The Effects of "Think-aloud" with Teacher Intervention on the Reading Comprehension: A Case Study of Technological University Students

Abstract

”Think-aloud” has long been identified as an effective reading strategy in helping students acquire a wide-range of metacognitive strategies (Cohen, 1998). Empirical studies on ”think-aloud” as intervention showed that explicit metacognitive strategy training with thinking-aloud is an effective way to promote students' reading comprehension (Carr, 2002; Oster, 2001). More recently, thinking-aloud with teacher intervention has been more widely operated and accepted by researchers in Taiwan (Chi, 1998; Yang, 2001, Chung, 2007). However, most studies on teacher intervention focused on the reading process. There has been little research concerned with the effectiveness of teacher intervention. Therefore, this study aims at exploring the effects of ”think-aloud with teacher intervention” at the technological university. Six sophomore students were recruited from a national technological university to receive instruction for two months. The results of this study showed that all students made progress in their reading comprehension, global strategy use, and metacognition, especially the students who scored lower on reading comprehension tests. It was also found that ”think-aloud” with teacher intervention facilitated students' monitoring and metacognitive awareness so as to remedy their reading difficulties and increase their reading comprehension. This study suggests that teachers need to arouse students' awareness of their strategy used and increase their monitoring comprehension. In conclusion, teacher intervention plays a significant role in English remediation and the ”think-aloud” method facilitates the development of reading strategies and students' reading comprehension.