The effects of recasting skills as strategies through teacher modeling on reading comprehension improvement

Abstract

In this study, the effects of recasting skills as strategies through teacher on elementary level EFL Turkish students 'reading comprehension improvement were compared to the effects of traditional reading skill instruction on this improvement. In addition, by administering a strategy inventory at the beginning and at the end of the treatment which was adapted from Oxford's (1990) SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) by including only the items related to the reading skill, the data about the use of study-specific strategies was obtained. As another purpose of this, the use of general reading strategies of elementary EFL Turkish students was analysed. Although the data gained from this purpose is too limited to make a generalisation about whole elementary EFL Turkish students, it was included in this study thinking that it may give at least an idea about the issue. The data was collected from 40 elementary level students attending Intensive English Program of Communication Sciences Faculty at Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Turkey. These students were divided into two groups, an experimental group and a control group. The control group was exposed to traditional reading skill instruction and the experimental group received an instruction as recasting reading skills as strategies through teacher modelling. Five skills were taught during the study, guessing difficult words, predicting, finding your way around a text, skimming and scanning and looking for detailed information.