Comparative study of Reading Comprehension Using two Teaching Methods (Traditional and Cognitive Strategies) in Fourth and Fifth Grade Students with and Without Reading Problem

IntroductionReading comprehension strategies in particular have been studied for many decades, and research has revealed a great deal of information about the kinds of instructional activities that are most successful in helping students comprehend and remember what they read. For many years (including the 1970s), reading comprehension instruction was based on a concept of reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing. It was thought that comprehension could be taught by proving specific instruction through these discrete skills (National Reading Panel, 2000; Texts Education Agency, 2002). Several recent reviews and syntheses of research offer key information about effective comprehension strategy instruction. These reviews by Alvermann and Moore (1991), The National Reading Panel (2000), The RAND Reading Study Group (Snow, 2002), Carlisle and Rice (2002), Curtis (2002), Meltzer, Smith and Clark (2003), and others examine hundreds of scientific and quasi-scientific studies and conclude that comprehension can be enhanced by teaching a relatively small set of comprehension strategies. Researchers has identified the following comprehension strategies as being most effective for improving comprehension:Comprehension monitoring, Use of graphic semantic organizers, Question answering Question generation, Story Structure, Summarization, Cooperative learningResearch has also shown that although each of the strategies is beneficial when used alone, instruction is even more effective when several strategies are Integerated or put together in a flexible, responsive interaction between the teacher and the students (Gaskine, 1998; Pressley, 2000; Duke et al., 2004,). The National Panel (2002) specifically found that when used in combination, the use of strategies can improve results in standardized comprehension tests. This paper focuses solely on strategies like story structure that students can be taught, with the goal of eventually using the strategies on their own, and does not focus on which kind of instructional techniques can best be used to teach these strategies.The purpose of the present research was to compare the effects of two teaching Cognitive reading strategies (such as story structure, compare stories. Summarization) and traditional instruction on reading comprehension of fourth and fifth grades students with reading problems.Research hypothesisThe design of the Research is Factorial design method (2×2×2) which were employed with (2 class 2 groups 2 methods) 12 hypotheses were tested. The main hypotheses were: 1- Providing cognitive reading strategies to students does result in improvement of their comprehension, to put in another way, there was a meaningful difference between readers who receive cognitive training and traditional training (who did not receive such training) 2- The fifth grade students in comparison with fourth grade will have progress in reading comprehension test. 3- The students without reading problem have progress in reading comprehension test4- There is a meaningful interaction between method and classes in reading comprehension test 5- There is a meaningful interaction between class and reading problem students in reading comprehension test. 6- There is a meaningful interaction between method and reading problem students in reading comprehension test. 7- There is a meaningful interaction between class and the pair comparisons between groups and classes was the another 5 hypothesis)MethodThe target population of this study comprised of elementary students, and the sample consisted of 8 classes (160 students) who were randomly selected from the aforementioned population (4 classes in elementary school and 4 classes in learning disabilities center). Subjects were randomly assigned to groups. All students were evaluated by Wecsler intelligence test. InstrumentsThe instruments used in this study were two reading comprehension tests (pretest and posttest Researcher made tests). The validity of the test was determined with respect to views of a number of faculty members and teachers, and for the reliability test retest was used. The validity and reliability coefficient of both was high.A teaching workshop (1 month) was adminstereted for Instructors (teachers) in classes and the classes were supervised by researchers and assistants. Cognitive groups attended 90 minute session twice a week for a week (2 months), and tradition groups also attended 90 minitues session twice a week. There were 8 groups in study. The cognitive reading strategies taught in this study included story grammar, identifying paragraph structure, connecting or using background knowledge, guessing meaning from the context, find the main characteristic, questioning about the passages and then looking for answer, the traditional method was question answering reading, the paragraph, writing.ResultsThe data obtained were analyzed. A (2×2×2) factorial designed was employed. The results of this study showed significant main effect in cognitive teaching method, also there was no interaction between classes and methods. But there was interaction between methods and groups The findings showed the cognitive strategies could improve reading comprehension in fourth class and fifth class with and without reading problems.Discussion and Within reading, there can be many other skills, often referred to as strategies, such as identifying the main idea, following sequence, and adaptable plan, procedure, or process to improve reading performance. Reading strategies are important to reading comprehension because without them children have virtually no means to increase the sophistication of their reading.Direct instruction of cognitive reading strategies is crucially important. In instruction, teachers explain directly, model, and scaffold children's acquisition and development of reading strategies. The reading strategies demonstrated to be important to reading comprehension instruction. (Pressley 2005). Combinations of these strategies should be used and taught while interacting with a variety of texts over long periods of time in order for children to become independent in their use (Gregory & Chapman, 2002).There was clear evidence in this study that teachers can learn to implement cognitive comprehension strategy instruction in the classroom under natural teaching circumstance from grades 4 through 5. Results showed these strategies are useful for both reading problem student and normal student. All the studies were carried out on poor students who benefit from the teachers who were prepared to teach multiple reading strategies. Successful improvement occurred on learning the subject matter of the instruction and on standardized reading comprehension test performance.