The Effect of Pre-reading Activities on the Reading Comprehension Performance of Ilami High School Students

Abstract

The present study was conducted for two purposes:(1) to compare the learners’ comprehension ability before and after the implementation of two types of pre-reading activities, guessing reading content from asking pre- reading questions and vocabulary definition, (2) to investigate the learners’ attitudes towards the implementation of two pre-reading activities. Research participants consisted of 60 grade- 10 students studying at Omol Habibeh high school in Ilam, Iran. A test of reading comprehension ability was administered to assign the subjects into two groups. The two groups were given different pre-reading activity, guessing reading content from asking pre-reading questions and vocabulary definition, respectively. The research instrument consisted of reading comprehension test (used as pre- and post- tests). The experiment using the two pre reading activities were carried out for 5 weeks two sessions a week .The data was analyzed statistically to identify means, standard deviation, and t-value. It was found that after implementation of the 2 pre-reading activities the subjects performed better in the post-test, at significant level of .05. When compared the results of the 2 pre-reading activities, it was found that the group receiving guessing meaning from pre-reading questions performed better that their counterpart who experienced vocabulary definitions, at.05. It was also found that both groups were satisfied with the activity they experienced.