Using graphic organizers to enhance 10th graders’ reading comprehension

The results of this research will yield a new plan for using variouskinds of graphic organizers to help teachers with teaching readingcomprehension with greater student enjoyment and ret

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study

Regarded as an international language, English is spoken in most parts ofthe world - and is considered the principle means of communication among thetrade, diplomatic, and airline communities English has been a compulsorysubject among Vietnamese students for many years Teaching English inVietnam will help our students take advantage of globalization, and teachers arealways seeking ways to improve their techniques for more effective lesson plansand higher cognitive retention among their students at all levels As a teacher ofEnglish at a high school, the author constantly faces the many problems inherent

in helping students absorb and apply a foreign language Of primary importance

is teaching reading skills, which is a topic of much debate among researchers InEnglish textbooks for Vietnamese upper secondary school students, reading isthe first skill to start a unit because, without understanding the material, furtherstudy is futile Reading is a receptive skill, therefore, by reading the text,students can improve their vocabulary, understand the topic(s) of the unit, gain amore complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the language worktogether to convey meaning, and apply their improving language skills acrossmany other life endeavors The goal of reading comprehension instruction is tohelp students understand written language When comprehension is successful,learners are left with a sense of satisfaction from having understood the meaning

of a text From this, they can comprehend, interpret, integrate critique, analyze,connect, and evaluate ideas in texts However, among the passages in textbooksfor Vietnamese secondary students that I have read, lessons are long andcomplicated, and contain needless repetition that is boring rather than inspiring

to students Therefore, many of the students seem not to be interested in thereading lessons They have low motivation to study This problem is thefoundation of my thesis, and I address how to teach reading comprehensionmore attractively and effectively, so that more students will want to learn In thisthesis, the author demonstrated the use of graphic organizers, and examined theireffectiveness in opening the textbook’s content in such a way as to increase 10thgrade students’ motivation to read and enjoy English Teacher observations andstudent surveys were collected to determine the effectiveness of using these newtechniques The results of this research will yield a new plan for using variouskinds of graphic organizers to help teachers with teaching readingcomprehension (with greater student enjoyment and retention) It is hoped thatusing graphic organizers will be an effective technique for teaching readingcomprehension in high schools in Viet Nam and elsewhere

For all the reasons mentioned above, I have decided to choose “Using graphic organizers to enhance 10 th graders’ reading comprehension” as the

topic of my initiative titled

1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions

This study aims at examining the use of graphic organizers for 10th graders

in reading comprehension lessons at Trieu Son 3 High school

These are the two objectives of the study:

- To discover some problems students encouter as they develop their readingskill

- To investigate the effectiveness of using graphic organizers to enhance

10th graders’ reading comprehension

- To find out students and teachers’ attitudes towards using graphicorganizers in exploiting the reading passages and give some recommendations

In an attempt to achieve the above-presented aims, the study should toanswer the following research questions:

1 What difficulties do 10 th graders at Trieu Son 3 High school encounter in learning reading comprehension skill?

2 How effective are graphic organizers in enhancing students’ reading comprehension?

3 What are students and teachers’ attitudes towards graphic organizers?

1.3 Scope of the study

Although there are many ways to motivate students to learn English, it isimpractical to cover them all in this paper Due to the limited time and length of

a minor thesis, I chose to focus my research on utilizing graphic organizers as away of improving 10th graders’ reading comprehension at Trieu Son 3 High

school The student focus group is comprised of 40 students of grade 10 at thisschool

1.4 Methods of the study

This study involves 40 students at Trieu Son 3 high school The studyemploys reading comprehension (pre test and post test) (see appendix 3) as theprincipal method of data collection Data are analyzed statistically, resulting inpercentage of items

PART2: DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Literature Review

2.1.1 Reading skill

Reading is a mental or cognitive process which involves the writer (thecreator of the ideas to be communicated), the reader, the text, and the interactionbetween the reader and the text In this process the reader decodes writtensymbols- beginning with smaller units (individual letters) and transitioning tolarger ones (words, clauses, and sentences) in order to extract meaning from thetext

Reading is a vital link in the teaching learning process The most essentialpurpose of reading is to transmit information to the students/readers JeremyHarmer (2010, p 99) expanse on the essential purpose by offering severaladditional reasons why getting students to read English text is an important part

of teacher’s job In additional to just gaining information, students often desire

to read texts in English to better their careers- or for the simple pleasure oflearning And not to be overlooked, there is the beneficial and continuingupward spiral of learning wherein reading leads to improved vocabulary, which,

in turn, leads to improved spelling and writing abilities

According to Snow (2002, p 22), reading comprehension is defined as “theprocess of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning throughinteraction and involvement with written language” Extracting meaning fromtext is to understand what the author has explicitly or implicitly stated.Constructing meaning is to interpret what the author has written based on thereader’s background knowledge, experiences, capabilities, and abilities

Sharing this point of view, Klinger& Geisler (2008) reveal that “readingcomprehension is the process of constructing meaning from a text and involvesthe complex coordination of several processes, including ‘decoding, wordreading, and fluency along with the integration of background knowledge andprevious experiences’.” It is a complex process that requires the activation ofnumerous cognitive skills (Kintsch, 1998)

Also, Richard and Thomas (1987, p.9) have pointed out “readingcomprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and thereader” Though these opinions are not exactly the same, they all show thatreading comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can

recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and understand what is impliedbehind these forms

From the preceding scholarly studies and opinions, it can be seen thatcomprehension is the reason for reading It encompasses the learning, growth,and evolution of ideas that occurs as one reads Reading any language providesstudents with a variety of opportunities to learn and absorb new vocabulary,grammar, sentence structures and discourse structure, as they occur in a variety

of contexts Improving language-teaching text books will help promote students’reading skills and, when integrated with other skills, will help student’scomprehension—that is, their ability to absorb the material they are studying

2.1.4 Roles of graphic organizers in reading comprehension

Reading plays a very important role in almost every field of study How toimprove reading comprehension is a major concern for most teachers andresearchers in education Among the numerous reading strategies that have beencreated from this knowledge base, graphic strategies are one of the fewapproaches that can be applied to improve students’ reading comprehension,

Reading plays a very important role in almost every field of study How

to improve reading comprehension is a major concern for most teachers andresearchers in education Among the numerous reading strategies that have beencreated from this knowledge base, graphic strategies are one of the fewapproaches that can be applied to improve students’ reading comprehension,

It is important to note that there are various functions of graphic organizers

In reading comprehension, they assist learners to clarify and organizeinformation into categories (main idea, supporting details, topic sentence, andfacts) and then to organize the information in a paragraph for betterunderstanding Cleveland (2005, p.3) states that:

Graphic organizers are great tools when you are reading - they can help you through a poem, a story, a biography or an informational article Organizers help you analyze what you are reading You can use them to recognize patterns in your reading, such as identifying main idea of a story or

an article, and finding details that support the main idea They can help you to

compare and contrast things within a story or between two stories They can even be useful after you read You can use them to organize your notes and figure out the most important point They are visual displays of key content information designed to benefit learners by graphically organizing the information

Also, Pang (2013) states that graphic organizers help learners in

“classifying facts, analyzing problems, summarizing main points, and criticizing

or evaluating the decisions made by authors”

In reality, many current language textbooks emphasize product (answers tocomprehension questions) over process (using reading skills and strategies tounderstand the text), providing little or no contextual information aboutthe reading selections or their authors As a result, students find the readingcomprehension lessons boring and static Looking at graphic organizers is lessoverwhelming than looking at a full text so “Students are expected tocomprehend texts better when shown visually how information in the text isorganized” (Jiang & Grabe, 2007, p 39) Therefore, with graphic organizers,learners are likely to feel more motivated and encouraged when it is moreunderstandable for them

2.1.5 Graphic organizers in teaching reading activities

Graphic organizers can be used in three steps in teaching reading: reading, while-reading, and post-reading Graphic organizers may be effectivelyapplied during each step to enhance student’s reading comprehension andenjoyment of the texts

The primary purpose of graphic organizers is to pre - teach the mainconcepts and terms in a text This will provide students with a mental framework

on which to build new knowledge Because graphic organizers are given tostudents before they begin reading, they provide a great springboard for pre-reading discussions that will elicit additional prior knowledge on the topic

While - reading:

This second step is where content is introduced and absorbed the actuallearning that takes place during the allotted classroom or homework activitytime

Jones (2004, p 149) stated:

“While you read, graphic organizers help you to keep your reading brain alert and awake and focused on what you are reading They also help you fix up any confusing passage you come across They may also ask you to predict or think about what is coming next, which helps to keep you glued

to retain what they read) Graphic organizers in this research context means anygraphic displays that help the readers obtain (or retain) the meaning of the text interms of organizing and linking ideas by using visual aids as presented in thegraphic organizer section The purpose of using these graphic organizers is tohelp find the main idea, or explicit information, or implicit information andinference-and remember them

2 2 Research context

2.2.1 Setting and participants

The participants involved in the research were forty students in grade 10 inTrieu Son 3 high school in the 2017-2018 academic year Most of the students inTrieu Son 3 high school are living in the surrounding rural areas—where theirfamilies are employed in the agriculture sector Our students are required tostudy 13 compulsory subjects, so they spend little time learning English, andtheir verbal skills are weak Though they have been studying English for manyyears, their focus has been on learning syntax and grammar so they can passregular examinations

Moreover, because their parents are farmers who never use English in theirdaily lives, the students receive little encouragement at home to develop vitalcommunication skills As a result, most of the students do not know what theyare studying English for except to pass their exams Although they know it isimportant to learn English in the modern life, they become bored with learning

it In each class, there are only a few students really learning English and it isthose few who are interested in learning it! The majority of the students usuallyforget most the things they have learned as soon as their testing period is over.Once the students lose their motivation for learning, the quality of theirclassroom experience rapidly declines There were 20 students in each groupand the students’ average age is sixteen

Table 2.1: The numbers of the Students in the two groups

In order to achieve these objectives, the content of the book is designed toutilize themes with which all students will be familiar Included are topicsrelated to the student’s social lives, to sports, to work, and to leisure activities—universal experiences For each topic, related vocabulary and word studies arepresented communicatively There are 6 themes: “You and me”, “Education”,

“Community”, “Recreation”, “Nature and Environment”, and “People andplaces” The book contains sixteen units, with each unit presenting five lessonswith four different skills and a language focus Reading is the first unit in eachlesson, guiding students to key words and phrases of the related topic—whichthen become “building blocks” that enable them to learn additional skills

Some tasks in the text book are difficult while some others are not reallychallenging This disparity requires teachers to creatively motivate students byadapting exercises to their interest levels Being effective at this adaptive skill iswhat sets teachers apart (average from excellent) worldwide

2.2.3 Kinds of graphic organizers applied in the research

Graphic organizers can have various forms, from representations ofobjects to hierarchical and cyclical structures No matter what the special name,

a graphic organizer is a VISUAL representation of knowledge

Mcgill, Murphy, and Freeman (2009) state that graphic organizers aregenerally labeled as conceptual, hierarchical, cyclical, and sequential First,conceptual organizers help students show their learning or knowledge of centralideas such as concept maps, KWL charts or Venn diagram Second, ahierarchical organizer is used when a student needs to break down broad conceptinto sub concepts Some of these organizers include the branching diagram,classifying chart, and topic/subtopic web Third, a sequential graphic organizersuch as Storyboards, T-charts, and cause and effect organizer, can be applied to

explain the sequence of events The last type, a cyclical organizer is known asthe circle organizer or the circle diagram

Graphic organizers have also been categorized by both structure andfunction The structure category contains "Webbing, Concept Mapping, Matrix,and Flow Chart," whereas the function category consists of ‘‘Describing,Comparing & Contrasting, Classifying, Sequencing, Causal, and DecisionMaking’’ (Loretta F., 2008)

Moreover, Bellanca (2007) supports and adds some graphic organizers Inhis book entitled A Guide to Graphic Organizers, he puts graphic organizers intotal twenty four types They are KWL, Web, Sequence Chart, Starburst,Gathering Grid, 5+1 Newspaper, Jigsaw, Making Ladder, Scale, PMI, VennDiagram, Spider map, Classification Grid, Agree-Disagree Chart, PredictionTree, Decision Maker’ Flow Chart, Concept Map, Fishbone analyze, ProblemSolving Chart, Two-Way Thinking Tower, Classification Flow Chart, RightAngle, Inference Funnel, and What is the big idea

Basing on the reading passages in the Vietnamese current text books forupper secondary students, the author chose four following types of graphicorganizers to investigate and apply in the research

Timeline

Using timeline helps student makes connections and understandscomplex events in chronological order It can be used to record events from astory or a history lesson in a sequential format But most important of all, it canalso provide comprehension support to English language learners, enabling them

to make connections and recognize patterns in a series or process Becausetimeline can appear visually less complex than pure text, using it can aid ELLs

to more easily relate events to their corresponding time-frames:

Here are examples of using Timeline for reading passages in Tieng Anh

10 (Hoang Van Van et al, 2006)

Unit 1: A Day in the life of…

Unit 3: People’s background

Unit 13: Films and cinema

10

CINEMA In the early

of 19 th

In the first two decades

By 1905

In the early 1910s

Films were made by ……….

a matrix is to communicate comparisons among concepts and coordinateconcept relations This is suitable to expository text which is more informationdriven for students to struggle with comprehension

Here are examples of using Matrix table for reading passages in Tieng Anh

10 (Hoang Van Van et al, 2006)

MARIE CURIE’S BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND

MARIE CURIE’S BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND