Cómo mejorar la comprensión lectora a partir de estrategias de aprendizaje en alumnado de 6.° de Primaria

Our study looks at two of the main problems that concern parents, teachers, and students, which are poor school performance and the high rate of school failure (Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA report 2003).

We believe that a good method to develop pupil skills should be provided in order to improve reading comprehension and school performance. The speech therapist is the specialist who must work on reading comprehension as a basis for academic performance. Our study aims to verify: i) If study skills affect reading comprehension. ii) If a methodology based on this systematic teaching of the organization of study may have implications for improving reading comprehension for pupils with high or low ability.

We focus on two classes of the 6th year, in a private school in the central area of Madrid province. We studied 47 pupils, 21 boys and 26 girls. We used a pre-test-treatment-post-test methodology during one school year. In each of these phases we performed: i) Protest: to identify the reading comprehension level from which we start. An individual test (ECL 2) was applied. ii) Treatment: the methods used varied throughout the academic year, depending on the mediation used: a) Control Group: they were given a summary booklet with several study techniques. b) Experimental Group: they received the booklet and a speech therapist worked with them in the classroom using study skills following the Robinson method. By processing and analysing the data statistically, we can conclude that the class led by the speech therapist improved reading comprehension for pupils with high and low aptitudes.

It is suggested that this type of research should be considered, in which the speech therapist comes into play as a technical specialist in reading comprehension strategies towards improved pupil performance.