(SKKN 2022) a number of measures to improve the effectiveness of english reading comprehension skills for 5th grede students at dong tien primary school

Through the process of teaching English for grade 5, I find that reading comprehension is an important part of learning because reading comprehension passages often help students review

I INTRODUCTION

1 The reasons of choosing topic

English has been considered as the lingua franca of the world Today it is the official language of nearly 60 countries and territories Vietnam is in the period of national integration and renewal The State has policies to attract foreign investment Many joint venture companies, cooperating between Vietnam and foreign companies are also very developed That makes English become more and more important, especially in communication Knowing clearly that importance, our State has introduced English into teaching as an official subject at all levels, including primary school to help children initially contact, comprehend and develop some basic skills, creating a good premise for the future

Through the process of teaching English for grade 5, I find that reading comprehension is an important part of learning because reading comprehension passages often help students review new words and sentence patterns they have learned, but not individually , which is combined in a particular situation In addition, the reading comprehension passages help students with the skills of collecting, distilling information, content, and processing that content into practical application Therefore,

I find the reading comprehension section quite difficult and quite boring if the teacher can't find a suitable teaching method Most of the reading comprehension passages are usually quite long, the illustrations are almost nonexistent, the questions are asked in a monotonous manner, some are relatively difficult, and it is difficult to promote students' creativity Some students only need to look at the question and skim through the lesson once to be able to answer it right away without having to read it a second time or understand the content Therefore, they often do not feel interested when studying this part

So how to solve the above problems? The question requires teachers to spend

a lot of time researching and finding out the teaching methods that are appropriate and interesting, attracting students' interest in learning and creating maximum conditions for students to practice acquiring knowledge Because of that, I boldly chose the topic

"Some measures to improve the effectiveness of English reading comprehension skills for the 5th form students at Dong Tien Primary School" to research In this

article, I would like to share some of the experiences that I have gained in the teaching process as well as through training sessions, attending classes with colleagues

2 The purpose of study

The topic helps to innovate teaching methods, teachers can be confident, bold and proficient in guiding students to do well in reading comprehension Students better understand the types of reading comprehension passages, thereby helping them find appropriate test-taking methods for each type of lesson, promoting positivity, initiative

and creativity, more interest in learning, and long-term memory of the reading passages new words and grammatical structures, forming judgment and reflexes in the learning process and at the same time knowing how to apply them in communication

3 The object of study

The fifth form students of Dong Tien Primary School

4 The methods of study

To research this topic I use the following methods:

- Theoretical research method: I read the conducting material issues related to

2 The current situation

In English, reading comprehension is an important and absolutely difficult part,

so teachers and students always pay attention and find ways to learn well Reading comprehension passages are usually full of content, covering learned issues including new words and grammatical structures After finishing the lesson, students can consolidate and master the entire content of the lesson

However, the reading comprehension part is often very boring, with few illustrations, and few teaching aids And with the goal, the traditional teaching method "teacher is the center", take lots of notes, check old lessons by rewriting new words, structure with all skills, teachers often find a way to do somehow so that students just need to do the exercises without caring about whether students are interested in learning or not, after learning and completing the exercises, they will be able to apply it in practice Therefore, the reality of students is to learn and do the exercises in a mandatory manner, complete the task to avoid being reminded or punished, so when applying it to communication and practice, students could not do

In addition, students often do not like reading long passages with many new words But when doing a reading comprehension passage they almost always have that problem For primary students, they do not know how to deduce the content of sentences with known new words, but they want to know almost all the new words and must be able to translate the text correctly before doing other tasks When doing reading passages, teachers often let students read silently and complete their own assignments Therefore, when the teacher asked a question, only some children were confident enough to participate in the answer, while others felt embarrassed, unable to answer because they did not know how to pronounce the words, not sure of their answers, some students did not do the exercises When checking the old lessons, instead of using the teacher-student communication method, the teacher asked the students to write new words on the board and sentence patterns learned This has unintentionally made teachers and students feel boring and stereotyped, so they are not interested in learning, leading to low quality of students' reading comprehension

I myself did a small test to monitor the learning attitude as well as the quality

of the reading comprehension course of students in grades 5A and 5B without applying the topic in the first 6 weeks of the school year 2021-2022 and obtained the following results:

Class Numbers

Like Dislike

Understand the lesson quickly and

do the exercises well

Understand the lesson and do some exercises

Don't understand the lesson

With teaching focusing on learning new words, grammar and writing skills, but not in the direction of teaching communication, the teaching process as well as traditional teaching methods are no longer suitable with current trends, especially for primary school students

Faced with the above situation, I personally feel the need to innovate teaching methods to be more suitable with the psychology of my students' ages and with the current educational goals It is not to let students learn in a stereotyped, boring way Organizing activities for children to study, play, and talk with teachers and other friends; Organizing games, telling stories by pictures and finding out new things… Because of understanding psychology and educational trends, I boldly apply the topic

to my teaching process

3 Content and how to implement the solution

3.1.The importance of teaching well the reading comprehension section in English subject

As we all know, reading is a very important skill in daily life It helps us to recognize and gather information In teaching, reading comprehension helps teachers and students grasp and receive important information related to lesson knowledge When students read and understand the lesson, they can master and remember the knowledge they have learned for a long time

Reading comprehension in English 5 is an important part of learning, so teachers and students are always interested in finding ways to learn well Reading comprehension passages are usually full of content, covering learned issues including new words and grammatical structures After learning, students can consolidate and master the entire content of the lesson The reading comprehension section helps students to form many important skills such as: knowing how to summarize information content, filtering important content, knowing how to react to different situations related

to the reading passage

Normally, the reading comprehension section in English 5 books includes: Read and tick (read and tick), Read and write T or F (read and write true or false), Read and tick the right picture (read and type) tick the correct picture), Read and answer, Read and complete, Read and match, Read and number the picture Read and write… Through reading and doing the exercises, students will improve their reading comprehension skills and consolidate their knowledge of the lesson Teachers, through the work and cooperation of students, can understand the student's learning situation for the lesson, thereby offering specific measures to help students learn better English

3.2 Classification of reading comprehension skills

In order for the method of teaching reading to be the most effective, teachers need to help students distinguish between the basic types of reading and the purpose of

each type There are many different opinions about the basic types of reading, but based

on the criteria of reading style, people divide them into the following categories:

*Reading aloud and silent reading

When we want to read to understand, to recognize information, we often use the skill of reading silently, that is, looking at words and recognizing information, it is not necessary to read aloud

Reading aloud is intended to convey the information of another person that has been written down such as reading newspapers, reading news, reading letters This reading skill in teaching foreign languages only helps students practice pronunciation, stress, materials and reading skills to inform

*Skimming for gist

This is a general way of skimming to get the main idea and main content of the passage and find a title that matches the content of the passage in a certain time

*Scanning for specific information

This is a way of skimming to get the information needed in a given time; is a way of asking a question about a particular information contained in a passage; are games to find information in the shortest time

3.3 The process of teaching reading comprehension in English subject

When teaching reading comprehension, no matter what type of reading

passage, it is necessary to follow the sequence with the following 3 steps:

students feel excited to learn, cooperate happily, grasp the lesson and apply the knowledge

Personally, through the time of teaching, attending lessons, learning from colleagues as well as participating in professional training sessions on teaching methods, and studying related documents, I have drawn a number of tips for the steps

to teach reading comprehension skills as below:

3.3.1 Pre-reading activities

In the first step of teaching, Pre-reading (before reading) usually takes about 25% of the time of Reading activity, the teacher's tasks are to introduce the reading situation, help students learn new words and sentence patterns in the passage, give the requests

of reading and assign tasks to the students

This is the most important step, determining the success of the reading If the children cooperate and are interested in learning, the teacher will easily pass on the knowledge and the students will understand the lesson, read and do the lesson So how

to help them be excited when entering the lesson and receive information in an active and positive way? This requires teachers to find ways to enter the lesson, introduce the problem in a way that is not dry, boring and not too rigid

* Here are some techniques that can be used in this step

a Using the form of storytelling combined with illustrations

Teachers can use this method to stimulate students' interest when entering lessons, and at the same time combine teaching new words and sentence patterns for students With the students' interest in hearing and seeing, when teachers use the form

of storytelling with specific illustrations, gestures expressing the content of the story will attract attention students' ideas, leading them to participate in the lesson naturally, not reluctantly From there, the children easily grasp the content of the reading and remember them in a long-term way

The thinking of primary school students is not deep, the teacher's explanations become very vague for them Therefore, visual materials used scientifically will stimulate children's thinking and imagination, help them access the source of knowledge, stimulate their thinking to help them discover on their own and acquire knowledge

With this method, the teacher can give the pictures in turn, each time the teacher gives the picture, the teacher directly tells the children the content of the story related

to that picture The pictures are often new content and words that the teacher wants to convey to the children When mentioning to the words that they want to teach or review, the teacher reads slowly and emphasizes the voice to make the students pay more attention

For example

When teaching Part 4 Read and do the task (Unit 5 – What would you like to

be in the future – English 5) talking about David's dream job

I told as below:

Hello My name is David

I’d like to be an astronaut

I’d like to get out of the spaceship

And I’d like to

walk in space

I’d like to visit other planets It will be

very exciting

Now I am hard at school and

studying I hope my dream will come true one day

For example: Unit 8: What are you doing?

Lesson 3 (4,5,6) – Part 4: Read and tick Yes (Y) or No (N)

c Pre-question

This trick is often applied to reading comprehension sections of the text,

requiring students to read and understand the text before doing other tasks such as: Read and do the tasks, Read and number the pictures, Read and answer…

The teacher has the students look at the pictures and write some questions on the board (the main content of the reading) Students think and guess the answer based

on the picture

For example: Unit 4: Did you go to the party?

Lesson 3 (4,5,6) – Part 4: Read and answer

1 When was Nam’s birthday party?

2 Who went to Nam’s birthday party?

3 What did Phong do at the party?

4 What did Linda do at the party?

d Ordering picture

Teacher prepares some pictures based on the content of the reading passage Students guess the correct order of the pictures and the main content of the text

For example: Unit 5: Where will you be this weekend?

Lesson 3(4,5,6) – Part 4: Read and complete

Hello, I’m Mai I’ll go to Ha Long Bay

with my family next Sunday It’ll be a lot

of fun In the morning, I think my parents

will swim in the sea They love

swimming! My brother and I will build

sandcastles on the beach In the

afternoon, my mum and dad will

sunbathe My brother and I will play

badminton Then we’ll have dinner on

Tuan Chau Island Seafood, I hope!

For example : Unit 10: When will Sports Day be?

Lesson 3(4,5,6) – Part 4: Read and tick

Our school Sports Day will be next Saturday Everyone in my class is going to take part in it Mai and Linda are going to play table tennis Tony’s going to play basketball and Peter’s going to play badminton Phong and Nam are going to play

in a football match Tom’s going to swim My classmates are practising hard for the events We hope that we will win the competitions

f f Ordering statements

The teacher writes on the board or on the extra blackboard some sentences according to the content of the lesson but not in order, asks students to read and rearrange them according to their understanding, then open the book to read and check their predictions The number of sentences can be 4-6

For example: Unit 9: What did you see at the zoo?

Lesson 3 (4,5,6) – Part 4: Read and match

Dear Tuan,

I went to the zoo with my classmates last Friday First, we saw the monkeys

They were fun to watch because they jumped up and down quickly Then we went to see the elephants They moved slowly and quietly We also saw the tigers I liked them very much because they were fast Next, we saw the peacocks My classmates liked them

because they moved beautifully In the end, we saw the pandas They were very cute and did everything slowly I had a really good time at the zoo

See you soon

Best wishes,

Phong

a Then we went to see the elephants and tigers

b In the end, we saw the pandas

c First, we saw the monkeys

d Next, we saw the peacocks

e I went to the zoo with my classmates last Friday

3.3.2 While - reading activities

The activities in this section take up about 50% of the total time for the whole Reading skill, to answer prompting questions or check predictions in the Pre-reading section This activity is very necessary because it contributes to deepening the main content of the reading comprehension passage Teachers should specify a specific time for each activity

The most important activity is to ask students to re-read the passage to understand the content better, and to perform the requirements and tasks in the textbook Teachers must pay attention to specific instructions for assignment requirements, as well as giving some example sentences (if necessary) so that students will not be confused when doing

The types of exercises in the While - reading step can be diverse, depending

on each reading comprehension passage, different reading skills will be used such as:

The requests of reading Types of reading comprehension skill

- Read and tick Yes or No Intensive reading

- Read and tick True or False Intensive reading

- Read and complete Scanning for specific information

- Read and answer Scanning for specific information

- Read and write Scanning for specific information

- Read and match Scanning for specific information

- Read and circle a or b Scanning for specific information

- Read and circle the best title Skimming for gist

The exercises in the reading comprehension section are usually done individually, in pairs or in groups depending on the content and form of the exercise But usually in this part, the teacher asks students to work in pairs or groups But the most important thing is that teachers have to create interesting practice activities, create competition in students so that they can read and work effectively, and at the same time, aim for communication

Instead of asking students to re-read the passage and answer questions, the teacher will stimulate them by targeting their competitive, hyperactive, active