Storybook Read-Alouds to Enhance Students’ Comprehension Skills in ESL Classrooms: A Case Study
Abstract: The effectiveness of
using storybooks during read-alouds to develop children’s comprehension skills
as well as in understanding the story hasbeen widely studied. The reading aloud
strategy has also been proventhrough numerous researches to be the most highly
recommendedactivity for encouraging language and literacy. The study identified
thecomprehension strategies used by the teachers during their read-aloud sessions,
matched teachers’ current practices using the comprehensionstrategies to the
identified practices for the approach, and obtained the teachers’ perceptions
of their current practices of the comprehension strategies during reading aloud
in their English language classrooms. Theteachers’ comprehension strategies
were matched with a research-basedstrategy for comprehending texts during
read-alouds proposed by (Whitehurst, Arnold, Epstein, & Angell, 1994).
Three primary school English language teachers teaching in the rural schools
participated in thisstudy. Qualitative research methods were used in this
study. Primary datawas obtained through observations using an observation
protocol; while secondary data was obtained through interviews from teachers.
Findings from the study revealed that the three teachers employed a few of the comprehension
strategies that were proposed by researchers in the field. The findings also
indicate that the teachers utilized only the strategies that they thought were
relevant to their teaching context and as such, proposed the need to provide
teachers with knowledge on the best practices for conducting reading aloud to
develop ESL students’ comprehension skills.
Author: Ainon Omar
Journal Code: jppendidikangg150153
