ACTION RESEARCH

 Title of the study: Methods to overcome reading without comprehension using Action Research

 M.Nithiya, Primary School Teacher, Government Primary School, Abhishegapakkam, Puducherry. 

Abstract:

Reading fluently with comprehension can be challenging for children for lots of reasons. Not every student acquires reading skills at the same rate. Word calling is easier reading but in long run its frustrating and a pointless exercise in. It is no exaggeration to say that how will students develop the ability to comprehend what they read has a profound effect on their entire lives. A major goal of reading comprehension instruction, therefore, is to help students develop the knowledge skills and experiences they must have if they are to become competent and enthusiastic readers. The purpose of this paper is to describe the action research conducted at Government Primary School Abhishegapakkam. This report discusses about the importance of reading school for primary school children and the teaching strategies and reading strategies practice the two children in this action face. At last the report ends with the major findings, observations, recommendations and conclusion. 

Introduction:

 Reading requires understanding or comprehending, children must develop certain skills that will help them comprehend what they read. The most important thing about reading comprehension is to understand what children read being able to read fast is also important, but remember that speed is always secondary to understanding. Teachers can play a critical role in helping students develop their comprehension skills. Reading research has shown that comprehension instruction can help students do a better job of understanding and remembering what they read. Reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its meaning and to integrate with what the children already knows. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual words, which interfere with their ability to comprehend what is sweet. Read. There are many reading strategies to improve reading comprehension and inferences, including improving one’s vocabulary critical text analysis, narration of events and practising deep reading. 

Context: 

The study was conducted in my school for third standard students, 25 in number. It was a qualitative study conducted over a period of one month. The classroom issue: I am a primary school teacher in Puducherry for 12 years. At present I am the class teacher for fourth standard students. These were the same students for whom I had taught when they were first standard too. Hence I am gifted to know about the progression of their reading and learning abilities. I always thought my class students read and understand English well by the way they read the sentences in the book. But later I realised I was false when I corrected their answer sheets. The first part they had to answer in their exam was that, they will be given a paragraph in English, which they have to read and understand and answer the questions asked related to the paragraph given. To my surprise I found many students not answering the questions correctly. Then I realised that many students could read and memorise English sentences but they were poor in understanding and comprehending what they read.

 Exploratory research questions

I asked my students a set of questions so that I will come to know the factors which prevents them from understanding the sentences read.

 Questions were as follows: 

1. What do you feel about English language?

 2. How do you feel about English class compared to Tamil class? 

3. Do you think English words are difficult to understand?

 4. What is your opinion regarding the way English classes are taken? 

5. Do you want any change in the way classes are taken?

 Data collection & Analysis:

 The various responses received from students were:

 “I could understand Tamil words easily but I couldn’t understand English words”

 “Apart from Tamil class, I don’t like any other classes because all the other subject’s classes are in English” 

“I don’t like English classes because it’s not my mother tongue”

 “I like the classes but I am not able to understand” “Fear of asking questions”. 

“Afraid of English teacher.”

 “Not able to concentrate English class because I find the words difficult”

 “There are many new words taught every day that I have to learn which is not the case with Tamil language”

 “I find the class boring” 

Observations:

 From my interaction/Question & answer session with the students I made the following interpretations:

  Students have great fear to approach teachers and to ask them queries

  They read the sentence merely as a task given to them (to satisfy the teachers) and not realising that the task is to understand it

  They are comfortable interacting with their peers

  They understand Tamil language easily as it is their mother language and so they have some background knowledge about Tamil words which is lacking with English language as most of them are from low socio economic status.

  Because the students find words difficult to understand, it sets a vicious cycle and finally makes them feel classes are boring and develops disinterest in concentrating and understanding the sentences.

  I should make class interesting for my students by innovating different teaching strategies each day.

 My plan for action research:

 o Reciprocal teaching:

 When I started taking any lesson in English, first I gave an introduction about the lesson which the students are going to learn in that class. Then I started explaining each paragraph in the lesson in detail and at the end of the class I asked any one of the student to narrate what he/she understood in the lesson in his/her native language following which I asked them to tell the same in English.

 This helped in the following ways'

a) It helped to alleviate fear in the minds of students towards teacher

 b) As they first narrate the learnt points in their native language it boosts up their confidence and helps them get over the fear to narrate in English language next. 

c) When the learning points are summarised by the student, it gives students who didn’t understand the first time, a second chance to understand the topic.

 o Group discussion:

 I divided students into many groups of 5 each and gave them different story books in English. So each group is supposed to read the book with the help from their peers and come out with pictorial representation of the story. Then one from each group is asked to write the story in his or her own words. 

This helped in the following ways: 

- a) Improving their vocabulary skills and sorting out their queries with the help from peers.

 b) Understanding the words become compulsory as they are supposed to write in their own words.

 c) As they have to pictorially represent the story, it increases their creative thinking. 

 o Explanation with illustration:

 I started explaining each and every concept with suitable illustrations which were either my own drawing or a picture from any other source. I also motivated students to draw the pictures from their own understanding. I sort help from Azim Premji foundation who had set of illustrations for various concepts. This interested the student very much and once it happened that when a concept could have been better explained with an illustration was missing, one student volunteered to draw a picture to explain the same.

 This helped in the following ways: 

a) Making the class interesting

 b) Better and easier understanding of the concept.

 c) Creative thinking of the students. 

o Video assisted learning: 

I started making animated videos for better and easy understanding of the subject. I used Power point, audacity, olive video editor and various other platforms for creating videos to make the class interesting for my students.

 This helped in the following ways: 

a) Helps the teacher to deliver the concepts in his/her own way.

 b) Inter-disciplinary (English, EVS, Maths, Tamil) can be integrated and taught through a single video.

 c) It’s a joyful learning for the students.

 o Assessment session:

I decided to allocate separate time for assessing students in each period. At the end of each class, I started having question and answer session which is purely interactive to assess students regarding the concepts they have understood from the class. I also gave them five to ten minutes for raising queries which I patiently solved. In these lockdown days, I started using google forms, h5p and live interactive worksheets as E-assessment tools for the same.

 This helped in the following ways:

 a) This serves as a feedback for myself to improvise in the next class

 b) To assess students understanding capabilities and to solve their queries. 

 CONCLUSION:

 Its imperative that reading should always be with comprehension. It’s the duty of every teacher to make sure that students do really understand the various concepts taught to them. Action research helps the teacher not only to understand the hindering factors of students in learning the concepts but also to come out with various solutions which can be incorporated in day to day practice to help students to overcome those factors. Also the teacher should update oneself with all the recent evolving strategies to keep the students involved in class which helps them grow better as a competent individual. 

REFERENCES:

 1. "What is Reading Comprehension?". Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans. 2008-05-29. Archived from the original on 2016-05-09. Retrieved 2016-05-13. 2. ^ William Grabe (2009). Reading in a Second Language: Moving from Theory to Practice. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-72974-1. Archived from the original on 2018- 05-04. Koda