Possibilities for teaching reading comprehension through the proposition of workshops on reading strategies

Abstract

Reading as a teaching object is the basis on which the research reported in this article is proposed, the object of which lies in investigating the effects of strategic reading instruction – named lexical acquisition, co-referencing, and summarization – on the comprehension of text in which mastery of knowledge of the specialty area is required. The perspective on what reading is and which are the processes involved in it derives from Psycholinguistic studies focused on outlining this task and the processes and attitudes involved in understanding. The aim is to explain whether and how systematic and explicit instruction regarding strategic reading relates to reader behavior and procedure when faced with a reading task to understand the text. It is an experimental study with a quantitative approach. Two Engineering classes of students participated in the research, one constituting the experimental group (N = 15) and the other composing the control group (N = 14). The results suggest that formal instruction on the strategic approach to the text changes reading behavior, which facilitates the comprehension process and its results, even though the workshops were taught at a specific point in the academic training.