SKKN Utilizing graphic organizers to improve reading comprehension skill for the grade 11th students at high school

1. INTRODUCTION

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. Reasons for the study

Nowadays, with the tendency of globalization and integration, English plays

the role of an effective international communicative language. Therefore, learning

English has been considered a very important duty of many students. One of the

most important skills in learning English as well as other languages is reading

Moreover, dealing with students at high school for several years, I also find

out the fact that many students can write and speak English very well but they can

not do reading text correctly. Through classroom observations at Nghi Loc 2

school, I find that in reading lesson, my students often have difficulties in

identifying explicit information in a text, and comprehending the text as they lack

of vocabulary; they are also unable to find main idea in a paragraph as well as to

infer the meaning of the text.

Students have to take a GCSE examination after three years . In this test, there

are two reading comprehension exercises which accomplish a large propotion of

score. Therefore, applying GO will help students get higher score in the

exammination.

Furthermore, graphic organizers are considered as wonderful techniques to

make students actively engaged in their learning. Because organizers include

words, visual images, illustrative shapes, meaningful labels and logical displays,

they are effective for a variety of students with different language levels and

different multiple intelligences, especially for those with a visual modality

preference.

Using graphic orgnizer can help teachers to create contexts in which the

language is useful and meaningful. Therefore, it is hoped that this study will be

significant for both teachers and students of English. In addition, it will become a

good source reference to those who concern for reading teaching. Particularly, this

study is carried out with the hope to provide teachers knowledge about using

graphic organizers which can be used to help students learn English effectively.

Hopefully, it can help students to improve reading skill as well as the teachers to

upgrade their teaching method.

These reasons have given me a desire to do a research entitled “utilizing

graphic organizers to improve reading comprehension skill for the grade 11th

students at Nghi Loc 2 high school”.

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. The objectives of the study.

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To study different types of GO

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To study the way how to apply GO in teaching reading comprehension

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To give some solutions to teaching reading skill in order to help students in

Nghi loc 2 school to do the reading test more easily and correctly

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. The method of the study.

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Collecting information

Analysing data

Doing survey

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. The scope of the study.

Based on the background and identification of the theme, the study is limited

on teaching reading comprehension to the students in grade 11th by using graphic

Organizers. The research was conducted at my workplace- at Nghi Loc 2 high

school. The subject consists of 41 students who come from class 11A1 , school

year 2022-2023.

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. The design of the study.

The research study is organized into three parts as followed:

Part 1 supplies basic information including the reasons, objectives, methods,

scope and design of the study.

Part 2 studies the theory of reading comprehension, graphic organisers , types

of graphic organisers, and their advantages in teaching and learning reading

comprehension as well as deals with some difficulties faced by teachers and

students. I also mention some solutions and do surveys

Part 3 deals with the result analysis as well as the discussion of the data and

draws the conclusion, and give suggestions.

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1. INVESTIGATION
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I.1. Reading Comprehension.

I.1.1. The definitions of reading comprehension.

According to Merisuo and Storm (2006), reading comprehension is a complex

process: the reader constructs meaning by interacting with text using his or her

previous knowledge and experience and the information that can be found in the

text.

According to Grellet (1998: 3), reading comprehension is understanding

written text or extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.

In addition, White (1997: 22) states that comprehension involves recognizing

the significance of the message, understanding the intentions of the writer, and

going beyond what is written to guest at hidden, unstated or implied meaning.

Moreover, Howel (1993: 182) writes that comprehension is the act combining

information in passages with prior knowledge in order to construct meaning.

From the theories above, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a

complex process in which the reader interacts with the text and employs his/her

previous knowledge, experience and information to extract the significant inform

ation, understand the intentions of the writer, and goes beyond what is written to

guess at hidden, unstated or implied meaning on the text.

I.1.2. Types of questions in reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is a crucial part of the verbal section in GRE. If your

aim is to score high in the verbal section then you must practice the reading

comprehension questions rigorously. Despite the fact that the sections included

under comprehension relate to various topics, the questions posed under them

follow some distinct patterns.

I.1.2.1. Factual Questions

For answering these types of questions, look for the keyword or phrase in that

question, and locate the sentence in the passage in which this keyword or phrase

occurs. ‘Explicit answer’ questions under passage will generally be sequential,

implying that the response to a previous question can be found in an earlier part of

the paragraph, and the answer to a later question can be found in a later part of the

paragraph.For example,

The passage suggests that the proliferation of ragwort was particularly ill-

timed because it…

I.1.2.2.Primary Idea Questions:

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Spears (2000: 17) defines main idea as the author’s main point, a sentence, or

perhaps two that state what the whole thing is about. The main idea may take place

in the beginning of the paragraph, the end of the paragraph, combination between

the beginning and the end of the paragraph, or even omitted from the entire

paragraph.

The main idea of a passage is one that is mentioned frequently in the passage.

The indication of the primary purpose of the passage will usually be found in the

first two sentences of the passage, and also in the first sentence of each paragraph.

While attempting to answer a ‘Primary Idea’ question, it is frequently conceivable

to show up at the right answer through a procedure of elimination of the wrong

answers.For example,

The passage is primarily concerned with discussing the…

I.1.2.3. Inference Questions:

The inference you are asked to draw from a piece of information contained in

the passage will be just a simple logical extension. For answering an ‘inference’

question also, you should first identify the keyword or phrase in the question,

locate the sentence in which that keyword or phrase occurs, and read three

consecutive sentences in its neighborhood. This question type can be a little bit

tricky to answer the question. However, it can be conquered by practicing more

and more questions.For instance,

It can be inferred that the “present-day intellectuals” (line 12) believe that…

I.1.2.4. Tone of the Author Questions:

These questions ask you to gauge the author’s attitude towards a person or a

thing or a quality discussed in the passage. With just scanning the multiple-choice

answer options, phrases that are very negative or disdainful in tone can be

straightforwardly eliminated, so the choice can be limited to only a few. The

answer choices to ‘tone of the passage’ questions may sometimes use a less

familiar term to express the same idea, and could also be a test of your

vocabulary. For example,

The tone of the passage can best be described as…