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11PEDAGOGICAL SCIENCES
DEVELOPING READING COMPREHENSION COMPETENCY FOR THE FIRST GRADERS
Trân Thi Kim Hoa
Thai Nguyên University of Education
Viet Nam
Abstract
Primary school students are a priority group for the researches on developing capacity of reading comprehension because this is the stage that creates a solid foundation for students to be able to continue further study and discover further indepth knowledge. Therefore, developing capacity of reading comprehension for this group of research subjects is one of the indispensable and necessary requirements, in which it can be said that reading skill is the top important one. This skill becomes even more important for the first graders, who are learning how to read for the first time in order to use in the Vietnamese language itself and to apply in learning other subjects.
Keywords: students, the first graders, reading comprehension, ability, communication, capacity, competency.
1. Introduction
The subject of Literature in the general education program 2018 was built on the concept of "taking communication skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) as the main axis across all three educatiobal levels in order to meet the requirements of the program under the capacity-oriented curriculum and ensure the integrity, continuous consistency in all levels/grades" [1, p.4]. For the primary level only, the program has the initial goal of helping students form general competencies as well as develop their language capacity in all skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening at a basic level. Specifically as follows: reading correctly and fluently the texts; understanding the main contents and information of the texts; contacting and comparing with the things outside of the texts; correct spelling and grammar; writing some sentences, paragraphs, and short essays [1, p.5]. Reading skills are always considered as the first and most important in primary schools, especially in the first grade.
The Vietnamese language is considered as an instrumental subject in primary schools. This subject helps students have a means of communication, as a basis, for learning all other subjects and educational activities at school. The proficient use of Vietnamese is reflected in the following skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening, among which, it can be said that reading is the most important skill. This skill becomes even more important for the first graders, who are learning how to read for the first time in order to use it in the Vietnamese subject itself and to apply in learning other subjects.
Primary school students are the target group that are prioritized for the research on developing capacity of reading comprehension, because this is the stage that creates a solid foundation for students to continue to further study and explore extensive knowledge. Therefore, developing capacity of reading comprehension for this group of students is one of the indispensable and necessary requirements in teaching Literature. If students cannot recognize and understand words, nor have natural responses to words, and make rational decisions, they cannot participate in learning and communication activities.
2. Contents
2.1. Concept of reading comprehension
The matter of reading comprehension has been defined in different conceptions by many researchers. Both Smith and Langer believe that reading is to create the meaning of texts through understanding, explanation, and contact with experience and practice so that it can be applied in new situations. The limit of reading comprehension is not only in the text, but also in endless streams of ideas, or in the horizon of things that can be imagined from the text. The OECD definition of reading comprehension also emphasizes readers' feedback: "Reading comprehention is understanding, using, responding to a written text (text) in order to achieve one's goals, to develop one's knowledge and potential and to participate in society" and "literacy ability is understood as coding and understandig the materials, including understanding, using and re-spoding to textual information in a variety ways for different purposes" [5].
Author Pham Thi Thu Huong believes that reading comprehension of a text is, essentially: "the process by which the readers create the meaning of that text through certain systems of activities, actions, and manipulations" [3, p.19]. According to Le Phuong Nga's definition: "Reading comprehension is a process of converting written forms into speech with sound and understand it" [4].
Thus, referring to the above definitions, in this research, the concept of reading comprehension for the first graders have been used with the following connotations: reading comprehension is a process of transforming written forms (and even images, symbols, etc. in a multimodal text) into speech with sound and understand them at a simple level. The reading comprehension process is divided into 3 levels: accuracy, fluency and understanding the text (comprehension) at a simple level.
2.2. Reading comprehension competency
According to Nguyen Thi Hanh [2; pp. 88-97],
reading comprehension competency includes: knowledge, skills and capacity to practice. Specifically, knowledge means the knowledge of the Vietnamese language required for reading comprehension and the
knowledge of Literature. Skills mean individuals and groups' oral presentations of the knowledge and experiences on the topics and themes, which are familiar to their age groups. Skills also mean repeating the information in the texts, identifing the important core information of the texts, linking the information in text themselves, and linking the information in text with reality. Additionally, skills mean recognizing the main idea of a paragraph as well as the main idea of the whole text, making direct and indirect inferences from the textual contents in order to receive information critically, and learning about the knowledge and lessons from the texts to serve solving tasks in learning and in life. Capacity to practice reading comprehension in learning and in life means understanding the meanings of words, terms, pictures, tables, and figures in the texts that are learnt in other subjects and in real-life reading texts. Practice capacity also means summarizing and stating the main idea of each part and the main idea of each text with a common structure. Besides, it refers to selecting the important information in the text in order to meet a number of requirements for explanation and analysis. Moreover, making direct or indirect inferences that are not too complicated to evaluate the information in the text; and selecting the information in the text, which is needed for solving learning tasks or solving real-life problems in specific situations.
The focus of the process of teaching reading comprehension according to the competency approach is the learner. Only when learners actively engage in an exploratory experience, can they form and promote their own reading comprehension ability. For students to be active, teachers need to rely on psycho-physiological and linguistic characteristics to attract students' interest in lessons. Along with that, it is the combination of flexible teaching methods, combining traditional and current ways to develop students' competencies in the learning process.
2.3. Developing reading comprehension competency for the first graders through exercises
The proposed reading comprehension exercises for the first graders consist of three groups of exercises: recognition and repetition exercises, exercises to clarify meanings, and response exercises. Each group of exercises has the tasks of forming and training a group of reading comprehension skills. In each group of exercises, there are different types of exercises; the names of the types of exercises are the name of a partial skill of reading comprehension skills. Each type of exercises can include different types and forms of exercises.
2.3.1. Recognition and repetition exercises
This group of exercises requires students to work independently. Students just need to recognize, remember, discover and repeat words, sentences, paragraphs, images, and details of the text. The requirement for formal reading comprehension of the new general education program is clearly shown in this group of exercises. This group of exercises reflects the lowest cognitive level and does not require students to use knowledge and skills to solve problems in a specific situation. This group of exercises includes the following types of exercises:
a. Sentence and paragraph recognition exercises
* The number of lines and stanzas recognition exercises
The number of lines and stanzas recognition exercises aim to help students recognize the number of lines and stanzas in a paragraph or in a poem. From that, it is possible to determine in which line number or sentence the meanings of words need understanding or that in which line that states the meaning of the stanza, of the poem, in which stanza in order to prepare for the next partial skills. The command of the exercise is to write, fill or questions of how many, what number, and the answer is the result of counting, determining the number of sentences, the number of lines. Example of the command:
- Count the number of lines in the stanza and fill in the blanks with that number:
The stanzas has ... lines.
- Fill in the blanks with your idea:
The poem has ... stanzas, each stanza has ... lines.
* Sentence and paragraph recognition exercises
This type of exercises intends to help students recognize the number of sentences in a paragraph or in an essay. From that, it is possible to determine in which sentence the words need to understand the meaning (group B) is located. In what sentence number/ which paregraph that the sentence tells the idea of the passage, of the essay is in order to prepare for the next partial skills. The exercises also aim to help students identify paragraphs mainly based on the formal signs of the paragraph (the paragraph between two newline dashes).
The commands of the exercises are to write, fill or questions of how many, what/which number? The answer is the result of counting, determining the number of sentences, lines, and paragraphs. For example:
- Put a number at the end of each sentence and indicate how many sentences the passage has.
- Fill in the blanks with the correct number: The passage has . lines.
- Read in silence the whole passage and then put an (x) in the box before the correct answer.
- Which newline dash in the text is a sign to separate two paragraphs of the text?
□ Newline dash in the first line.
□ Newline dash in the third line
- Fill in the blank with the correct number:
The text has ... paragraphs, paragraph 1 has ... sentences, and paragraph 2 has ... sentences.
- What line number does the second paragraph start and end at? Put an (x) in the box before the correct answer:
□ Starts at line 1 and ends at line 2.
□ Starts at line 3 and ends at line 5.
□ Starts at line 6 and ends at line 7.
b. Textual topic detection, important character and sentence recognition exercises
* Exercises to memorize the title of the text, recognize the topic of the text
The title of the text is usually short, but it helps us to identify the topic of the text and somewhat predict the content of the text. The title of the text is often associated with contents of the text, so exploiting the title will help us build exercises for students to identify the
topic and main contents of the lesson. Examples of exercise commands are as follows: "What is the title of the poem?", "Rewrite the name of the poem."
The type of exercises, which states the topic of the text, is usually based on illustrations or on the main characters, things, and events that are mentioned in the text. For example:_
Tomato garden
Nam's tomatoes have fruited all over the garden. The mother fruit incubates the baby fruit. The sister and the brother fruits are lying next to the baby fruit. The big fruits are growing and reaching out round and round. The small fruits are waiting for the warm wind, so they are still nestled in the leaves, not yet to come out.
- Based on the illustration, what kind of fruit is the text about?
- Answer: it is about tomatoes.
* Character recognition exercises
Asking students to identify the characters in the text should be implemented in the education program from
the very beginning of phonics and spelling. For example:__
Stork and Bittern - What characters are in the text?
Stork and Bittern are best friends with completely different per- Answer: They are two characters: Stork
sonalities. Stork is good and hardworking. Not long after learn- and Bittern.
ing, the Stork is fluent in reading and quick in math and everyone
praises him. As for Bittern, he is lazy, sleeps all day, and refuses
to study. Just thinking about doing math and reading, he feels
sweaty, and everyone laughs at him.__
* Important sentence recognition exercises
Important sentences are the sentences that convey the content and meaning of the text, help students learn the
lessons, or give a moral from the reading. For example:__
The ant family - Find and copy the sentences that say the gen-
Ants are very diligent and persistent animals. eral idea of the whole text.
Day by day, the mother ant and the ants are busy bringing the Answer: "Ants are very diligent and persistent food home. Food pile up the whole nest. animals."
All four seasons, the ant house is full of food, the ant family is
not afraid of starving in rainy days.__
c. Exercises to discover the important words and details of the text
This type of exercise is divided into two forms: On form of exercise requires students to point out new words, or the words they do not understand in the text and the other form of exercise requires students to discover the important words, details, and beautiful images of the reading.
The command of the exercise is "find, underline, and write down" or the questions like " Who? What?
Which?" for which the answer is available and evident in the language of the text.
* Exercises to recognize images, important details This type of exercises requires students to identify the important images and details in the text based on the words or pictures in the text. For example:
When the mother came home from a long trip, Little Que was babbling to her:
- Mom, at home, I helped grandma to arrange the chairs. Mom: Good baby!
What tells you that Little Que is happy to see her mother?
- Answer: Little Que was babbling her story. / Que's face illustrated in the picture is very happy.
2.3.2. Meaning clarification exercises
This group of exercises requires students to recognize the meaning of words, of sentences, of paragraphs, and of the text, initially have the operation of explaining, and they should initially know how to generalize and think to derive the meaning of the units in the text.
a. Exercises to explain the meaning of words
Explaining the meaning of words is an important requirement for the first grades right from the phonics lessons. In the experiences, their background knowledge has already included familiar words about things, actions, properties etc with explicit meanings. Defining meaning of words is a task of particular importance for understanding text. By understanding the meaning of words, can students have a basis to grasp the meaning of sentences in the text and as a result, they can grasp the main content of the text.
* Visual interpretation
Visual interpretation is a method of giving real objects, real-object models, pictures, diagrams, etc. to interpret words. At this time, real objects, models of real objects, pictures, diagrams etc, used to represent the meaning of words. For example, when teaching students to interpret the word "ca chua" (tomato) in a pronunciation lesson of "ua", the teacher might show a real tomato and say: "This is a tomato" (day la qua ca chua"). When teaching the word "tia la " (leaf pruning) in a pronunciation lesson of "ia", the teacher can use the act of pruning directly on a small tree in the class and say "Co dang tia la (I am pruning leaves)".
This interpretation method is often chosen to teach specific nouns, to help students recognize the "symbolic meaning" of words, and at the same time, to help them expand and develop their vocabulary.
* Explanation through definition
Explaining through definition is to state or describe the content of the meaning of a word. Students need to be able to read all the explanations suggested in the exercise or know how to look it up in a dictionary. This is a difficult requirement for the first graders. This type of exercises can only be implemented at the end of the phonics and spelling period.
1 Find the right word meaning in the given meanings. For example:
This type of exercise is designed in the program is to allow students to relate the illustrations to the details in the text, re-experience their emotions and understandings in the process of reading the text. At the stage of learning phonics and spelling, the command of the exercise is usually: Read the sentences / verses in the
- How do you understand the word "ri rao" (soughing)? Put an (x) in the box before the correct answer.
□ Loud, evenly distributed sound
□ Light, intermittent sound
□ Soft, smooth, and evenly distributed sound
b. Exercises to find the ideas of the text
For the first graders at the stage of learning phonics and spelling, depending on the difficulty of each text, this type of exercises can be developed through small exercises such as rearranging the correct order of events, finding sentences that carry the main ideas of the text, state the main idea of the text. The questions that can be used are "find the best statement on the content of the text", "what can you name the story?", or "circle the idea in front of the most correct statement on the content of the text" etc. This type of exercises is usually conducted in the education program at the end of the stage of learning phonics and spelling.
* Exercises to rearrange the order of events
For example, the following sentences are not in the correct order of the events in the text. Please write the ordinal number in front of each sentence to rearrange them in the correct order.
a. A rat of bragging.
b. The rat ignored the cat and intended to climb directly to the rice sack.
c. The rat fell down in the herd of rabbits.
d. He thought the cat was smaller than the rabbit, so the must be scared of him.
e. The cat quickly jumped down and immediately grabbed the rat.
g. The rabbits ran away, that made the rat think the rabbits were scared of him.
* Exercises to find sentences, state the main idea of the text
For example:
- Find the verse in the text that describes the content: It will not be difficult to be a big brother if you know how to love a baby, in the poem "being a brother".
- Answer: "Whoever loves babies - Can do it"
* Exercises to state the main idea of the text
text that match the content of each picture. For example, read the verses that match the content of each picture.
2.3.3. Text response exercises This group of reading comprehension exercises shows the students' highest working independence. The response exercises show how the being-read text
For example:
Bright moon - Circle the idea that you think is most appropriate
My yard is so bright to the content of the poem.
Thanks to the bright moonlight a. The poem describes the bright moon scene
The moon is as full as a plate b. Poem is about a child playing outside
Floating but not falling. c. The poem describes a quiet night scene.
The days when the moon wanes - Answer: a
It looks like a floating boat
When I step, the moon follows
As if wants to play together.
* Exercises relating to illustrations and details in the text
affects the students, and how they take actual actions in response to the text. This group of exercises is geared towards the text response real-life actions.
- Self-related exercises: Relate oneself to draw simple lessons, express one's evaluations, state one's personal feelings, present one's inferences at a simplest level, and relate to other actions and experiences.
* Self - related exercises
This group of exercises aims to clarify the purpose of the text. Students relate themsleves to draw simple lessons, express evaluations, state personal feelings,
3. Conclusion
Competency development for students is a topical issue and is particularly focused on, in the current period of reforming the educational program. The general education program has mentioned three common competencies: autonomy and self-study, communication and cooperation, problem solving and creativity, and the professional competencies of the subject of Literature: linguistic and literary competence. In particular, the requirements for language development for students have been shown specifically in the requirements of reading, writing, speaking and listening (including multi-modal communication). Forming and developing reading comprehension ability for high school students in general and primary school students in particular is focused on the reading requirements in the program. The measure of building a system of questions and reading comprehension exercises for the first graders in the direction of capacity development has given a system of reading comprehension exercises, which meet the requirements of the new general education program and the requirements on assessments as well as those
present inferences and predictions at a simplest level and relate to their own other actions and experiences to get appropriate responses. These are open-ended exercises, and students might respond to the exercises in different ways. This type of exercises can be used during the stage of learning phonics and spelling. Hoc van.
* Relating their own actions to what students have experienced
This type of exercises directs students into real-life actions related to the situation given in the text. For example:
on teaching methods of the Vietnamese language in current textbooks.
References
1. Bo Giao duc Bao tao (2018), Chuong trinh Giao duc pho thong - Chuong trinh mon Ngu van, Ban hanh kem theo Thong tu so 32/2018/TT-BGDBT ngay 26 thang 12 nam 2018.
2. Nguyen Thi Hanh (2014/ Xay dung chuan nang luc doc hieu cho mon ngu van cua chuong trinh giao duc pho thong sau 2015 a Viet Nam. Tap chi Khoa hoc, Truong Bai hoc su pham TP. Ho Chi Minh, so 56/2014.
3. Pham Thi Thu Huong (2012), Doc hieu va chien thuat doc hieu van ban trong nha truong pho thong, NXB Bai hoc Su pham.
4. Le Phuong Nga (2001), Day hoc tap doc a tieu hoc, NXB GD.
5. Tran Binh Su (2013), Doc hieu van ban - khau dot pha trong day hoc van hien nay, https://phebinhvanhoc.com.vn/doc-hieu-van-ban-khau-dot-pha-trong-day hoc-van-hien-nay/
Sharing the gifts
Dad came home from away trip. Dad gave Lan nuts, corals, and wooden bowls. Lan gave her friends, Ngan, nuts, and An corals. Lan just kept the wooden bowls for herself.
■ What will you say when your father gives you a gift?
- Answer: I will say "thank you, dad." / I will say, "thank you, dad, I love the gift very much"...
* Drawing lessons for oneself; evaluating, predicting, and express feelings about the reading text
This type of exercises directs students into lessons learned from the text, their assessments and comments on the characters, their predictions about the characters'
emotions or predictions about the end of the sequence of events, etc. For example:
The child' s initiative
The child's cat is so dirty. It quickly climbs up and down the tree then rolls over the the ground. Sand sticks to the cat's body making its hair curl up. However, the cat does not want to take a bath.
The cat runs away every time the child calls it for a bath. Therefore, the child thinks of a way. She puts a plastic mouse in a basin of water.
The cat jumps in and out the basin. Ah, that is great! The cat is clean!
