Improving the reading comprehension of primary-school students at frustration-level reading through the paraphrasing strategy training: A multiple-probe design study

İlhan İlter

doi:10.26822/iejee.2017131894

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of “RAP” [RAP is a three-step strategy: Read-Ask-Put], a paraphrasing cognitive strategy training, associated with a self-regulatory model, on the development of reading comprehension among fourth-grade students. All participants were selected on the basis of initial reading comprehension measures and consisted of three male students who were identified as being at a frustration-level reading. A multiple-probe design across participants was used. As a result, the participants showed significant improvements in the text recall and an enhancement their reading comprehension skills. Two of the participants were able to maintain their improvements and generalized each step of the strategy in the “RAP” to different content-area texts. The remaining participant made remarkable improvements with respect to the baseline phase, but did not maintain and generalize the strategy. Suggestions were made for improving future research investigating the effects of RAP paraphrasing strategy.

Highlights

Reading comprehension includes the complex cognitive processes that need to be used in conjunction with reading activity to provide readers the opportunity to understand the meaning from a reading material
When asked to share their satisfaction with regard to the steps of the paraphrasing strategy training, two of the participants commented that they liked the RAP cards
The participants talked about a range of reading outcomes within the strategy training, such as main ideas and identifying details that were located within the passage, dialogue with themselves during reading texts and how to generate correct paraphrases

Summary

Introduction

Reading comprehension includes the complex cognitive processes that need to be used in conjunction with reading activity to provide readers the opportunity to understand the meaning from a reading material. Students have to have effective reading skills that could provide them with the ability to access complex content presented in textbooks to be successful in general education classrooms. This is because today's youth is expected to have higher-level literacy skills than past generations to keep up with the demands of the business environment (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). Identifying the main idea and details of a text is an essential ability for successful reading comprehension and is generally considered a prerequisite for higher-level strategies (Watson, Gable, Gear & Hughes, 2012)

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