Effects Of Text Types And Reading Strategies On Reading Comprehension Performance
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Date
2016-05
Authors
Abdualameer, Rasha Talib
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Abstract
The main focus of this study is to investigate how narrative and expository texts and the awareness of reading strategies affect the performance of reading comprehension. Thirty first-stage secondary students studying at the Iraqi school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, took part in this survey. The school was selected due to the fact that it is officially under the purview of the Ministry of Education of Iraq. This study attempts to look at the types of texts, namely narrative and expository, and subsequently describe the strategies employed by Iraqi students to comprehend narrative and expository texts. Students were asked to take a reading comprehension test and complete checklists and questionnaires. In order to analyse the effect of narrative and expository texts on students‘ performance, the statistical packages for social science (SPSS) package was used to calculate the means and standard deviation. The statistical test used in this study is the dependent t-test. Significantly higher score indicates that the narrative text effect exceeds that of the expository text on the performance of reading comprehension. The awareness of metacognitive reading strategies with narrative and expository texts was analysed using data from the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies inventory (MARSI) by Mokhtari and Reichard (2002) with two instruments; the first is a ticked checklist on reading strategies used to comprehend narrative and expository texts to determine the most and least used strategies employed by Iraqi students, while the second involves a standardized questionnaire (MARSI) to determine the level of usage of reading
strategies. The statistical packages for social science (SPSS) package was used to calculate the means and standard deviation. The results show the means and standard deviations for three subscales of metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, with global reading strategies (M=3.83) having the highest score, followed by problem-solving strategies (M=3.13), and support reading strategies (M=2.7). The data imply that the respondents used global reading strategies to help them comprehend the narrative text. On the other hand, the problem-solving strategies were the highest (M=3.53), followed by global reading strategies (M=3.33), and support reading strategies (M=2.56). The data clearly showed that the respondents utilise problem-solving reading strategies to help them read and comprehend expository texts. In terms of the strategies used, the data clearly showed that there was varieties in the selected reading strategies being used throughout the study by Iraqi students for different text types; however, students in this study are moderate strategies-users of metacognitive reading strategies in comprehending the narrative and expository texts. Finally, reading comprehension text and reading strategies instruction should be included in the syllabus of English language courses. Teaching students these strategies will help them understand and comprehend texts in an effective manner and provide better answers when reading comprehension texts, which will be useful to teachers when planning their lessons. It can also be used to tailor teaching methods pertaining to reading, which will enhance the performance of the students‘ reading comprehension.
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How narrative and expository texts and the awareness of reading strategies , affect the performance of reading comprehension.