texts and readers, and thus may be reformed in junior high schools. In a reformed instructional method, teachers can be a facilitator and help students construct meanings of texts by instructing them the reading strategies that can be applied in reading different texts once they have learned the basics of the language. In this way, students’ interest in reading is raised as they change from a passive to an active learner by reading effectively (Yeh, 2006). Junior high school students in Taiwan must take the Comprehensive Assessment 2.

(11) Program (CAP) before they can graduate from schools. The CAP’s questions on reading comprehension in English take up a large portion in the assessment, and contain long and complex sentences that focus on testing students’ abilities to understand the overall articles. The Difficulty Evaluation for English Test on CAP’s official website pointed out that questions in English test, such as making an inference, integrating the textual clues, and identifying the whole structure and main idea, aim at examining higher reading abilities (Yeh, 2016). The implementation of the CAP is intended to encourage effective reading instruction in English classrooms, and shows the importance of reading strategy learning in the curriculum; nevertheless, junior high school teachers lay stress on assessing students’ reading comprehension rather than teaching them reading strategies (Yeh, 2006). Students spend much time practicing taking the reading comprehension tests. After the tests, teachers discuss the tests with GTM to review the whole articles. Only a few test-taking skills, such as previewing questions before reading the articles, eliminating irrelevant answers, and reading all options before choosing the best one (Hsiao, 2011), are mentioned. However, such methods are not reading strategies that can be applied to various kinds of reading materials. As a result, most students still read articles from the first to the final word without applying effective reading methods. Hence, how to instruct students to be good readers but not good test-takers is a concern for English teachers in junior high schools (Hsueh, 2016). The implementation of a reading strategy instruction entails a thoughtful planning beforehand and professional strategic teaching knowledge; however, many teachers have not been taught and trained on how to design and present related courses (Fan, 2008). Consequently, the lack of training and knowledge among teachers results in drawing back of the intention to take strategic reading instruction into classrooms (Almasi, 2003; El-Dinary, 2002; Pressley, 2006). Moreover, many 3.

(12) teachers have been good at using metacognitive reading strategies but have difficulties making the process visible to provide proper guidance for their students (Almasi, 2003; Dole, 2003). Considering the above three conditions related to reading instruction in Taiwan, English teachers must weigh up change to draw solutions in teaching reading.. 1.1.2 Research Rationale Various studies in the field of reading have pointed out that reading strategy instruction has positive effects on enhancing students to become effective readers (Carrell, Pharis, & Liberto, 1989; Carrell, 1998; Farrell, 2001; Hacker, Dunlosky, & Graesser, 1998; Palinscar & Brown, 1984). According to a review of local research related to reading strategy instruction in Taiwan, university and senior high school students have been among the main participants in previous empirical studies because of the complexity and extensiveness of their required reading materials, such as academic journal articles, and the entrance exam to university schools covers a large amount of reading comprehension tests for senior high school students (Chen, 2005; Chiang, 2015; Chiu, 1999; Chuang, 2010; Gan, 2015; Hu, 2011; Hsu, 2009; Hsueh, 2016; Lee, 2011;Yeh, 2006). For junior high school students, most studies have focused on investigating the effects of teaching activities, such as reciprocal teaching, shared reading, peer-tutoring, and extensive reading, on reading comprehension to address the diversity of students’ English proficiency levels and their motivation on reading (Chung, 2016; Kao, 2015; Kung, 2011; Yeh, 2016). Few studies have examined the effects of teaching specific reading strategies and exploring students’ learning experience (Chen, 2009; Kuo, 2010; Tseng, 2009). Yeh (2006) stated that junior high school students in Taiwan panic easily or become frustrated when reading longer and harder articles. Anderson 4.

(13) (1999) and Oxford (1990) indicated that instructing readers how to apply specific reading strategies must be a major consideration in a reading classroom. In addition, teachers’ explicit instruction and modeling of reading strategies in teaching students basic reading strategies help students monitor their reading process (Yeh, 2006). Because of the insufficient amount of vocabulary, sentence structure, and reading input, a direct and clear guidance on specific reading strategies is also essential for young learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) (Lee, 2011). Reading strategies make students go beyond language proficiency limitation and at times, help them guess unfamiliar words and understand complex sentence structure (Tseng, 2009; Yeh, 2006). From among a wide range of reading strategies, two specific top-down reading strategies, inference making and summarizing strategy through a graphic organizer, were selected in this study. The researcher chose them for the following three reasons. First, many junior high school students believe the entire text is worth reading, and thus they read a material word by word, from the beginning to the end of the text. Smith (1971) pointed out that letter-by-letter or word-by-word reading hinders students’ reading comprehension because the meaning of one word may be forgotten before the next one is constructed. A reading instruction with GTM is partly the reason a student executes such reading mode. Students cannot differentiate trivial information from important ones. In other words, students are deficient in analyzing texts and summarizing information independently. Summarizing emphasizes a material’s major content rather than trivia; thus, one’s ability to summarize texts serves as a powerful comprehension strategy (Marzano, 2010). However, few related studies have been conducted to examine such ability among EFL learners (Duffy, 2002; Friend, 2001). Other researchers found students’ summarizing ability and comprehension have been improved through the use of graphic organizers (GOs) 5.

(14) together with summarizing training (Dollins, 2011; Furtado & Johnson, 2010). Compared with writing a summary independently, junior high school students find it easier to only fill in blanks of a GO for a summary with a clear structure. In other words, GOs assist learners in strengthening the sense of a summary. Second, in response to the first reason about reading everything on a text, most junior high school students only comprehend literal meanings and lack the ability to guess based on their prior knowledge or find clues in the context of an article (Chen, 2009; Lo, 2004). Students always stop reading when they encounter unfamiliar words or complex sentence patterns; when facing with such situation, certain students feel frustrated and even give up reading the next paragraphs. Research has claimed that readers must read beyond the words and between the lines to create implicit meanings for the missing information and, hence, comprehend a text successfully (Alderson, 2000). That is, the ability to make inferences is among the key factors in reading comprehension (Tang, Weekes, Nippold, & Schwarz, 2013). However, there is limited available information on reading comprehension interventions, which specifically concerns inference making strategy, for EFL learners who are deficient in reading strategy regulation (Tarchi, 2015). Third, several studies have advised that top-down reading strategy instruction for EFL learners must be prioritized (Bai, 2007; Huang, 2009). Davis & Bistodeau’s (1993) study pointed out that readers use more top-down strategies in their first language (L1), and bottom-up ones in their second language (L2). Their study indicated that readers focus on literal words and decoding written messages in the L2 reading process. Anderson (1999) revealed that both language-oriented bottom-up skills and reader-oriented top-down strategies are required in L2 reading comprehension. Top-down reading strategy instruction may even improve the learners’ fluency and efficiency in L2 reading and constructing meanings from texts 6.

(15) (Bai, 2007). Huang (2009) explored EFL junior high students’ L1 and L2 reading strategy transfer and application for Basic Competence Test (BCT) in Taiwan. The findings reported that “inference making” and “summarizing” were applied more frequently than the application of other strategies in BCT. Moreover, the application of these two reading strategies led to better reading comprehension; consequently, Huang (2009) suggested that these strategies should be introduced and taught for foreign language learners in a reading class. Thus, the two top-down reading strategies, specifically inference making and summarizing, are important and recommended to be examined more for implementation among junior high school students based on previous literature. Aside from instructing the two selected reading strategies, using motivating reading materials also engages students in learning (Oxford, 1990; Palincsar, 1986; Yeh, 2006). Picture books in children’s literature are found to be particularly beneficial for young foreign language learners because of their complete form of written and authentic language sources rich in comprehensible input (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2005; Giddings, 1992; Smallwood, 1991). Illustrations in picture books are important in reading comprehension because they provid sufficient supplement to words and meanings in narratives (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2005; Wang, 2015). Students’ language development is also improved through repeated key words or sentence patterns (Giddings, 1992). Although dialogues and short paragraph readings are present in junior high school students’ textbooks, their design nonetheless puts more emphasis on vocabulary and sentence patterns, which makes the content not authentic. Certain pictures surround reading passages in textbooks; however, these pictures are only random part of the content and do not function as illustrations assisting to draw inferential meanings of texts in picture books. Previous research has indicated that the use of picture books in reading 7.

(16) instruction promote students’ reading comprehension (Al Khaiyali, 2014; Hong, 2017; Mathews, 2014; Reid, 2002; Sun, 2015). A review of local studies on this topic indicated that the application of picture books in teaching reading has been mostly used in elementary schools (Deng, 2009; Lin, 2010; Tsai, 2011; Wu, 2014; Yang, 2008; Yang, 2014). There are three reasons related to the lack of using picture books as materials in junior high schools. First, people always think that picture books are reading materials for preschoolers or children, as they are simple or childish for teenagers. However, several studies have reviewed contemporary picture books and found that publishers now offer many picture books that are written for not only children but young adults (Lightsey, Olliff, & Cain, 2006; Senokossoff, 2013; Sun, 2015). Jen-hui, Lee, a famed junior high school English teacher who has strived to use picture books in her reading class for years in Taiwan, stated that many picture books nowadays are also suitable for junior high school students; with teachers’ thoughtful selections of picture books, teaching purposes, and appropriate guidance, students can enjoy the process of picture books reading (Lee, 2016). Second, limited knowledge of literature teaching also hinders junior high school teachers from using picture books as supplementary materials. Martinez and Harmon (2015) stated that teachers have limited capacity of understanding picture books because of its special form, that is, being covered with texts and illustrations that compensate each other to build the meanings. With a special design, picture books can serve as a bridge to assist students in visual reading while reading a text in an article. Third, reading for pleasure reading, such as reading picture books, is more popular at elementary schools because teachers have more freedom to conduct in their classes; unlike in junior high schools, teachers are rather restricted by, for example, a tight teaching syllabus (Huang, 2010). Although there are stereotypes and challenges for English teachers to use picture books in junior high schools, the advantages of picture books in teaching reading must 8.

(17) not be overlooked and are worth exploring (Huang, 2010). In conclusion, reading strategy instruction is important for junior high school students, but limited research has focused on teaching specific reading strategies for them (Tseng, 2009; Wu, 2012). Moreover, there are various benefits of using picture books in reading, but few empirical studies have utilized picture books as materials to instruct reading strategies and for students in junior high schools (Chen, 2009; Huang, 2006). That is, the investigation of how picture books facilitats the learning of reading strategy instruction for junior high school students is worth exploring.. 1.2 Purpose of the Study To address the problems mentioned above, this study executes inferencing making and summarizing strategy instruction using picture books for junior high school students in Taiwan. To examine the effects of these strategies and explore students’ learning experience in the implementation of these strategies, the following two issues are investigated in this study: (1) whether the reading strategy instruction using picture books reading facilitates students’ application of inference making and summarizing strategy; (2) students’ learning experience on the implementation of the reading strategy instruction using picture books. Therefore, this study provides answers to the following two research questions:. 1.. Can the reading strategy instruction using picture books reading facilitate junior high school students’ learning of inference making and summarizing strategy?. 2.. What is the students’ perception of their learning experience on the reading strategy instruction using picture books?. 9.

(18) 1.3 Significance of the Study The researcher executes an instructional practice that can be a potential alternative for reading strategy instruction, in an attempt to contribute to expanding the literature on reading strategy learning using picture books for EFL young learners. The results of this study include pedagogical implications to solve certain problems in teaching reading strategies, and incite more ideas to vary the reading curriculums for English teachers or textbook designers in junior high schools.. 10.

(19) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW This study aims to explore the effects of a reading strategy instruction using picture books and the students’ learning experience during the process. Therefore, the literature review consists of two parts. The first part explores relevant literature on reading instruction, followed by pertinent studies on reading strategy instruction and picture books.. 2.1 Reading Instruction 2.1.1 Reading Process Reading plays an important role in language learning. For teachers of reading, understanding the process of reading comes first before learning the essentials for effective reading instruction. There are three models of the reading process: bottom-up, top-down, and interactive model. In the bottom-up model, reading is a process of accumulating parts of a text to construct meanings. Meanings are assembled from small units to large ones. Gough (1972) described reading as a sequential mental process. Readers begin by decoding written letters into speech sounds, then gather the sounds together to form words, and the words achieve the meanings of the writer’s written message. In the top-down model, reading is regarded in the opposite way. Goodman (1967) presented reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game. Readers skim over the text, form and then confirm or reject hypotheses, and create new predictions. Compared with the bottom-up model, the top-down model shifts from text-based processing to reader-centered activity, and uses a reader’s prior knowledge and personal experience. 11.

(20) Both bottom-up or top-down models view reading as a linear or a one-way processing. In contrast, interactive model strives to synthesize these two models, and emphasizes the interrelation between each other. According to Anderson (1999), the interactive model considers the reading process in a circular procedure rather than a single-directional one. Rumelhart (1994) mentioned that a skilled reader must be able to make use of various sources that provide information simultaneously and interactively. To work successfully in the reading process, readers must apply both their bottom-up recognition skills and top-down strategies (Rumelhart, 1994).. 2.1.2 Metacognition in Reading Process To ensure that reading process works effectively, clearly recognizing the factors of its operation is the second step and essential for teachers in teaching reading. Metacognition or metacognitive awareness, in its literal meaning, is knowing about one’s own thinking. Flavell (1976) first introduced the term and defined it as “one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes and outcomes or anything related to them” (p. 232). Flavell established the foundation of the term in the domain of metacognition. Subsequent studies on this topic have broaden the definition and commonly categorized the term into two parts: (1) knowledge of cognition and regulation, and (2) self-management of cognition (Baker & Brown, 1984; Carrell, Gajdusek & Wise, 1998; Flavell, 1979; Jacobs & Paris, 1987; Paris, Lipson, & Wixson, 1983). Paris et al. (1983) suggested that knowledge of cognition embraces the knowledge of regulation strategies, and can be explained as declarative, conditional, and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge refers to knowing what variables can affect comprehension, such as knowing the goal or purpose before reading. Conditional knowledge refers to the awareness of when specific strategies are needed 12.

(21) and why they are helpful in comprehension. Procedural knowledge refers to knowing how to use strategies effectively. Regulation of cognition in reading makes readers proceed and progress in reading by planning before the reading task, monitoring during the process, and evaluating after the task has been completed (Baker & Brown, 1984). To make the reading process and components in metacognition conscious for students, Aebersold and Field (1997) emphasized the importance of teaching metacognitive reading strategies. In this way, students can learn, develop, and practice the ability to read efficiently. Recent studies have shown that reading strategy instruction can improve the awareness of metacognition, and the results of these studies have verified that students can become better readers when their metacognitive knowledge of reading strategies and strategy use are developed (Carrell et al., 1989; Carrell, 1998; Farrell, 2001; Hacker et al., 1998; Jiuhuan & Newbern, 2012; Ko, 2007; Lixia, 2014; Palinscar & Brown, 1984; Van Keer & Vanderlinde, 2010). Ko’s (2007) study on one-semester reading strategy instruction to college students in Taiwan involved the collection of data on pre- and post-strategy questionnaires, students’ journals, and interviews with four students. The results of the data analysis showed that an effective implementation of reading strategy instruction motivated students’ interests, confidence, and sense of achievement in reading. Van Keer and Vanderlinde (2010) also explored a similar topic among the third and sixth graders. Their study involved an experimental reading intervention, which focused on explicit reading strategy instruction and cross-age peer tutoring on reading strategy awareness, cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy use, and reading comprehension achievement. They found significant effects in both third and sixth graders’ on their overall reading strategy use. Jiuhuan and Newbern (2012) examined 13.

(22) 18 English-as-a-second-language (ESL) adult learners with limited English and literacy skills; the purpose of their study is similar to Ko’s (2007) and Van Keer and Vanderlinde’s (2010). Their findings also pointed out that metacognitive reading strategy instruction can be effective for ESL adult learners with limited English and literacy skills. These three empirical studies indicated that the effects of a reading strategy instruction on metacognitive awareness among different language learners are mostly positive during the learning process.. 2.1.3 Metacognitive Reading Strategy Instruction The purpose of metacognitive strategy instruction in reading is to teach readers how to read instead of what to read, and learners can apply strategies to various reading contexts. To achieve the success of the strategy instruction, several aspects need to be considered. Based on a review of factors related to a successful metacognitive reading strategy instruction (Oxford, 1990; Palincsar, 1986; Paris, 1988), three overlapping dimensions, namely, the selection of appropriate reading strategies, reading materials, and the procedure of teaching strategies, are frequently mentioned. Palincsar (1986) suggested that the ease of instructing strategies, flexibility of applying to various reading situations, and extent of promoting reading comprehension are considered in choosing reading strategies. Moreover, an ideal metacognitive strategy instruction employs mixed strategies in the course (Huang, 2006; Oxford, 1990). The selection of reading materials is important in strategy training, and readability and text genre are the two aspects that are considered (Palincsar, 1986). Teachers also regard learners’ proficiency, background knowledge, and reading interests in choosing reading materials, to meet specific goals. Regarding reading procedure, there are two ways of instruction mentioned in 14.

(23) previous studies. First, Paris, Cross, and Lipson (1984) developed a comprehensive reading curriculum calls Informed Strategies for Learning (ISL). It focuses on teaching the knowledge of comprehension process rather than applying comprehension strategies. Students are taught the knowledge of how and when to apply strategies, and why the strategies are effective (Brown, Palincsar, & Armbruster, 1984). Paris et al. (1984) hypothesized that ISL strategies enhance students’ reading comprehension. However, Duffy and Roehler (1982) argued that a strategy instruction emphasizes more on how readers really use the specific strategies. The other way of strategy instruction is direct or explicit comprehension instruction. Pearson and Dole (1987) mentioned that in explicit comprehension instruction, the teacher first provides direct explanations of what, how, why, and when a comprehension strategy is used, and then models the use of the whole reading strategy process. Second, the teacher offers guided practice and releases gradually the responsibility to students in the reading process. Finally, students are asked to address the new reading tasks in different reading situations by applying strategies independently. In other words, explicit teaching of the comprehension strategies provides a supportive reading environment for learners and teaches them how to apply the strategies. Prior research has indicated that direct or explicit instruction of metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension is helpful to foreign language readers or poor readers (Paris, 1988; Pearson & Dole, 1987; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983; Pressley, 2002; Shen, 2003; Yeh, 2006). Yeh (2006) investigated the effects of explicit instruction of reading strategy on the reading comprehension of 76 eighth graders in two different classes at a junior high school in Taoyuan; these classes served as experimental and control groups. A 15-week explicit strategy instruction was carried out with six reading strategies (making predictions, skimming for the main idea, scanning for important information, making inferences, guessing the meanings of 15.

(24) unfamiliar words from the context, and self-monitoring), for the experimental group. The results showed that the experimental group had significant improvement in reading comprehension, and the participants had a clear idea of these strategies and would use them after the instruction. The study recommended that teachers provided their students with explicit strategy instruction in a systematic way, beginning in the students’ first year, to make the strategy instruction more effective.. 2.1.4 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 16.

(25) 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 17.

(26) 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 18.

(27) 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 19.

(28) 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. 20.

(29) 2.1.5 Empirical Studies on Reading Strategy Instruction and Reading Comprehension Among the limited empirical studies, the following three local studies illustrated their findings of reading strategy instruction and reading comprehension for students in middle schools of Taiwan (Hsueh, 2016; Tseng, 2009; Wu, 2012). Tseng (2009) reported the influence of metacognitive reading strategy training on 30 seventh graders’ reading comprehension in Hsinchu, and specifically investigated the differences of metacognitive reading strategy use on the high- and low-proficient groups. The reading materials used were either popular writings or EFL reading materials at the appropriate readability level. The participants received a four-week training with three metacognitive reading strategies (semantic mapping, prediction, and summarizing). Wu (2012) also examined that the impact of metacognitive reading strategy training on 53 ninth graders’ reading comprehension; the participants were junior high school students in Taichung. They were divided into high and low achievers for comparison. A nine-week program was executed using three metacognitive strategies (making predictions, summarizing, and self-questioning) in reading English textbook for junior high schools. Hsueh (2016) examined a similar topic on five struggling senior high school students in Chiayi. To help students enhance their comprehension of expository texts, the genre of comparison and contrast was chosen. A 10-week reading development instruction was implemented to train the students in three reading strategies (predicting, identifying the main idea, and inference making). According to Tseng’s (2009) study, after the reading strategy training, both the high- and low-proficient groups showed a great difference in their metacognitive awareness of reading. The high-proficient group demonstrated a clearer and higher-level thinking, and the low-proficient group employed top-down strategies 21.

(30) instead of depending on bottom-up strategies after the training. Wu (2012) reported similar results, but pointed out that the strategy training is more effective in enhancing high achievers’ reading comprehension than the low achievers’. Hsueh’s (2016) study indicated that after the reading strategy instruction, struggling high school students improved in terms of frequency of reading strategies usage; the students commented that it was more comfortable and helpful to read by using these strategies because the strategies gave them a better understanding of the text in a relatively short time; their improved reading abilities were transferred to new texts. The students also stated that inference making strategy was the most effective reading strategy. Three studies above all indicated the importance of reading strategy instruction in the middle schools; however, the reading selections in the above studies were all normal writing for EFL learners, similar to reading comprehension tests or textbooks, but not the authentic materials that could motivate students’ reading motivation more, such as picture books.. 22.

(31) 2.2 Reading Strategy Instruction and Picture Books 2.2.1 Values of Picture Books in Teaching Reading Among many possible reading materials, children’s literature are found to be particularly helpful for young foreign language learners because it uses the complete forms of written language instead of beginning with fragments of language, such as textbooks in schools; it also provides authentic language sources rich in comprehensible input (Giddings, 1992; Smallwood, 1991). In various genres of children’s literature, the use of picture books has advantages in terms of developing students’ reading ability (Brown & Tomlinson, 2005; Wang, 2015). A picture book integrates a visual and a verbal display in it, and covers a variety of writing styles and genres, including wordless picture books, alphabet books, toy books, counting books, concept books, and storybooks. According to the design of this study, picture storybooks were selected as the main reading material. Bishop and Hickman (1992) stated that picture storybooks combine texts and pictures together to tell stories simultaneously, and books with occasional or ornamental illustrations beside the text are not considered as one. Researchers have pointed out the diverse values in teaching reading using picture books. The following five values have been mentioned frequently: language development, illustration assistance, diverse story, motivation raising, and instruction applying. Each value complements each other, and has a close relation in sustaining reading instruction. Language Development The rich contexts in picture books are helpful for students to acquire new vocabulary and sentence structures. Students may encounter unknown vocabulary in a text, and the rich language in picture books supports students to predict the meanings 23.

(32) of the new vocabulary and recalls the known words (Giddings, 1992; Senokossoff, 2013). Moreover, picture books make students understand the word usage in various situations (Sheu, 2008). For example, if the setting in the picture book is a crowded city and the topic is related to business, “bank” may refer to a financial institution that receives deposits and makes loans, but it does not mean the parcel of land alongside the river. “Pattern writing,” a specific, fixed, or repeated sentence pattern displays to reveal the story, is at times used in picture books and aids students to understand the function of the sentence structure (Henry & Simpson, 2001). For instance, the repeated sentence structure “subject + have/ has + objective” in the picture book Joseph Has a Little Overcoat (Taback, Goodman, Bramfitt, & Malo, 1999) presents the meaning of “possession or owning”. Moreover, different levels of picture books are selected to match the language level of the learners and meet different needs of learning styles (Chien, 2013). The multiple contexts in the picture books are resources for students, and the various contexts are not only helpful for their vocabulary or sentence structure development but also acquiring semantic and pragmatic language learning.. Illustration Assistance Illustrations in picture books play an important role in reading comprehension because they provide sufficient supplement to words and meanings in narratives (Brown & Tomlinson, 2005; Kozma, 1991; Wang, 2015). Words represent meanings, but a picture also contains numerous meanings (Sheu, 2008). Picture books promote incidental vocabulary acquisition and implicit meanings understanding by supplying pictures to plots, settings, hints to character traits, and other concept information (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2005; Wang, 2015). For instance, when seeing a man 24.

(33) with an astonished look on his face in the picture beside a sentence “What’s that?”, the reader can predict the man’s emotion at that moment in the story. Top-down reading model can be applied in picture books reading, with the assistance of illustrations. EFL learners’ language processing always begins with details and moves to the whole story (Chen, 2006), but the understanding of pictures starts with the whole story and breaks down the story into parts (Nodelman, & Reimer, 2003). Students use their prior knowledge to interpret the pictures and derive the meanings from them, and then confirm or reject these meanings with the written words (Sheu, 2008). Kozma (1991) stated that a visual representations is a memory stimulus; that is, students may not understand the written description until they see a visual support and connect such image to the text description. Illustrations in picture books override the learners’ limited English ability, make readers move from bottom-up skills to top-down strategy, and form an interactive model during the reading process.. Diverse Story The story in a picture book has a power to stimulate students’ learning enthusiasm in reading, and naturally draws students into reading narratives because of the plots in it (Sheu, 2008). A survey in Taiwan demonstrated that the story is among the genres that junior high school students prefer, compared with the texts in the textbooks (Huang, 2011). Students become interested in the story and read sentences without paying too much attention to the unfamiliar words or phrases, and possibly transfer from mechanical language learning to a more personal involvement context (Collie, & Slater, 1987). For example, The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Carle, 1994) makes readers learn many food vocabularies with a story of a caterpillar who was 25.

(34) quite hungry and ate much food. This story activates students’ experience of hunger, and allows them to be involved in the growing process of a caterpillar who finally became a beautiful butterfly in the story. Researchers have recommended that stories are an abounding resources for EFL teachers to introduce vocabulary and sentence structures in memorable and meaningful contexts (Brewster, Ellis, & Girard, 2002; Ghosn, 2002). EFL learners recall the meanings of certain words or phrases in the foreign language with the support of stories (Sheu, 2008). When students forget the meaning of a word, students may remember the word again as their background knowledge is activated by the plot or setting displayed in the story of the picture book.. Motivation Raising Based on illustration assistance and diverse story, motivation of reading can be stimulated by using picture books (Huang, 2010; Yeh, 2010). Hsueh (2007) indicated that students are mostly attracted and impressed by illustrations first, and then they gradually enter the world of words using illustrations and stories. Illustrations and stories serve as a bridge to connect students and the abstract words in picture books, because they make reading a text more enjoyable; consequently, readers become willing to spend time on texts. Once a book is enjoyed and understood, reading motivation among students emerges at the same time; thus, students learn the target language appropriately, naturally, and actively (Al Khaiyali, 2014). Huang (2010) displayed the influence of picture book reading on students’ reading motivation. Sixty-one eighth graders in a junior high school in Taiwan were separated into experimental and control groups. During the 23-week reading program, the experimental group only concentrated on reading self-selected picture books without any instructions, and the control group received traditional skill-based reading 26.

(35) approach with a regular English outside reading book, which was similar to an English textbook. The results revealed that the experimental groups’ overall reading motivation was enhanced significantly after the program. Yeh (2010) also executed a science picture book reading instruction on students’ reading comprehension and explored their learning experience. The participants were 46 eighth graders in Taiwan, and were divided into 23 high English achievers and 23 low English achievers. The results demonstrated that the two groups enjoyed reading picture books, and had more confidence in reading English after the instruction. Huang’s (2010) and Yeh’s (2010) studies showed the positive effect on motivation raising through picture books reading for junior high school students.. Instruction Applying Picture books are helpful teaching materials for EFL teachers to apply and assist in reading class. Certain situations are not easy to express clearly, but the illustrations, plots, or settings can explain them implicitly or explicitly in picture books (Sheu, 2008). Moreover, these real-life reading materials, which only have 32 pages on average, are available for learners to finish reading in a short amount of time, and attainable for language teachers in teaching within limited time (Aikman, 1995; Bishop & Hickman, 1992; Senokossoff, 2013). Murphy (2009) indicated that picture books can be read in a single class period, allowing more time for extra discussion or other activities. Picture books occupy a special place in teaching reading (Cho & Kim, 1999; Goodwin, 2008; Nodelman & Reimer, 2003) because of their various values illustrated above. They also enable language teachers to concentrate on cultivating English reading for learners rather than emphasizing vocabulary explanation or drills 27.

(36) of sentence structures. Picture books are recommended to incorporate in a reading instruction classroom, and consider as beneficial teaching and learning materials in the future classroom (Scharer, Peter, & Lehman, 1995). Previous research has appreciated the values of using picture books in reading instruction to promote students’ reading comprehension (Hillman, 1995; Lazar, 1993; Sheiman, 1999; Savage, 2000).. 2.2.2 Empirical Studies on Reading Strategy Instruction and Picture Books Reading Reading instruction with picture books is helpful for young EFL learners (Chien, 2013); however, less studies have explored the effects of reading strategy instruction with picture books, especially those applied to junior high school students. Among few empirical studies, the following two are related to this topic and were executed in Taiwan for junior high school students, but still have some limitations to investigate further. Huang (2006) explored whether carrying out reading strategy instruction with picture books changed students’ attitude toward reading and their application of reading strategies within three months. Eighty ninth-graders whose language proficiency level was in the top one-third of all the ninth graders in the junior high school in Chiayi participated in the strategy learning process. A series of picture books with 12 levels were selected as materials and suitable for students at different proficiency levels. Participants learned six reading strategies together (noticing book information, predictions, skimming, scanning, inferring, and summarizing) once a week using picture books, and the instructional duration lasted for 10 weeks. Chen (2009) investigated the effect of the picture book reading program on reading comprehension related to the application of identifying the main idea, finding 28.

(37) information, and understanding words. A total of 116 eighth-grade students from four regular classes in the junior high school in Kaohsiung participated in the 13-week program. Participants read five picture books with themes related to their life experience. The two studies both used explicit comprehension instruction to provide students with learning support in teaching the reading strategies. Huang’s study (2006) concluded that reading strategy instruction using English picture books could be useful to make students have positive attitude toward reading, and enhance their reading strategy application. Similar results were found in Chen’s (2009) study, that is, the picture book reading program was effective on improving students’ reading comprehension related to the application of the three seleted reading strategies. Nevertheless, there were certain limitations in the two studies. The participants in Huang’s (2006) study did not focus on a mix-level class; it only paid attention to students at specific language proficiency. However, a mix-level class is normal and common in almost all junior high schools in Taiwan; hence, the results of the study could not generalize the larger population. Moreover, Huang (2006) suggested the conduct of an interview and class observation to understand students’ changes and their perception of the learning process better. Chen (2009) selected three reading strategies that were common for junior high school students, but there were many other important reading strategies, such as inference making and summarizing strategy. In addition, Chen (2009) advised that various activities could be integrated into teaching to make the reading class become more motivating.. 29.

(38) CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY The methodology contains four sections illustrating the overall research design. First, it describes the background information of the participants and introduces the setting. Second, it clarifies the detailed design of the research. In the third and fourth sections, the data collection and analysis procedure are demonstrated.. 3.1 Participants and Setting The participants were one regular seventh-grade class, consisting of 13 boys and 12 girls, in Banqiao District of New Taipei City, Taiwan. English was among the required subjects in junior high schools. There were four English classes a week; each class lasted for 45 minutes. The participants learned vocabulary and sentence patterns from textbooks in their English classes. Although there were some short dialogues and reading passages in the textbook for reading, the content was not authentic. The participants were not always motivated to read them. The participants’ English proficiency level and learning experience were also varied. According to their performance in English regular exams in school, they were composed of high achievers, middle learners, and low achievers. About 60 % of the participants in this class started to learn English at school when they were in the first grade, and 40 % of them joined an English cram school before elementary school to learn phonics or conversation. After becoming junior high school students, 80 % of them started to take extra intensive English classes in cram schools. However, what they learned in the cram schools was almost the same as those in their regular school. The only difference was that they did many exercises in the former to improve their 30.

(39) grades in the exams in the latter; however, these exercises were not aimed for a specific language ability cultivation, such as reading strategy, writing skills, or oral practice. All the participants had not learned reading strategy using picture books before. Although most of the participants had low motivation in reading, they showed interests in flexible and entertaining instructions to improve their English reading ability. The teacher, who was also the researcher of this study, was the participants’ English teacher in the junior high school, and conducted the reading strategy instruction using picture books reading for this study. The researcher has taught English for about four years. The picture book was a familiar tool for her in teaching reading. By joining workshops and taking related courses, the researcher had knowledge of guiding students in reading picture books; picture books were also used at times in her English class for pleasure reading regarding various issues. From the class observation, students enjoyed the process of reading picture books and they became motivated to read. To enhance students’ reading comprehension and reading strategy application, the researcher attempted to use picture books as a supportive material in this study. The courses of reading strategy instruction using picture books had not been carried out for the participants before this study.. 3.2 Research Design 3.2.1 Purpose of the Study According to the literature review, prior research has showed that picture books reading improves one’s reading comprehension, and reading strategy instruction enhances one’s reading comprehension. However, only few studies has pointed out how picture books support and facilitate strategy instruction. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effects of inference making and summarizing strategy instruction 31.

(40) with the assistance of picture books, and explores students’ learning experience through the process.. 3.2.2 Picture Books as Teaching Materials Four picture books (see Table 1) were employed in the reading strategy instruction. To implement reading strategy instruction and effectively instruct the participants in this study, there were three main criteria for the picture books selection. First, among the different genres of picture books, such as wordless picture books, alphabet books, toy books, counting books, concept books, and storybooks, the picture storybook was selected as the main reading material in this study because of its comparatively complete storyline (including introduction, body, and conclusion of the story) to write a summary and rich contextual clues (including literal and picture clues) to make an inference. For instance, “sun” and “on a big rock ” in the sentence “He suns himself on a big rock” made students infer the weather (hot and sunny) in the story. The story and contextual clues facilitate the strategy teaching and learning of summarization and inference making (Boon et al., 2015; Chen, 2009). Second, according to the vocabulary and sentence patterns participants had learned, the level of the text difficulty was evaluated and should be appropriate for students in the seventh grade. The teacher also adjusted certain parts of the texts to meet students’ language proficiency when using the picture books in the reading instruction. For instance, the teacher deleted or replaced unfamiliar vocabulary and phrases according to the word bank in the textbooks for seventh graders, but left four or five unfamiliar vocabulary for students to learn new words (See Appendix H as an example). 32.