Improving Reading Skills Through The Use of Reading Strategies: The Case of First Year Students at The World Islamic Science & Education in Jordan

Abstract

Teaching students how to use reading strategy effectively is useful especially for Arab learners. This paper observes the effects of employing reading strategy on the students’ reading comprehension. The sample of the study consists of 12 undergraduate male and female students at the World Islamic Science & Education in Jordan. With regard to the research methods, the researcher used think-aloud protocol and interviews with all the participants in the current study. The  researcher informed the participants about the aims of the current study in order to express themselves freely. During the think-aloud protocol sessions with students, the researcher wrote many notes about the students who participated in the study and recorded each session. This helped the researcher to not forget anything. Also, during the interviews, the researcher recorded the sessions after taking the consent from the participants in order to revise their answers to the questions. It was surprised that the majority of participants do not know anything about reading strategies. The researcher explained reading strategies to the participants and practice some of these strategies with the participants. It was clear that students were happy at the end of the interview and think-aloud protocol because they learn new reading strategies they never know anything about them before. The use of these reading strategies made them confident while reading and enhance their reading comprehension. Finally, their desire to read English texts increased after the end of think-aloud protocol and the interviews.