Relationship between Prior Knowledge and Reading Comprehension

Noureldin Mohamed Abdelaal ,Amal Saleh Sase

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.6p.125

Noureldin Mohamed Abdelaal , Amal Saleh Sase

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.6p.125

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Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between prior knowledge and reading comprehension in second language among postgraduate students in UPM. Participants in the study were 20 students who have the same level in English as a second language from several faculties. On the basis of a prior-knowledge questionnaire and test, students were selected; they were asked to sit a two-passage reading comprehension exam. According to the questionnaire and the short prior quiz, students had high prior knowledge in one of the two passages, and low prior knowledge in the other. The result showed significantly high relationship between the high prior knowledge and reading comprehension. However, the results showed significantly low relationship between low prior knowledge and reading comprehension. Yet the performance of students in a reading comprehension with high prior knowledge was significantly better than reading comprehension with low prior knowledge.

Highlights

Reading is one of the main four skills of a language
Each new experience adds to your schema; in return such much knowledge or information will be about different thing and it will affect your reading comprehension. (Arbib, 1992) So schema or prior knowledge can play a part in reading comprehension
The first objective of the study was to show the relationship between prior knowledge and reading comprehension

Summary

Introduction

Reading is one of the main four skills of a language. It basically refers to the ability of decoding the graphemic string into spoken words. To know that a dog is a four-leg animal which barks, bites...etc or you may need to have knowledge about some kinds of dogs According to this theory, each new experience adds to your schema; in return such much knowledge or information will be about different thing and it will affect your reading comprehension. McNeil (2011) believes that prior knowledge does not play effective role for reading comprehension. He did a study on 20 university- level English language learners, but his results showed only 1% variance in favor of prior knowledge. Researchers disagree on whether prior knowledge is an effective contributor to better reading comprehension or not. Topic-relevant prior knowledge refers to readers’ pre-existing knowledge related to the text content and can be assessed with open-ended and/or multiple choice questions on vocabulary and relevant factual information (Shapiro, 2004)

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