UNIVERSIDAD ESTATAL PENÍNSULA DE SANTA ELENA

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES

PEDAGOGY OF NATIONAL AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

“RECIPROCAL TEACHING STRATEGY TO

IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION”

RESEARCH PROJECT
As a prerequisite to obtain a:
BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN PEDAGOGY OF NATIONAL
AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Author: DÍAZ CHÁVEZ ANA PAULA

Advisor: MSC. ÍTALO R. CARABAJO ROMERO

La Libertad – Ecuador
2022
 La Libertad, August 8th, 2022

ADVISOR’S APPROVAL

In my role as Advisor of the research paper and title “RECIPROCAL TEACHING

STRATEGY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION” prepared by Ana

Paula Díaz Chávez, an ungraduated student of the Pedagogy of National and Foreign Languages

Major, School of Educational Sciences and Languages at Universidad Estatal Península de Santa

Elena, I declare that after oriented, studied and reviewed the project, I approve it in its entirety,

because it meets the requirements and is sufficient for its submission to the evaluation of the

academic tribunal.

Sincerely,

Lcdo. Ítalo Rigoberto Carabajo Romero, MSc

ADVISOR
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to take the opportunity to thank God, and my family for their support during all

these years. Especially, I would like thank to my beloved mother for having supported me

through thick and thin, and also for having a lot of patience and love.

Finally, I would like to thank all my teachers for teaching me such valuable knowledge for my

future because without them, this could not be possible.

 DEDICATION

I want to dedicate this research project to my two favorite people, my mother and my

grandmother. Also, to my family for encouraging me and supporting me all this time.

With love

Ana Paula Díaz Chávez

 ABSTRACT

Reading is considered the most important skill in teaching and learning English, reason

for all the other skills are developed through reading, which means that without reading, there is

not speaking, without speaking there is not listening, in consequence, without listening there is

not writing. The main objective of this research is to explain the incidence of the reciprocal

teaching strategy to improve reading comprehension of High School students at Unidad

Educativa “Academia Naval Cap. Leonardo Abad Astudillo”. Also, the methodology applied in

this research was purely quantitative with a phenomenological study, where a questionnaire was

applied through focus groups. The results obtained from the focus groups reflect that students

have problems when they are doing reading comprehension activities, since they are not able to

easily predict a text which affects their ability to summarize in their own words. Furthermore,

students need to improve their reading sub-skills (encode, decode) because these are important to

develop their reading comprehension. With the implementation of the reciprocal teaching, it

could significantly improve the students’ reading comprehension of this institution.

KEY WORDS: reading, reading comprehension, reciprocal teaching, reciprocal teaching

strategies
 RESUMEN

La lectura es considera una de las habilidades más importante debido a que a través de

esta las otras habilidades se desarrollan, lo que significa que sin la habilidad de leer no

podríamos hablar, sin no hablamos no podríamos oír, y si no oímos no podemos escribir. El

objetivo principal de esta investigación es explicar la incidencia de la enseñanza recíproca para

mejorar la comprensión lectora de los estudiantes de bachillerato de la Unidad Educativa

“Academia Naval Cap. Leonardo Abad Astudillo”. Además, la metodología aplicada en este

estudio fue netamente cuantitativa con un estudio fenomenológico, en el cual se aplicó un

cuestionario a través de grupos focales. Los resultados obtenidos de los grupos focales

demostraron que los estudiantes presentan problemas al momento de realizar una lectura

comprensiva debido a que no pueden predecir un texto fácilmente lo que afecta que puedan

realizar un resumen en sus propias palabras. A su vez, los estudiantes deben mejorar las sub

habilidades de lectura (codificar, decodificar) dado que son importantes para desarrollar la

comprensión lectora. Con la implementación de la enseñanza recíproca, se podría llegar a

mejorar de forma significativa la comprensión lectora de los estudiantes de bachillerato de la

institución.

PALABRAS CLAVES: lectura, comprensión lectora, enseñanza recíproca, estrategias de

enseñanza recíproca
BOARD OF EXAMINERS
 INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................................................................................................... 5

ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... 7

INDEX.............................................................................................................................................. 10

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 14

CHAPTER I .................................................................................................................................... 16

THE PROBLEM ............................................................................................................................. 16

Research Topic ....................................................................................................................... 16

Research Title ......................................................................................................................... 16

The Research Problem ........................................................................................................... 16

Problem Statement ............................................................................................................. 16

Research questions ................................................................................................................. 18

Problem question................................................................................................................ 18

Specific questions ............................................................................................................... 18

Objectives of the research...................................................................................................... 18

General Objective .............................................................................................................. 18

Specific objectives .............................................................................................................. 18

Justification ............................................................................................................................ 19

CHAPTER II ................................................................................................................................... 21

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................................. 21

Background ............................................................................................................................ 21

Reading ............................................................................................................................... 21
 Reading comprehension..................................................................................................... 22

Reciprocal Teaching........................................................................................................... 22

Pedagogical basis .................................................................................................................... 23

Social Constructivism ........................................................................................................ 23

Cooperative Learning ........................................................................................................ 23

Theoretical basis..................................................................................................................... 24

Stages of the reading process ............................................................................................. 24

Reading sub skills ............................................................................................................... 25

Reading comprehension skills ........................................................................................... 26

Reciprocal teaching strategies ........................................................................................... 26

Legal basis .............................................................................................................................. 28

Variables of the study ............................................................................................................ 28

CHAPTER III ................................................................................................................................. 30

METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK ...................................................................................... 30

Methods .................................................................................................................................. 30

Qualitative Methodology ................................................................................................... 30

Type of Research .................................................................................................................... 31

Phenomenological Studies ................................................................................................. 31

Focus group interview........................................................................................................ 32

Instruments............................................................................................................................. 33

Questionnaire ..................................................................................................................... 33
 Type of questions.................................................................................................................... 33

Data Collection Processing and Resources ........................................................................... 33

Population and sample........................................................................................................... 34

CHAPTER IV.................................................................................................................................. 35

ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS ............................................................................................................ 35

Interpretation of data from focus group .............................................................................. 35

Analysis and discussion of focus group vs bibliographic review ........................................ 42

CHAPTER V ................................................................................................................................... 45

REFLECTIONS OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................ 45

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 48

ANNEXES ....................................................................................................................................... 54

Annex 1: Tutor Assignment .................................................................................................. 54

Annex 2: Anti-plagiarism Report ......................................................................................... 55

Annex 3: Focus Group-Questionnaire .................................................................................. 57

Annex 4: Interview transcript ............................................................................................... 58

 INDEX FIGURES

Figure 1 ....................................................................................................................................... 35

Figure 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 36

Figure 3 ....................................................................................................................................... 37

Figure 4 ....................................................................................................................................... 38

Figure 5 ....................................................................................................................................... 39

Figure 6 ....................................................................................................................................... 40

Figure 7 ....................................................................................................................................... 41
 14

INTRODUCTION

According to the Ministerio de Educación (2016) developing students’ reading

comprehension is the main key to improve the other basic English skills (listening, speaking, and

writing), since through reading students improve their critical thinking skills and acquire

vocabulary to communicate effectively. Consequently, when students arrive at High School, they

are supposed to understand foreign sources of information as well as they do in their mother

tongue (L1).

Based on the previous information, most of the 2do year High School students did not

fulfill these standards. This happens due to the lack of motivation that students have at homes,

the activities are often monotonous and boring for them, or just the process of encode (listening)

and decode (reading) are complex for them (Ortega et al.,2017, as cited in Huisha, 2021).

However, during the research process, the writer realized that during the pandemic students felt

disconnected from the teaching-learning process and they could not actively participate in

improving their reading skills.

In the same line, teachers had been applying different techniques and approaches to

improve reading skills. However, applying reciprocal teaching this issue could improve

significantly because according to Palincsar & Klenk (1992) reciprocal teaching uses 4 main

strategies (predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing) through small groups, which

helps students develop their reading comprehension and have an active role within their groups

by asking questions about what they are reading.

Furthermore, several researches have focused on the use of reciprocal teaching as a way

to improve students’ reading comprehension. These studies (Saputra, 2019; Satriani et al., 2022;

Ahmadi & Gilakjani, 2012; Iturralde & Saca, 2022) have focused on demonstrating how this
 15

strategy has significantly positive effects improving students’ reading comprehension and

metacognitive reading strategies.

The research purpose is to determine what aspects of reciprocal teaching can affect the

reading comprehension of High school students, explain the main components of reciprocal

teaching, and explain the benefits of the implementation of the reciprocal teaching strategy.

In addition, this thesis is divided into four chapters with the following information:

Chapter I: The Problem

This section describes the problem statement, objectives of the research, research

questions, and justification.

Chapter II: Theoretical Framework

This section includes background, pedagogical basis, theoretical basis, legal basis, and

the variables of the study.

Chapter III: Methodological Framework

This part explains the method applied in the research, type of research, instruments, data

collection processing and resources, and the population and sample.

Chapter IV: Analysis of Findings

This section describes the interpretation of data from focus group, the analysis and

discussion of focus group vs bibliographic review

Chapter V: Reflections of the Study

In this section the writer mentions how was the experience during the research process,

the perks and challenges, and what the writer will do differently for further research on the same

topic.
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CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM

Research Topic

Strategies and Reading Comprehension

Research Title

Reciprocal teaching strategy to improve students’ reading comprehension

The Research Problem

Problem Statement

Reading comprehension is a process through which the reader elaborates a meaning

based on the interaction with the text (Villafan, 2007). It occurs when the reader is able to give a

general idea or explain what the story is about. Besides, this process requires a lot of English

skills such as decoding, fluency, vocabulary, sentence construction, cohesion, reasoning,

background knowledge, and working memory. These elements, work hand by hand with the four

most important basic skills to learn the English language

The four basic skills work together to increase the development of each of them, the skills

are: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Listening and reading are considered the receptive

processes, which means that they are responsible for taking or collecting the information. On the

other hand, speaking and writing are the productive processes that consist of creating or giving

out that previous information. (Johnson, 2008)

Among the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), according to Merga &

Roni (2018), reading is the most important one. The reason is if we do not have the ability to

read there is no speaking, without speaking there is no listening, and without listening there is no

writing. Furthermore, in the reading process there are two important keywords: creating and
 17

meaning. If the meaning is not created, the reading would not take place to enhance the student’s

habit of reading.

Perceptions of teachers and students towards the habit of reading and the development of

reading comprehension are only due to academic obligations. The reason is that students are less

interested in reading, they also have a lack of vocabulary, and finally they have difficulty at the

moment to understand the text (Ministerio del Ecuador, 2012). Despite the advancement of

education when teaching English, teachers cannot encourage the reading comprehension process

because High School libraries have few materials, not professional staff, and few update

services, or they just do not have a library available on campus.

Another reason, that it is important to mention, is that some teachers are not allowed to

ask for extra-material (books or reading material), beyond the textbook provided by the Ministry

of Education. Furthermore, research has shown that students often have little opportunities for

developing critical order thinking skills and they cannot be exposed to the technology due to the

lack of preparation of the teachers’ staff (Parra et. al., 2017). Therefore, reciprocal teaching is

hard to accomplish at a High School level.

Farris (2004, as cited in Febriani, 2011) defines reciprocal teaching as a cooperative

learning procedure where the teacher and students understand and create their own idea about the

text. For this study, the aspects to consider are: Prediction, which means that the student

speculates what the text is about just by reading the title; Questioning, after reading students

propose some questions about the reading passage just to make sure they understand it; Seeking

Clarification, by working in small group discussions the teacher can help students find answers

that they feel confuse with; and finally Summarization occurs when the teacher is not only the

person who gives the summary, but also the students.

 18

The purpose of this research is to provide some options for students in order to practice

the four basic skills. Besides, this strategy allows students the opportunity to take control of the

class and it has some benefits such as improving students’ reading habits and increasing their

participation. Even though reciprocal teaching is not a solution for this problem, this strategy is

considered efficient to develop the students’ reading comprehension (Hamdani, 2020).

Research questions

Problem question

How does reciprocal teaching strategy improve students’ reading comprehension at

Unidad Educativa “Academia Naval Cap. Leonardo Abad Astudillo” La Libertad, Province of

Santa Elena?

Specific questions

● What aspects of reciprocal teaching affect the reading comprehension of High School

students?

● What strategies of reciprocal teaching develop the reading comprehension of High

School students?

● How reciprocal teaching influences the reading comprehension of High School students?

Objectives of the research

General Objective

To explain the incidence of the reciprocal teaching strategy to improve reading comprehension

of High School students at Unidad Educativa “Academia Naval Cap. Leonardo Abad Astudillo”

Specific objectives

● To determine what aspects of reciprocal teaching can affect the reading

comprehension of High School students.

 19

● To explain the main components of reciprocal teaching.

● To explain the benefits of the implementation of the reciprocal teaching strategy.

Justification

With the implementation of the three skills (Global engagement, Social and thinking

skills and Foundation for lifelong learning) by the Ministry of Education, students should

develop their understanding of the world, different cultures and their own culture. Besides, be

able to operate and participate in a globalized world that works in English. Ecuadorian students

are obligated to read and understand English in order to improve their L2 language for academic

purposes.

The importance of developing reading comprehension in Ecuadorian students lies in

being able to connect, interpret, process, and understand the paragraphs. Furthermore, the

application of these abilities using the English language in High School students at Unidad

Educativa “Academia Naval Cap. Leonardo Abad Astudillo” will provide them a lot of

opportunities to interact with non-Spanish speakers as well as foster vocabulary development.

Besides, teachers would be able to implement an innovative strategy that can help them tackle

students' issues regarding reading comprehension.

Nevertheless, according to Ortega et al. (2017, as cited in Huisha, 2021) it is evident that

students still have trouble reading, decoding and encoding basic stories using their L2 language

(English) which is caused by the lack of practice. Additionally, it is necessary to identify the

aspects of reading comprehension such as decoding and encoding, prior knowledge when

reading, and purpose for reading. Hence, institutions can develop or produce new strategies to

improve reading comprehension.

 20

The purpose of this research is to explain the benefits of the implementation of the

reciprocal teaching strategy and to determine how this strategy influences the reading

comprehension of High School students at Unidad Educativa “Academia Naval Cap. Leonardo

Abad Astudillo”, also to describe what are the benefits of the implementation of this strategy.
 21

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Background

Reading

“Reading is the practice of using text to create meaning” (Johnson, 2008, #3)

According to Hutasoit (2017) reading is essential in order to develop critical thinking and

to achieve this, it is necessary to have a purpose. Wallace (1996, as cited in Hutasoit, 2017)

mentioned that human beings have three personal purposes for reading. The first one is for

survival, people learn how to read just to preserve life, for example danger signs. The second one

is for learning; people sometimes relate this to school but it is not the case. Reading is the skill

that is destined to develop learning. The last one is for pleasure; people read only what they think

can offer enjoyment.

As well as Wallace, Allan Smalley (1992, as cited in Ramadhani, 2018) stated that

reading is more than an activity; it is a purpose that any person has in order to develop their

comprehension. Furthermore, comprehension is a complex process by which the person (reader)

understands meanings and the relationship between the ideas of the text.

Through reading people can develop the skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency,

vocabulary, and comprehension. It is important for students to develop fluency, vocabulary,

word recognition, and comprehension in order to decode the message produced by the author

(writer) who is the person that sends the information (sender).

 22

Reading comprehension

“Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning by coordinating a

number of complex processes that include word reading, word and world knowledge, and

fluency” Harris & Graham (2007, as cited in Hasan et al., 2018, #3)

Reading comprehension is considered a complex process in which the person (reader)

uses decoding and encoding processes to understand, find the meaning, and recognizes printed

words from written materials (Hasdaniah, 1984, as cited in Ramadhani, 2018), which means that

the person is able to extract the meaning of the phrases or words from any text.

Meanwhile, according to Klingner et al. (2015) reading comprehension is a

multicomponent, highly complex, and active process that involves not only the comprehension of

the text, but also the interaction between the readers and their prior knowledge.

To improve reading comprehension, previous knowledge is required because the more a

person has good prior knowledge, the easier they will understand the reading texts. Furthermore,

this process involves not only recalling facts but also the ability to select and analyze the author's

point of view (Noicharoen, 2012; as cited in Dara, 2019).

Reciprocal Teaching

“Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional procedure that takes place in a

collaborative learning group and features guided practice in the flexible application of four

concrete strategies to the task of text comprehension: questioning, summarizing, clarifying, and

predicting.” (Palincsar & Klenk, 1992, #213)

Sari et al. (2019) mentioned that there are some advantages of using reciprocal teaching

strategy such as 1) encouraging students to be more independent readers, 2) helping students

before taking any assessment, 3) activating students’ prior knowledge when they apply
 23

reciprocal teaching in class, 4) allowing students to use their peers’ ideas in order to build their

own ideas, and 5) motivating students to actively take part in thinking.

As well as Palincsar & Klenk, Oczkus (2018) stated that reciprocal teaching is an assisted

conversation or discussion technique that integrates four important steps or strategies called the

“Fabulous Four”- predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing- that student can apply in

order to comprehend the whole text.

Pedagogical basis

Social Constructivism

“The theory states that language and culture are the frameworks through which humans

experience, communicate, and understand reality” (Vygotsky, 1968; as cited in Akpan et al.,

2020).

Vygotsky (1978) associated or connected dialogue and metacognition by explaining how

people develop an understanding of concepts. He considered that the learning process included

moving into a zone of development that is supported by the teacher or another person in dialogue

with the student (learner). Through dialogue students are able to transform their current

knowledge, to construct new ideas and meanings.

Cooperative Learning

“Cooperative learning is an instructional program in which students work in small

groups to help one another master academic content....” (Slavin, 1990)

According to Johnson et al. (1991) cooperative learning is a tool that is applied in small

groups of students where they have to work between them to increase individual, as well as team

member learning. In addition, this exists when students work with each other in order to achieve

learning goals.
 24

Vygostky (1978) mentioned that collaborative learning is frequently founded on socio-

cognitive perspectives, and it gives opportunities for any student to learn from their peers. (Lam

& Arizona State University, 2013)

It is defined as an “umbrella term” because it can integrate some of the educational

approaches usually including the joint students’ intellectual effort, or students and teacher

together. In this strategy, students work in pairs or groups of four, searching together for

understanding, solutions, definitions, or creating something. (Smith & MacGregor, 1992)

Theoretical basis

Stages of the reading process

There are three main activities involved in the reading process according to Mukminatein

(2011, as cited in Saputra, 2019) as follow:

Pre-reading/before reading

Pre-reading activities are guides or instructional activities that the teacher applies to know

what students already know about the topic and also prepares them for the new information. This

activity allows students to be able to easily understand the text because they have an idea of what

they are going to read. Besides, these activities should be selected according to the needs and

preferences of students, allowing them to not depend on the phrases on the text and will be able

to give a general meaning in a short time. There are common activities that can be applied such

as predicting from words/phrases, title/first, sentences/key illustrations, readers’ questions,

general telling, and sharing existing knowledge (Wahjudi, 2010).

While reading/whilst reading

The main goal of while reading exercise is to model good reading strategies that can help

both teachers and students. Some of these strategies are: main ideas, predicting information
 25

(what is next), relating the ideas between them, guessing meaning of unfamiliar words or just

deciding to skip unknown words. Furthermore, these activities can help students to know and

comprehend what is the real content of the text through discussions that are consistent with the

students’ interest. Common activities are: modeled reading, skimming, asking and answering

questions, and reading aloud (Wahjudi, 2010).

Post reading/after reading

Post reading exercises give students the opportunity to obtain new information from the

text. This is the last, but certainly not least, stage in comprehending the text. At this point,

students should be able to evaluate, analyze, and comprehend the text as well as respond to it

giving their point of view. In this phase, teachers can check the students’ knowledge in order to

know if they can connect or compare the information with other works. Common activities could

be creating stories or end of stories, producing posters, reconstructing texts, and questioning the

text (Wahjudi, 2010).

Reading sub skills

Encoding and decoding

Widdowson (1979, as cited in Sangia, 2014) mentioned that decoding is the interpretation

of writing words into the specific sound and meanings of spoken words (say a word) when the

person is reading it on a text. This process is not enough in itself to allow comprehension and it

is because if someone wants to be a good reader the person needs to be a good decoder. On the

other hand, encoding (spelling) usually uses a set of directions to show what the encoder wants

to express or communicate. Besides, both encode and decode have to work together in order to

achieve the comprehension.

Coherence and cohesion

 26

According to Nunan (1993, as cited in Suwandi, 2015) stated that cohesion is all the ways

in which the sentences are associated by cohesive devices (words/phrases that are used to

connect ideas with the text) in order to allow the reader to recognize the semantic relationship

between them. While coherence is each sentence or paragraph found in the text that comes

together to form a dialogue to give the reader to catch its meaning.

Background knowledge or schemata

Background knowledge (long-term memory) refers to all the knowledge that a person can

have and it can include episodes, events, facts, practical knowledge as well as associated

vocabulary. The schemata (short-term memory) can be appreciated differently from one reader to

another because they are built from the accumulation of knowledge and experience which means

the reader is able to associate familiar terms/events with prior knowledge (Smith & MacGregor,

1992).

Reading comprehension skills

Skimming and scanning

Skimming is a technique that readers often use when they have an accumulation of

materials to read in a short time. Besides, they are able to select the most important part and the

principal idea rather than read the whole text. While scanning depends on skimming because

people (reader) are not worried with the larger meaning of the text (details). Furthermore, they

can search for specific information such as dates, names, places, among others (Yusuf et al.,

2017).

Reciprocal teaching strategies

Ika (2014, as cited in Saputra, 2019) stated the four steps applied in the reciprocal

teaching:
 27

1. Generating question

In this stage, students activate their previous knowledge; however, it is important to try to

help them move beyond what they see, the obvious, towards the analytical. Besides, students ask

questions about the text and these questions should be easily answered by giving details of the

reading.

2. Clarifying

This step establishes that students stay actively involved with what they are reading and

also this helps them to clarify some unknown words or phrases. While they are reading, they can

verify and make a list of unfamiliar words, usual expressions, concepts, or any information that

they consider may be confusing to them and through a group discussion they can review the list.

3. Summarizing

This stage requires students’ attention to critical content to decide what is really

important and what is not. In order to achieve this, the teacher starts selecting the principal and

then the group leader summarizes the part using the main points or keywords. However, if a

student has difficulty at the moment to give a summary, this will reflect that he or she has

problems with comprehension.

4. Predicting

In this step students activate their prior knowledge and can establish the purpose of the

text. Students must evaluate what they have to read and start creating expectations about what is

coming next. When a student starts reading a book, their predictions are based on the cover or

illustration, the title or topic, and the introduction.

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Legal basis

The National Curriculum Guidelines for English as a Foreign Language (EFL)

(Ministerio de Educacion, 2014) which is based on The Common European Framework of

Reference (CEFR) describes the language abilities and understanding that students are able to:

● Scan and skim complex expository, procedural and narrative texts.

● Use appropriate interpretation strategies to deal with the corresponding text types

according to B1 level.

● Identify relevant information.

Variables of the study

Operationalization level of variables

VARIABLES DEFINITION DIMENSIONS INDICATORS

Johnson (2008) said 1. Stages of the 1.1 Pre reading
READING “Reading is a constantly reading process 1.2 While reading
COMPREHENSION developing skill” which 1.3 Post reading
(DEPENDENT) means that in order to
develop this skill it is 2. Reading sub skills 2.1 Encoding
necessary to practice every 2.2 Decoding
single day, conversely, this 2.3 Coherence
skill can deteriorate. 2.4 Cohesion
2.5 Background
knowledge
3.Reading 3.1 Skimming
comprehension 3.2 Scanning
skills
As a general concept, 1. Reciprocal 1.1 Predicting
RECIPROCAL reciprocal teaching is an teaching strategies 1.2 Questioning
TEACHING instructional procedure that 1.3 Clarifying
STRATEGY was developed to enhance
1.4 Summarizing
reading comprehension that
(INDEPENDENT) takes place in a
collaborative learning group
through four combined
steps: predicting, clarifying,
questioning, and
summarizing. By applying
 29

this technique, students take

a more active role within
the groups, that is, they
assume the teacher's role by
asking questions about the
text (Palincsar et al., 1984).
 30

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Methods

Qualitative Methodology

The present work uses qualitative research to obtain valuable information to describe

perceptions and attitudes related to reading. The study and research of the data collection is

analyzed in order to get the knowledge and conclusions of this work. Furthermore, in this section

a literature will be used to help identify the methods to be used for the study.

According to Mack et al. (2005) qualitative research “is a type of scientific research”

which means that it consists of seeking answers to a question(s), collecting evidences, producing

findings that were not determined in advance, producing findings that are functional beyond the

instant boundaries of the study, and systematically uses a predetermined set of procedures to

answer the question(s).

Leavy (2017) mentioned that in qualitative research the main advantage of using this

approach is that it allows to collect rich data with descriptions and examples, and the

participants’ language and concerns would be at the forefront. In this research it will be

necessary to implement the purpose statement, the research questions (to understand the

participants) and the collect data to obtain results.

“Qualitative researchers try to ascertain how people who experience these conditions

themselves define what they are going through, when they decide to seek treatment, what

happens when they seek treatment, how their experience of illness impinges on their lives and so

on” (Kielmann et al., 2012, #8).

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Type of Research

Phenomenological Studies

According to Creswell (2013) a phenomenological study “describes the common meaning for

several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon.” This type of study

focuses on expressing what all the participants could have in familiarity as they experience a

phenomenon.

Smith & MacGregor (1992) stated that phenomenology is a “philosophical approach to the

study of experience.” Also, phenomenology shares a singular interest in examining the

experiences of human beings through descriptions provided by them. These experiences are

called lived experiences. However, the main objective is to describe the meaning that

experiences have for each participant.

With the previous information, the present study was carried out through two phases as

follow:

Phase 1: Documentary and field research

 An attempt was made to identify all of the official or no official documents and texts that

served as source materials.

 The documents and texts were analyzed in order to select the most relevant information

for the study.

Phase 2: Analysis and interpretation of the collected data

To achieve the objectives set out in this research, it was necessary to work with a qualitative

methodology to measure the aspects of both variables: reciprocal teaching (independent) and

reading comprehension (dependent).

The questionnaire applied in this work has 3 groups:

 32

Group 1: Reading sub-skills, which is composed of one question related to encode and

decode.

Group 2: Reciprocal teaching strategies, which is composed of 4 questions related to

prediction, clarification, summary, and generation of questions.

Group 3: General questions, which is composed of 2 questions related to reading and

vocabulary.

Focus group interview

In order to have a general background on students’ reading skill process, they were

interviewed in a focus group in order to know about their difficulties in reading, their current

situation in this skill, and what are the methods and strategies that they use to comprehend the

text while they are reading.

Creswell (2012) stated that “a focus group interview is the process of collecting data through

interviews with a group of people, typically four to six”. It is very useful when the time to collect

the information is not sufficient and also when the number of participants is large. This can be

challenging if the focus groups are audiotaped because the transcription could be very difficult,

also taking notes is another problem because so much is occurring at that moment.

Focus groups are used to get information about something specific like a service or product

that a community or subgroup wants or would like to have. Besides, it is well suited for socio

behavioral research in order to know the population's needs. However, this is not the best method

to get information on highly personal or socially sensitive topics, the best one is one-on-one

interviews (Mack et al., 2005).

 33

Instruments

Questionnaire

To obtain data results on reading skill, it was necessary to apply a questionnaire focused on

what are the aspects that affect students’ reading comprehension and what strategies of the

reciprocal teaching will help improve it.

According to Creswell (2013) a questionnaire “is a form used in a survey design that

participants in a study complete and return to the researcher.” However, there are different

forms of questionnaires such as mailed questionnaires and web-based questionnaires. The

objective is to give some questions and the participant has to answer those questions through

providing basic information.

Type of questions

The type of questions was open-ended where participants were able to expand the options for

responding to the questions. Besides, the survey had seven questions related to the problem and

the variables, and also it was a face-to-face interview. The reason for this questionnaire is to

obtain information about what aspects of reciprocal teaching can affect students’ reading

comprehension, what strategies of reciprocal teaching develop students’ reading comprehension,

and how reciprocal teaching influences students’ reading comprehension.

Data Collection Processing and Resources

Basic Questions Explanation

1. What? To obtain the data

At Unidad Educativa “Academia Naval Cap.
2. Where?
Leonardo Abad Astudillo”, La Libertad-Santa
Elena Province
3. When? July 15th, 2022
 34

4. How? Questionnaire, opened-ended questions

5. What for? To determine what aspects of reciprocal
teaching can affect students’ reading
comprehension, to explain the main
components of reciprocal teaching, and to
explain the benefits of the implementation of
the reciprocal teaching strategy.

Population and sample

Population

A population is a group of elements (students) about which the researcher will make

declarations. The population of this research project was performed with the 2do year High

School students from the Santa Elena province who take English as a compulsory subject as part

of their curriculum.

Sample

A sample is the way that researchers apply in order to get a representative sample to make

deductions about an entire population. Accordingly, one course of the 2 do year High School (A)

was taken and used as a suitable sample for this research with 22 students (16 men and 6

women).
 35

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS

Interpretation of data from focus group

In order to obtain the data, a focus group was carried out through a focus group interview

with 22 students. The analysis and interpretation of the questions are below:

Figure 1

Question 1: In your opinion, what is the meaning of reading?

Source: nubedepalabras.es
Author: Ana Paula Díaz Chávez
The most frequent words: analyze and understand the pages, understand the book,

comprehend the topic

Analysis: During the focus group, 3 out of 5 groups agreed that reading is the analysis and

understanding of the pages. On the other hand, 1 out of 5 groups consider that reading means

understanding the book. Contrarily, a few of the students believe that reading means

comprehending the topic.

 36

Figure 2

Question 2: When you start reading, how easy is it for you to predict the content of the text?

Source: nubedepalabras.es
Author: Ana Paula Díaz Chávez

The most frequent words: depends on the text, depends on the history, depends on the

drama

Analysis: According to the different answers, 3 out of 5 groups can predict a text depending

on it, because they had the ability to make assumptions using the book cover. In contrast, 1 out

of 5 groups consider that they can predict depending on the story of the book, because they need

to know what they are going to read. Furthermore, 1 out 5 groups said that they are able to

predict depending on the drama of the book.

 37

Figure 3

Question 3: What are the reasons that you will need the assistance of the teacher at the moment
of reading?

Source: nubedepalabras.es
Author: Ana Paula Díaz Chávez

The most frequent words: the meaning of a word or phrases, to organize the ideas

Analysis: The majority of the students (4 out of 5 groups) need the assistance of their teacher

because they do not know the meaning of a specific word or there is a phrase that might be

confusing to them. However, very few of them (1 out of 5 groups) express that they need the

help of the teacher because sometimes they usually have the idea of what the text is about but

they do not know how to organize those ideas.

 38

Figure 4

Question 4: When you finish the reading, how difficult is for you to give a summary in your own
words?

Source: nubedepalabras.es
Author: Ana Paula Díaz Chávez

The most frequent words: depends on the text, easy, difficult

Analysis: Based on the students responds, 2 out of 5 groups explain that they can give a

summary depending on the text (drama, comedy, history). In contrast, another group of students

(2 out of 5 groups) find it easy because they said that if they understand the story, they are able

to do it. Finally, 1 out of 5 groups find it difficult because they have to read more than once in

order to understand the text.

 39

Figure 5

Question 5: In the reading, if you find an unfamiliar word or phrase, how can you find out its
meaning?

Source: nubedepalabras.es
Author: Ana Paula Díaz Chávez

The most frequent words: reading all the text, doing a summary, searching on

google/dictionary

Analysis: Taking into consideration, the majority of students (3 out of 5 groups) are able to

find the meaning of an unfamiliar word by reading all the text again. However, 1 out of 5 groups

find the meaning of unknown words by summarizing the text. Besides, 1 out of 5 groups find the

meaning of those words by searching on google on in a dictionary.

 40

Figure 6

Question 6: During the reading process, how fast is it for you to decode and encode a text?

Source: nubedepalabras.es
Author: Ana Paula Díaz Chávez

The most frequent words: decode is easier, encode is difficult

Analysis: The responds demonstrates that half of the students (3 out of 5 groups) cannot

encode as easily as they decode. The reason is they find it difficult to encode because sometimes

they do not know what the correct pronunciation is. On the other hand, 2 out of 5 groups find

decode easier because they can read the word even though they do not know the correct

pronunciation.
 41

Figure 7

Question 7: How do you answer the questions that you generate when you start reading the text?

Source: nubedepalabras.es
Author: Ana Paula Díaz Chávez

The most frequent words: using the text, understanding the text

Analysis: Considering the students’ answers, it indicates that a large quantity of students (3

out of 5 groups) can answer the questions that they generate when they start reading by using the

text, opposed to a short number of students (2 out of 5 groups) that express they can answer

those questions by understanding the text.

 42

Analysis and discussion of focus group vs bibliographic review

In order to complement and have a better understanding of the results obtained by the

interview, a focus group was used as a data collection instrument in order to give a possible

solution to the research problem.

Reciprocal teaching strategies. – During the focus group, students have no knowledge

about reciprocal teaching; however, they applied its strategies without realizing it.

Predicting

“We think that it depends a lot about what is the reading and how he's right history know for

example like history for kids are easy to predict what's going on because he's right away that kids

will understand have fun on it but we think that reading that mean for older people and for a

more serious audience it's more difficult to understand or to try to predict what is going on and

more in like for example we don't know science fiction or that type of drama where they want to

make plot-tweets and change the history to confuse the reader, so we think that it depends of the

history a lot” (Group #1: 4 students)

Ika (2014) explains that to be able to predict a text it is necessary to have prior knowledge

about the text, for that reason must of the students base the predictions on the book cover or the

introduction. That is why most of the students express that if they have to predict a story, it will

be based on the type of reading.

Summarizing

“Well, we think that this guilty about make summers about the history. Depends a lot again

about the story we were stopping for example, is something that we have already known and

have analogy about that type of information topic it will be easier for us to put on making our

words and what we have read before. But we think that is for example a new text, new
 43

information, it will be a little harder because we have to process information to make an opinion

if something our topic that needs an opinion personal opinion or make a point of view in what we

can make our own worsened vision of the topic. So, we think all depend on the reading and what

we are seeing or reading in our last experience” (Group #3: 6 students)

Ika (2014) mentions that in this step students need to pay attention because they have to

determine what is relevant and what is not. Besides, they have to be able to retell the reading in

their own words. However, students said that they are able to give a summary only if they have

the time to process the information that it was given to them.

Clarifying

“Well, when we don't know a word or something from the text, we tried to a read again that

part until we know what word it can be. Also, we can use a web pages or dictionaries to confirm

what that word is or we think” (Group #4: 4 students)

Ika (2014) expressed that all of the students have to be actively engaged with the text,

because when a student has difficulties with an unfamiliar word, they have to seek clarification

by a group discussion. Nevertheless, students mentioned that they usually use other means to

clarify their doubts, when what the authors recommend is working is groups.

Generating questions

“For us, when we start to make questions, we just read and read for start answering because

all the questions that we had we can answer, because the answer is on the text” (Group #5: 4

students)

Ika (2014) stated that students should ask questions before they start reading, and those

questions have to be answered easily using the text. In this case, students are able to generate

questions and answer those questions through the text, as established by Ika.
 44

Reading sub-skills. – In the focus group, students have no idea about encode and decode.

However, after the explanation they realized that they applied these sub-skills.

Encode and decode

“The part of decode can be easy because no matter if you are reading in your mind the word,

and you don't have the correct pronunciation, you can understand or maybe have an idea of what

are you reading. But encode part can be a little difficult because for example when you hear

something too fast you can lose the what is talking about or also when we are talking about the

accent of British or American have a different denotation and different pronunciation of the

words of their letters, so it can be difficult like tomato or tomato, can be difficult part of encode”

(Group #2: 4 students)

According to Widdowson (1979), decoding is translating written words into the correct

sound or the correct meaning of spoken words. On the other hand, encoding is the opposite,

which means they have to be able to hear the word and spell it correctly. In this part, all students

express that they still have difficulty in encode due to the accent or the way that the speaker

(person) speaks.
 45

CHAPTER V

REFLECTIONS OF THE STUDY

To extract knowledge from a text, it is important to improve the reading comprehension

which means understand the reading (text, story, and book). From what was evidenced in the

focus group, related to the research objectives, if the students want to be able to predict, generate

questions, clarify, and summarize a text; it is indispensable to develop reading comprehension.

Furthermore, reciprocal teaching offers a variety of benefits such as letting students to be

independent readers, activating students’ prior knowledge, building their own ideas through their

peers’ ideas, and motivating students to be more actively in the thinking process.

Some limitations that students face when developing reading comprehension are

concentration and organize the ideas. Concentration is an important key because students are

able to generate questions, predict the story, clarify their doubts, and make summarize in their

own words. On the other hand, organize the ideas is important as well because students need to

identify the main idea and the support ideas in order to understand the hole text.

During the research process, a variety of work suggests that reciprocal teaching can be

applied as a strategy to improve students’ reading comprehension through didactic guides

focused on reciprocal teaching activities, which used a variety of reading (short stories

depending on the student’s English level) with some worksheets, related to those stories to

incentive their development in reading comprehension. Another possible solution is the

application of Cooperative Learning Method where students have to work in small groups (as

well as reciprocal teaching) to achieve a common goal; however, this goal will depend on the

class objectives.
 46

Based on the writer experience at the moment of carrying out this research, it was an

enriched experience because it allowed to discover that this particular institution does not apply

the traditional teaching-learning process which is explain the grammar rule according to the

book, focus only on the resources that the institution or the Ministry of Education provides, or

forces students to memorize and repeat what the teacher says.

On the contrary, teachers apply a lot of strategies such as role-play, competitions, and they

work with the students’ experiences in order to catch their attention. Besides, when they have to

evaluate students, the assessments do not have the common standards which allow the students’

critical development.

During the study, the writer faced different challenges that made this work complex to carry

out. One of those challenges was to find truthful source of information on the internet since the

information obtained was more related to graduation thesis and very old papers. Another one was

when formulating the questions for the questionnaire because the questions had to be related to

the research questions. Finally, the last challenge was during the focus group interview, the

students were in class and because of the time, they were divided into small groups and not all of

them were able to answer the questions.

On the other hand, the perks that the writer found during the research were the availability of

the institution at the moment of conducting the focus group. Besides, students participated

actively in their groups answering all the questions with honest and they wanted to answers the

questions using their L2 language.

A life lesson that the writer learned in this process was that it is not necessary to follow a

text or have a lot of material to teach, the most important attribute is to have passion, patience,
 47

and predisposition to teach. These aspects obtained from the research helped the writer to know

how to be a better teacher and look for new strategies to apply in the future.

At the beginning of the study, the conception about reciprocal teaching was that all

institutions applied this strategy in order to improve students’ reading comprehension. However,

during the research it was evident that a few institutions used the reciprocal teaching as strategy

but they were applied with tenth-grade students and college students. Another conception was

that students had knowledge about decode and encode but unfortunately, they do not have any

idea about these words and even how to apply this reading sub-skills.

Finally, what the writer will do differently for further research on the same topic is to be able

to apply the reciprocal teaching in order to confirm whether the strategy would increase high

school students’ reading comprehension because, as mentioned before, this strategy was applied

in tenth-grade students and college students. Furthermore, provide a didactic guide with local

tales to motivate and improve students reading through some interactive activities where they

have to write and draw the main ideas about the topic, etc.
 48

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ANNEXES

Annex 1: Tutor Assignment

 55

Annex 2: Anti-plagiarism Report

56
 57

Annex 3: Focus Group-Questionnaire

1. In your opinion, what is the meaning of reading?

2. When you start reading, how easy is it for you to predict the content of the text?

3. What are the reasons that you will need the assistance of the teacher at the moment of

reading?

4. When you finish the reading, how difficult is it for you to give a summary in your own

words?

5. In a reading if you find an unfamiliar word or phrase, how can you find out its meaning?

6. During the reading process, how fast is it for you to decode and encode a text?

7. How do you answer the questions that you generate when you are reading a text?
 58

Annex 4: Interview transcript

1. - In your opinion, what is the meaning of reading?

Group 1:

Is to read obviously pages and understand worries about the book or the thing that you reading

really.

Group 2:

Reading is when we have taken row booking, we read so trying to understand or comprehend

what it happened in the history.

Group 3:

Reading is understanding the letters that are writing in a book or in a paper.

Group 4:

To make the ability to have comprehension about the topic that exists in the in the reading about.

Group 5:

Reading is like read a text or a page but you can analyze and also understand what is in that

page.

2. - When you start reading, how easy is it for you to predict the content of the text?

Group 1:

It depends a lot about what is the reading and how he's right history know for example like

history for kids are easy to predict what's going on because he's right away that kids will

understand have fun on it but we think that reading that mean for older people and for a more

serious audience it's more difficult to understand or to try to predict what is going on and more in

like for example we don't know science fiction or that type of drama where they want to make
 59

plot-tweets and change the history to confuse the reader, so we think that it depends of the

history a lot.

Group 2:

It depends what you read. If you're reading love story is not all the same like one of the people or

one of the characters can die and some romance that we can take the reading that if you're

reading like study something that is not going to change.

Group 3:

It depends that the time that you have to analyze all of the part appoint that the reading has, so it

depends of the drama and the type of analysis that you have in this reading about

Group 4:

It depends on the content of the text because if we're talking about like sci-fi reading or like

recipe, you know, we can interact or know what it will talk about. So, it depends on the text the

type of text.

Group 5:

It depends on the type of text and it depends of the time that you spend reading a book for

example, for a person who love reading and have a lot of folks so for he is easier to comprehend

the book or the history but if we start reading like one or two weeks, we need to read one two or

two times to comprehend the history.

3. - What are the reasons that you will need the assistance of the teacher at the moment of

reading?

Group 1:

We need the assistance of the teacher for example if we don't know the mean or some words

even if we know the mean for example, we don't know how translation phrasal verbs that also
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change the meaning sometimes with the words so that could be the thing that we will ask to the

teacher like: miss for example, what is the meaning of this word we don't have seen word so we

cannot make the continue with the history. But also, we think that if we read the context of the

history, we can find what is the word meaning you know if you're trying to understand what's

going on you can put on and in context but in general is for the words that we need for example,

so grammatical things that happen understand clearly or we don't know pretty well so that could

be the help of the teacher.

Group 2:

We used to ask to the teacher when we are reading, like sometimes the meaning of a word or the

context of the sentence because many times. We have a lot of imagination and ideas in our head

so we can get another context like it's not the same like the text it's trying to tell us so sometimes

it's when we asked to the teacher that context or the meaning of a word.

Group 3:

Sometimes, we need the help of the teacher for example when we are reading something and we

found a difficult word that is maybe it's one thing but it's another form to say it, and we don't

understand it that makes me that we can't complain have a good comprehension of this story. So,

we need her or the teacher in specifically to tell me or maybe send us help to have the

comprehension of that.

Group 4:

For example, at the moment that we saw a video and we need to write a summary for example

we have the idea as to how do that and we can't formulate the context that we would to write and

it is at the moment of we ask to teacher to help me and for organize better that the ideas that we

had.
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Group 5:

We will ask for help in cases like in a sentence we don't have like a complete context so we can

have like a definition or a reference about a word it also could be in cases like slangs that are

informal ways to express in English and also when there are there are phrasal verbs.

4. - When you finish the reading, how difficult is it for you to give a summary in your own

words?

Group 1:

Depends a lot again about the Story we were stopping for example, is something that we have

really known and have analogy about that type of information topic it will be will be easier for us

to put on making my words and what we have read before. But we think that is for example a

new text new information it will be a little harder because we have to process information to

make an opinion if something our topic that needs an opinion personal opinion or make a point

of view in what we can make my own worsened vision of the topic so we think all depend on the

reading and what we are seeing or reading in my last experience.

Group 2:

We don't think it's so difficult because when we are reading the text we start to analyze and try

and trying to understand why saying so start summary is not that hard.

Group 3:

In our last experience, we have the most difficult part was to combined words that we don't and

we didn't use in that time. We have to analyze fire of the part of the all of the reading so we think

that this is the most difficult part for us.

Group 4:
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The most difficult part to make a summary is depending the text that we are reading. If it's too

long, we need to read twice to have more details about that or also it can depend of the context it

can be something short but a little difficult. So, we have to read again and the writing part can be

difficult in this sense.

Group 5:

Is not too difficult to write a summary because if you have the story or the book that you're

reading in front of you can read paragraph by paragraph and make a summary step by step. So,

you can read a little bit of words or you don’t have to read all the book. You only have to read

some words and you can make a summary of that words.

5. - In a reading if you find an unfamiliar word or phrase, how can you find out its

meaning?

Group 1:

We can find the meaning of a phrase if we read all the context of the sentences. So, we think that

it is an easier way to comprehend it.

Group 2:

We tried to read if we understand the book and tried to find the meaning of the words reading

two or three times and also using the dictionary or word reference.

Group 3:

When we don't know a word or something from the text, we tried to a read again that part until

we know what word it can be. Also, we can use a web pages or dictionaries to confirm what that

word is.

Group 4:
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First of all, try to comprehend what is the text talking about and understand more the word. Is

better to try to analyze what is the text and predict what the word is talking about so to confirm

we can search on Google or turn a dictionary so first of all try to understand the text where he's

talking about and after try to confirm what is.

Group 5:

We have an in strategy that is try to read all the text and then do a summary of this. Then, we can

find the meaning of some words that we don't know.

6. - During the reading process, how fast is it for you to decode and encode a text?

Group 1:

We think the easiest is decode because you can read and what is everything in the text about, but

when you are encoding it's kind of hard because you try to analyze when people or when the

person who is reading to you maybe he's talking so fast and you are like get confused. So, for us

is easier decode.

Group 2:

We find decode easier like for example, to understand the meaning of all the reading and also

translate, we think it's really easy to translate and reading that is in English to Spanish but now in

what is about the decoding like is to know how is the pronunciation of every word. We think

there is a little harder, no too much harder, but harder that translate because for example we

might think it's a problem that we have with the means and for example we think in Spanish so

we think that maybe we read that way in Spanish but will not be the same in English. So, that's

like the biggest the problem that we might found. But, if we try to find and to remember the

word or how to use the connectors it will be easier.

Group 3:
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It's easier when we are reading to decode. So, we can take other words and compare the two

words and we know how to pronounce it because we have heard that word in another time and

there are some rules to pronounce for example if something that we know is that when a word

has double OO sounds like an “u” and it's there's so many rules that you can memorize like when

practicing. But, for encoding is harder for me because it depends if my teacher is talking to me is

easier to understand it, but when we are listening music for example is a little bit harder because

they the words are going faster and we don't have the time to the to process and recognize the

word that is soundly.

Group 4:

The part of decode can be easy because the matter if you are reading in your mind there word

and you don't have the correct pronunciation you can understand or maybe have an idea of what

are you reading. But, encode part can be a little difficult because for example when you hear

something to too fast you can lose the what is talking about or also when we are talking about the

accent of British or American have a different donation and different pronunciation of the words

of their letters so it can be difficult like tomato or tomato, can be difficult part of encode.

Group 5:

In the case to decode during a reading we do it faster because we analyze very well that the

circumstances that have this word or the context of the word in our reading, and in the case to the

encode it's is sometimes is easy for us because we listen that the word maybe two times or three

times and we analyze what the word is.

7. - How do you answer the questions that you generate when you are reading a text?

Group 1:
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We don't use asking us like what will happen in the text. We prefer like reading all the texts and

then have our conclusions.

Group 2:

We have that question when we predict like in story, but during the process that is right that we

are reading the history is answer us like, my question that we made.

Group 3:

When we start to make questions, we just read and read for start answering. Because all the

questions that we had, we can answer because the answer is on the text.

Group 4:

When reading, we try to understand all the history or depending on the topic of the book. We try

to answer the opinions or the big questions that is what or why for example for the dog and the

unicorn why the two characters are relevant.

Group 5:

If we understand the text, but we don't understand the words, we asked to my teacher or find in

the dictionary or word reference to be able to analyze the text and can understand it in order to

answer the questions.