Implementing a reading strategy-based instruction for promoting students’ achievement and self-regulation

Abstract

The present research, based on an exploratory study and an experiment, aims at analyzing the key role of teaching reading strategies at tertiary level. For this, it was hypothesized that if freshmen are provided with a constructivist-aligned reading strategy-based instruction, they will improve their reading performance and show signs of reading self-regulation. Through a battery of teacher and student questionnaires, and tests, this study examines content-area teachers’ attitudes towards curricular reading skill integration. This was carried out in relation with investigating students’ reading self-regulation, strategic knowledge, reading comprehension and epistemological beliefs.110 first-year students from the Department of Letters and English Language, University of Constantine took part in a pretest- instructionposttest control group design. Two major findings emerged from the data. First, constructivist instructions where students get to learn reading strategies in a learner-cantered social environment help improve both students’ reading achievement, as demonstrated by silent comprehension and oral reading fluency, and self–regulation. Second, the nature of students’ epistemological assumptions, more specifically beliefs about the certainty of knowledge, proved to be an important predictor of both reading self-regulation and comprehension. In consideration of the analysis of the results, the hypothesis has been to some extent confirmed (H1), in the light of which some recommendations have been presented.