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Self-monitoring Strategies to Enhance English Reading Comprehension Skills

Abstract:

Enhancing reading skills in L1 is a real challenge in most countries from South America and it is much more complicated to improve this skill in a foreign language. In an attempt to improve the reading skill of Ecuadorian students, the main objective of this research work was to find out how metacognitive strategies, which include higher-order thinking skills (HOTs), influence the improvement of English reading comprehension. To determine the effectiveness of these strategies, a pre-test and post-test were applied to two groups of students from secondary education in a city located in the highland region of Ecuador. The sample consisted of 47 students who were divided into two groups. The experimental group was taught through a methodology that included four self-monitoring strategies that involved the development of critical thinking skills, collaborative and cooperative learning; whereas the control group was taught using conventional strategies. Results show that the students who worked with the four self-monitoring strategies: “Look, Think and Pbkp_redict Strategy”, “Guided Retelling Strategy”, “Response Journal Strategy” and “Thinking Along with Strategy” remarkably improved the reading comprehension skills of the experimental group, while the control group increased them only in a significant scale.