Reading Strategies Instruction in a Graduate Program for English In-Service Teachers

Abstract

A faculty complained that students were not reading as expected to in order to participate in class and to complete their assignments. Master’s candidates argued that there was too much content to read. Participants were in-service teachers of a master program for English teachers at a private university. The intervention included asking the faculty to choose the core topics to be read, analyzed, and discussed in class. This is a descriptive study with analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. This study explored to what extent the faculty included reading strategies in class as well as students’ perspectives of in-class-reading for different purposes. Data were obtained from the syllabus, and from surveys given to students. Findings reported an increase in reading strategies in class, students evaluated teachers better, and there was a change in their perspectives towards reading. The implications of this study favour supporting students’ understandings of academic concepts and raising their motivations through in-class-reading.