Appraisal of seven critical reading strategies employed by teachers in Ogun State senior secondary schools to teach reading comprehension

Abstract

Basic to success in every academic venture is the ability of the learner to be able to read in the language of instruction. The deterioration in reading ability of most Nigerians senior secondary school students is a source of worry. This is because underachievement in reading comprehension has denied them the opportunity to continue their studies beyond the secondary school level as most of them could not pass the various internal and external examinations required of them to further their academic. One of the factors pencilled down to be responsible for dismal performances in reading is the strategies being employed by teachers to effect the teaching of reading the Nigerian secondary schools. Thus in this study, an attempt was made to investigate how the secondary school teachers in Egba, Ijebu, Remo and Yewa dialectical zones of Ogun State, Nigeria adopt the use of previewing, contextualising, questioning, reflecting, outlining / summarising, evaluating / argument / comparing / contrasting strategies to teach reading comprehension classes. Four teachers were observed teaching reading comprehension in four different classrooms, one each from the four dialectical zones by the researcher and the frequency of occurrences of each of the strategies was analysed. The results showed that the strategy most frequently used to teach reading of the seven strategies above was the questioning strategy and that most of the other strategies emanated as a result of the teachers’ ability to engage the students in skilful and well- framed questions. Recommendations were made to the teachers to be more dexterous and resourceful in their teaching of reading comprehension.

Keywords: Reading, comprehension, underachievement, Strategy, interactive