KWL strategy and Reading Conprehension
Authors: Vera Ana , Crespo Magaly 
Published: October 2023

Introducción

Language learners select and employ strategies that help them learn or use language skills efficiently. Language learning strategies are operations that learners adopt consciously to develop a language task or learn the target language. Different from learning strategies, language learning strategies have a direct relation with language learners. What distinguishes a language learning strategy from other processes is that students are conscious of their selection. Autonomy is another fact that some strategies provide students. For the first time the Know-want to Know-Learned (KWL) strategy in 1986. The KWL strategy activates students’ prior knowledge when they answer the following questions: What I know (K), what I want to learn (W), and what I learned (L)., The KWL strategy uses a three-column chart to organize and answer three previous questions. The K goes to the first column, then the W in the second column, and finally the L in the last column. Students follow three steps to write ideas in each column, answering the questions raised in the heading’s row. It involves the reading process from pre-reading, during reading, until after reading.

Objetivos

To determine the students’ attitudes toward the KWL strategy in the improvement of the reading comprehension.

Método

The present research used human and technological resources. The human resources were 45 students of fourth semester A of the “Pedagogía de los Idiomas Nacionales y Extranjeros” major at Universidad Técnica de Ambato. Students consisted of 11 men and 34 women. It was expected that the 45 students to have B1 English level. Technological resources were necessary for the investigation because the process was developed during the virtual modality. So, the researcher used mobile devices, the internet, a computer to gather data and analyze it. Additionally, the researcher used platforms to collect information like Google Classroom and Google forms.

Principales resultados

“reading for main idea” showed that students obtained an average of 3.38 in the pre-test and an average of 3.73 over 5 points. The difference between both scores is 0.35. Meanwhile, in the second part “reading for specific information and detailed comprehension”, the result of the pre-test was 0.78, and the post-test was 2.93. The difference between both averages is 2,15. On the other hand, in the section that evaluated “scanning for specific information”, students obtained an average of 6.38 during the pre-test and an average of 7.2 during the post-test with a difference of 0.82. Furthermore, in the last section that focused on tested reading for detailed comprehension, students obtained an initial average of 2.41 and a final average of 2.53. It means that the averages have a difference of 0.02. After applying the KWL strategy to improve students’ reading comprehension skills, students obtained final averages of 13.04 and 16.22 with a difference of 3.18 points.

Conclusiones

the effects of the KWL strategy on the improvement of students’ reading comprehension of fourth semester A of Pedagogía de Los Idiomas Nacionales y Extranjeros major. This was proved after the analysis of the results of the experiment and the verification of the hypothesis. The results of the experiment showed that students improve from 13.04 to 16.22 points over 25. Additionally, the null hypothesis was rejected allowing us to verify that the alternative hypothesis was true. Consequently, the KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learned) strategy had a strong influence on the development of reading comprehension skills during the teaching process.