USING WH-QUESTIONS IN SKIMMING AND SCANNING TO IMPROVE PUPILS’ READING COMPREHENSION IN YEAR 3 ZAMRUD READING CLASSROOM

By:

MUHAMMAD ZAHIN SAFWAN BIN SUBRIEnglish Studies Department

ABSTRACT

The aim of this action research is to study the use of WH-questions in skimming and scanning to improve the reading comprehension of pupils in Year 3 Zamrud. The focus of the study is to identify if the use of WH-questions with skimming and scanning in the reading classroom can improve pupils’ reading comprehension in terms of answering comprehension questions of a reading text. A preliminary investigation carried out shows that pupils are weak in answering the comprehension questions after reading a text. Based on the low performance in reading comprehension, five pupils from Year 3 Zamrud were identified and used as participants in this research. Pre-test, post-test, formative test, questionnaire and pupil’s journal are used as data collection methods. The findings show high percentage of improvement in pupil’s performance in answering reading comprehension. In addition, the responses from pupil’s journal also shows that they are more attracted to the reading classroom because the lessons are more interesting and interactive. The findings from questionnaire also shows that pupils perceive the use of the intervention positively. They feel it can increase their reading comprehension through interactive reading techniques, focused and faster reading method stimulated by the intervention used and teacher’s delivery. Suggestions for further research are to focus more on pupil’s interest in reading and also improve the planning stage in selecting the target group or participants.

Key terms: WH-questions, skimming and scanning, reading comprehension.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Specifically, the objective of my research was pointing directly to the ability of the pupils in comprehending a text. Hence, my research was started based on the foundation that comprehension in reading is the most important skill that need to be mastered by the pupils in order to acquire any other skills in language learning. Many people think that reading merely involves the ability to sound the words printed on page (Chitravelu, Saratha & Teh, 2005).It is a common thing to see when a pupil are able to read fluently but does not understand what he was reading. My research was targeted to find a solution to overcome this issue with its topic; “Using Wh-questions in skim and scan to improve Year 3 Zamrud pupils’ reading comprehension”

1.1 Reflection of teaching experience

The purposes of reading are to search for simple information, to skim quickly, to learn from the text, to integrate information, reading to write, to critique texts, and for general comprehension (Grabe and Stoller, 2002). Thus, the ability to comprehend the text is needed in order to achieve the main purposes of reading.

From my observation, the pupils were struggling to answer my questions which is based on the reading text given in a reading lesson. Additionally, this was also proven by their result in the comprehension questions given after each of my reading lesson. In conclusion, I personally think that the pupils were not exposed to a better technique in reading that could allow them to maximize their reading ability specifically on comprehension. Apart from that, they also need to be interested in reading before they could essentially learn new technique of reading hence I have used a more interactive yet independent way of reading.

1.2 Related theory / literature

. The behaviourist theory of learning provides teachers with a set of principles which makes it easy to implement classroom procedure (Chitravelu et al, 2005) of which I believe drilling is the most suitable method to use in this research. In spite of that, I need to be precise and specific on what needs to be drilled to the pupils in order to get the best results out of it. The most basic kind of drill is a repetition drill and the key to its success is for the students to know exactly what it is they should be repeating (Kerr, 2013). As example, I need to drill more on how to skim and scan because it is a new technique for them to acquire while WH-questions are commonly used in classroom instructions other language skills. According to Hermione (2014), using a variety of drilling methods in your classes will help make this portion of the lesson more interesting and keep students focused. Using flash cards and exercises are the variation of drilling methods that I would use to teach skim and scan to my pupils.

Although skimming and scanning are two different skills but they are usually being used as a pair of skill in reading because these two skills are interrelated. Scanning is a type of speed-reading technique which is used when the reader wants to find a particular piece of information regardless the meaning of the whole text (Richards, 1991). Besides that, scanning is used when the reader wants to examine closely using a regular or fixed plan and often looking for a particular thing (Quirks, 1998). Thus, I believe skimming and scanning are good techniques to be used in reading to improve speed and understanding. On the other hand, skimming is a specific reading technique necessary for quick and efficient reading (Grellet, 1981). The reader goes through the reading material quickly in order to get the main idea of it, to know how it is organized, or to get any supporting details of the reading text. Continually involving pupils in their own learning experience and providing them with valuable feedback is a necessity in promoting progressive learning (Stiggins, 2008). Using Wh-questions is one of the ways to ensure pupils are actively involved in a particular activity. Questions play an important role in the processes of teaching and learning because pupils’ achievement, and their level of engagement depend on the types of questions teachers formulate and use in a classroom (Kerry, 2002).

2.0 RESEARCH FOCUS

The focus of this research is to discover the best practice to improve my pupils’ reading skill as I noticed most of them are having a major problem with reading specifically comprehension. I noticed that they took too much time when reading a long text and end up not understand the text. Comprehension becomes exclusively important to pupils in the later elementary grades (Sweet & Snow, 2003) because it provides the foundation for further learning in secondary school. Pupils’ learning progress is strongly shaped by the ability to understand what was read thus pupils who cannot understand what they read are not likely to acquire the skills needed to participate in the globalized era today. Apart from that, I decided to focus on the reading problem because I believe that reading is one of the essential skills that a person need to master in order to do anything in life.

3.0 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

This section discusses about the general and specific objectives of this research.

3.1 General Objectives

The general objective of this research is to improve Year 3 Zamrud pupils’ reading comprehension using WH-questions in skim and scan.

3.2 Specific Objective

To study on if and how WH-questions in skim and scan can help to improve Year 3 Zamrud pupils’ reading comprehension.

3.3 Research QuestionsThere are two research questions that have been identified in this research which are:

3.3.1 Does the use of WH-questions in skimming and scanning improve year 3 Zamrud pupils’ reading comprehension?

3.3.2 What are the pupils’ perceptions of using WH-questions in skimming and scanning in reading comprehension?

4.0 TARGET PARTICIPANTS

The 5 participants in this action research were from Year 3 Zamrud which were from different ethnic groups. They were low proficiency pupils but able to understand and read simple English text. They showed a low level of performance in the reading comprehension during reading classroom.

5.0 PROCEDURE OF ACTION

This section discusses the data gathering methods, preliminary investigation and action taken in this research. It will also presents the findings, conclusion and reflection of this action research.

5.1 Data Gathering Methods

The data gathering methods that were used in this action research were pre-test and post-test, formative test, questionnaire and pupil’s journal. Pre-test were carried out before the intervention to identify pupil’s initial performance and then a post-test were carried out after 2 sessions of the intervention to see pupil’s improvement. In between the sessions, formative test were carried out and towards the end of the cycle, pupils have to write a journal to express their views and opinions about the sessions. Moreover, a questionnaire was also given to the pupils at the end of each cycle. These two methods were aiming to know pupils’ perception about using WH-questions in skimming and scanning to improve their reading comprehension.

5.2 Preliminary Investigation

At the beginning of this research, I started my data collecting and finding with an initial study on certain related aspects such as pupils’ performance, classroom routines, teaching activities, and personal background. The methods that I used were observation, document analysis and diagnostic test. Using observation method, I focused more on the student’s behaviors and responses during the lesson to identify any learning disability or any other possible causes that contributed to their performance in reading comprehension. Then, I observed and take notes on the teaching activities such as the usual practices of the teacher, methods used, teaching style, teaching aids, and also ways of giving instructions.

I noted on any particular reading skills that the teacher were using in the teaching because it helped me to reflect and improve on the teaching practices. Apart from that, I also asked the class teacher for previous records of the pupils’ performances. The records that I got was tests paper and pupils’ works, I focused more on the reading comprehension part and analyze the data. As part of the preliminary study, I carried out a diagnostic test to the pupils in order to narrow down the final number of participants. Pupils were given a text to read and then they have to answer the comprehension questions. From the test, I was able to distinguish on the pupils’ levels and use it for my further actions which was to select a suitable participants.

5.3 Action

The intervention were carried out for two sessions in each Cycle 1 and Cycle 2. The intervention was used as part of the teaching in a reading classroom whereby it was used to drill pupils on how to read using the intervention. All of the text used in every lessons were different but they were all appropriate to the pupils’ level because they were adapted from English Year 3 textbook. Pre-test was carried out before each cycle and post-test was carried out after each cycle to see the improvement made by each pupils in term of reading comprehension. Formative test were also carried out after each session to see pupils’ progress. At the end of each cycle, questionnaire were given to see pupils’ perception while journal were done after each session with the same purpose.

5.4 Findings

Pre-test and post-test Cycle 2

Table 1

Pre-test and post-test result Cycle 2

Pupil Marks (/10) Improvement (%)

Pre-test Post-test Differences

1 2 8 +6 60

2 4 9 +5 50

3 3 10 +7 70

4 2 9 +7 70

5 2 10 +8 80

From Table 1, the scores are presented with the differences in marks from pre-test and post-test. The differences are then converted into percentage over the total questions of the test. The percentage is considered as the pupils’ improvement after the intervention were carried out. As presented in Table 5 above, the improvement of each pupil is over 60% except for Pupil 2. Overall improvement can be considered as excellent because only 1 pupil scored below 50%.

Formative Test

Table 2

Formative test result Cycle 1 and 2

Pupil Session 1(/10) Session 2 (/10) Differences (/sessions)

Improvement (%)

Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 1 Cycle 21 2 3 3 8 +1 +5 10 502 3 5 3 7 0 +2 0 203 3 6 4 9 +1 +3 10 304 2 5 3 8 +1 +3 10 305 3 4 4 9 +1 +5 10 50

As presented in Table 2, my pupils did not make a great progress during Cycle 1. The data shown that they had a minor improvement except for Pupil 1 who had no improvement at all. However, I found out that my pupils had a better progress in Cycle 2 as Pupil 1 and 5 showed 50% improvement while Pupil 3 and 4 showed 30% improvement from session 1 and 2. Furthermore, Pupil 2 showed 20% improvement in this cycle who had shown no improvement at all in formative test Cycle 1. Therefore, I can say that the intervention used in Cycle 2 helped all pupils to improve their reading comprehension more compared in Cycle 1 even though the intervention used were the same. This findings may be the result to other exterior factors such as pupils’ condition or the familiarization of the intervention because the technique used in the intervention was a new experience for the pupils.

Questionnaire and Journal

The findings from questionnaire and journal carried out showed that the intervention did bring a positive perception towards the pupils. Most of them agreed that the intervention brought more fun and interactive in the reading lessons. They also agreed that they were able to read better and faster with the use of the intervention. Last but not least, they all agreed that the intervention was a new approach in reading and they were all excited about it.

5.5 Conclusion

As a conclusion, I supposed that the intervention used in this research was a success based on the summary of findings discussed on the above. WH-questions in skimming and scanning does improve pupils’ reading comprehension as supported by the findings in the test scores. The pupils did showed an obvious improvement in the great gap of test scores from without the intervention, with the intervention in Cycle 1 and Cycle 2. Moreover, they also showed a continuous improvement in the progress of using the intervention within each session of the cycle and once again proved that the intervention did improved pupils’ reading comprehension.

5.6 Reflection

As a whole, I personally believe that my research had prominently affected pupils’ development especially in reading aspects. It is undeniable that there may be other factors that contributed to their improvement but my point here is changes in practice of teaching and learning is substantial because it provides pupils with conducive learning environment besides ensuring the enhancement of the teaching quality. Despite the success of this intervention, I also noticed some flaws in several aspects of the research that can be taken as the steps for future research. For examples, the intervention should cater the interest of all pupils instead of only the selected target group. Interest here included their learning style, personality and behaviour which are the most vital aspects in pupils’ learning advancement. For that reason, I think that my intervention can be better if I make use of information and communications technology (ICT) in order to cater to the various interest and learning styles of the pupils. As example, I could insert a variety of media during the reading session such as pictures, sound clips and video clips to attract visual and auditory learners.

6.0 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Reading comprehension is important in pupils learning development because understanding the contents of a text is the main purpose reading the text. Moreover, almost all of the teaching and learning resources need the pupils to comprehend the text in order for them to make use of it. Besides that, the interest of the pupil towards reading is equally important because this will encourage them to explore more reading text independently. Therefore, I would like to further my research by focusing more in improving pupils’ interest because I noticed that reading is the least concern and interest among pupils in the school I carried out this research. In the future, I want to come up with an intervention that can foster the importance of reading within the pupils which can finally make reading as one of the major practice in the school.

On the other hand, I was also having a problem with my selected participants because their level of proficiency were really different between each other. My poor planning in the selection of the target group may be the reason to this issue. Thus, I will make sure that my planning stage are well evaluated and adjusted especially at selecting the target group. I personally think that selecting a target group with a minor gap of proficiency between each other will provide me a more valid results and findings.

REFERENCES

Chitravelu, N., Sithamparam, S., & Teh, S. C. (2005). ELT methodology: Principles and practice. Penerbit Fajar Bakti.

Mertler, C. A. (2013). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators. Sage Publications.

Critelli, A., & Tritapoe, B. Effective Questioning Techniques to Increase Class Participation. E-Journal of Student Research 2 (1), 1-7.

Grellet, F. (1981). Developing reading skills: A practical guide to reading comprehension exercises. Cambridge University Press