The Effects of Reciprocal Teaching on the Reading Comprehension of Grade VI ESL Students in Balite I Elementary School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Most studies on reading intervention claimed that reciprocal teaching has positive effects in improving students' comprehension. However, many of these studies have given less focus in addressing the importance of providing students an intensive teaching of the four strategies through explicit instruction before the actual application. This study is focused to furtherly validate the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching on the reading comprehension of Grade VI students of Balite I Elementary School with the provision of intensive practice of the strategies before and during the intervention.

METHODS

A true experimental design was used which employed three criteria such as control group and experimental group, research manipulated variable and a random assignment. The Grade VI students were randomly assigned in control and experimental group. The control group provides a baseline data to which the result from the experimental group is compared.

RESULTS

After the score from the pretest and posttest of the students were subject to quantitative analysis, the major findings showed that the reading comprehension of the experimental group consisting 20 students has gained a more significant result than those of the control group. This was evident after students from the experimental group gained a mean score from 4.40 to 6.05 while the control group gained from 4.45 to 5.35; this marked a negligible difference within the two sets of scores before and after the intervention using reciprocal teaching.

DISCUSSIONS

The result suggests that giving students more time to practice and understand the role of each reading strategy would help them perform better its application in understanding the text they are reading. By that, they can be developed their independence in reading by applying these strategies in the reading process.