There is a generally accepted reality among first and second language reading
researchers and practitioners that learners who study in a second or foreign
language are almost always at a disadvantage, particularly in the area of reading.
In light of this learners who register for high school study each year in South
Africa are very often under prepared for high school education and many of these
learners also have low levels of reading ability. This has an adverse effect on
their chances of academic success. In order to meet the reading needs of these
learners, educators need to develop effective instructional means for teaching
reading comprehension and reading strategy use. It is evident from the volume
and quality of research published that the teaching of reading strategies
enhances the learners' reading comprehension ability.
The purpose of this study was to:
• determine what reading strategies Grade 11 ESL learners use;
• determine what reading strategies should be taught;
• determine how and when reading strategies should be taught in the ESL classroom;
• determine what the effect of an implemented reading strategy programme is on the reading comprehension of the Grade 11 ESL learners participating in this study; and
• provide guidelines in terms of the composition (i.e. format, outcomes, content, teaching method 1 approach, etc.) of a reading strategy instruction programme.
In this study a quasi-experimental pretest - posttest control group design was
used. The participants in this study included a total of 60 Grade 11 ESL learners
from a high school in the Eastern Cape. Two intact randomly selected classes
participated in the study. Both males and females participated in the study and
ranged in age from 18 - 22 years.
The Reading Performance Test in English: Advanced Level (Roux, 1996) and a
Reading Strategy Questionnaire based on the work of Oxford (1990), Pressley
and Afflerbach (1995) and Pressley et al. (1995) was used in this study.
A t-test was used to determine whether the mean scores of the experimental and
control group differed statistically significantly from each other. Cohen's (1977)
effect size d was used to determine whether the mean differences were
practically significant.
The results of the study can be summarized as follows:
The results indicated that the learners who followed the reading strategy
programme and received strategic reading instruction (experimental group)
obtained both statistically and practically significantly higher marks on the
reading comprehension test (posttest) than did the learners in the control group.
The posttest results indicated that the learners in the experimental group used
certain strategies statistically (p<0.05), as well as practically significantly (small to
large effect size), more often than the learners in the control group.
The reading instruction programme developed in this study focuses on five
reading strategies, namely guessing the meaning of words from the context,
making inferences, predicting what is to come in a text, identifying the main idea
and summarising. The programme presents an overview of the guidelines for a reading strategy
instruction programme. It outlines the purpose, target group, content and other
aspects, instruction, classroom procedure and assessment concerning a
meaningful reading strategy instruction programme. English Second Language
teachers may find it worth their while to implement reading strategy training
models of a similar nature in order to develop their learners' proficiency in
reading comprehension and reading strategy use. / Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1344 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Cekiso, Mzwamadoda Phillip |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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