Scaffolding Approach with Reading Strategies in Teaching Reading Comprehension to Rural Year 3 ESL Learners in Malaysia

Abstract

Reading is deemed to play a key role in the learning of English as a second language (ESL) among rural learners who have limited opportunities to hear or speak the language. However, they often come to ESL classrooms with the ability to read the text fluently, yet fully comprehend it. The past literature illuminate that these less skilled readers can be taught to employ appropriate reading strategies to construct the meaning from the text, and eventually aid their comprehension. Henceforth, this action research was conducted to explore how the twelve-week explicit strategy instruction via scaffolding approach helps improve eleven Year Three ESL learners’ reading comprehension in a rural primary school in Sarawak, Malaysia as well as their perspectives towards the use of six research-based reading strategies. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, teacher’s reflective observation notes, and pupils’ work before being analysed using qualitative analysis and thematic coding. The findings of this study revealed that all the six strategies play their own role in helping the participants to become active agents in creating meaning from the texts given, and thus enhancing their reading comprehension. Besides, the learners believe that the use of the strategies learnt improves their reading comprehension, promotes their higher order thinking skills, as well as motivates them to read. It is recommended that the explicit strategy instruction can be incorporated in teaching comprehension to primary ESL learners to aid their reading comprehension, and eventually achieve desirable level in Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) reading proficiency test.