The Use of Think-Aloud in Assisting Reading Comprehension among Primary School Students

Reading strategies are seldom taught to students despite their importance in aiding reading comprehension. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the think-aloud strategy and investigate primary school students' perception of using the think-aloud strategy in assisting their reading comprehension. Twenty-seven primary school students were introduced and trained to use the think-aloud strategy through teacher-modelling and reciprocal think-aloud with comprehension passages related to the relevant English curriculum. Questionnaires and interview sessions were conducted to gather information on how the students perceive the use of think-aloud in reading comprehension. Findings revealed that students have positive perceptions towards using think-aloud as a reading strategy in their reading comprehension and were keen on using the strategy in their future reading.

CAN CONFERENCES AND MODELLING STRATEGIES IMPROVE STUDENTS’ INTEREST AND ACHIEVEMENT IN ESSAY WRITING?

The study reported here was on the effects of writing conference and teacher modelling strategies on Senior School Two (SS2) students' interest and achievement in essay writing. The study used quasi experimental design of the non equivalent pre-test/post-test experimental-control group subtype. From a population of 9,244 senior secondary students in 5 Local Government (LGAs) of Central Education Zone of Plateau State, a sample of 95 students was selected from two intact classes using a multi-stage sampling technique. One of the sampled classes formed Experimental Group One while the other formed Experimental Group Two for an experiment that lasted for a duration of six weeks. The study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. Two instruments namely Writing Achievement Test (WAT) and Questionnaire on Students’ Interest in Essay writing (QSIEW) were used for data collection.. Data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) to test the hypotheses. Findings revealed that both strategies enhanced students’ achievement in essay writing. However, students taught essay writing using writing conference strategy outperformed their counterparts taught using teachers’ modelling in assigned writing tasks and tested in the writing achievement test. The finding further indicated that students taught via conference strategy gained significantly higher mean interest rating than those taught using teacher modelling strategy. Based on the findings, the study recommended that combining writing conferencing and modelling strategies in the teaching of essay writing could bring about increased interest in writing and better writing outcomes among secondary school students. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0620/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

PERANAN ORANGTUA, GURU, DAN TEMAN SEBAYA DALAM PROSES PEMBENTUKAN KARAKTER SISWA SEKOLAH DASAR

Moral deterioration of a nation is caused by lack of character education in its people. It is found that social infraction, immoral infraction, and free sex has become a culture and habit. It seems that a child considered these morality infractions as usual thing for him/her. Thus, where this nation will go? The next generation as realization of struggle in doing improvement and the maintenance of the truth which based on honesty should be given firm foundation by character education which is started from parent, teacher and peer modelling in their neighbourhood. Parent modelling become first and main factor in children’s character education, because parent is closest persons with their personality in the whole. Then teacher “is obeyed and imitated”, which means children will see example from teacher modelling in learning routine in elementary school, while peers in neighbourhood as second realization who will build a life morality. Good or bad morality depended on who is their closest friend. Parent, teacher, and peer in children neighbourhood should be able to become good modelling in order to give motivation, inspiration in children’s character education toward 2045 golden Indonesia. Abstrak Terjadinya keterpurukan moralitas suatu bangsa disebabkan lunturnya pendidikan karakter pada rakyatnya. Banyak ditemukan pelanggaran sosial, pelanggaran asusila, pergaulan bebas yang sudah membudaya dan terbiasa. Seakan-akan seorang anak sering menemukan pelanggaran moralitas tersebut menjadi hal yang biasa dalam dirinya. Maka, akan dibawa kemana arah bangsa ini? Generasi penerus bangsa, tunas-tunas harapan sebagai wujud perjuangan dalam melakukan sebuah perbaikan serta tegaknya kebenaran yang berladaskan kejujuran seharusnya diberikan pondasi yang kokoh dengan pendidikan karakter yang dimulai dari keteladanan orangtua, guru, dan teman di lingkungannya. Keteladanan orangtua menjadi faktor yang pertama dan utama dalam pendidikan karakter anak, karena orangtua merupakan orang yang paling dekat dengan kepribadiannya secara utuh, kemudian guru “digugu dan ditiru” yang berarti anak akan melihat contoh dari keteladanan seorang guru dalam rutintas pembelajaran di sekolah dasar, sedangkan teman di lingkungan sebagai perwujudan kedua yang akan menunjang sebuah pendidikan moralitas kehidupan, baik buruknya moralitas anak tergantung siapa teman yang berada didekatnya. Orangtua, guru, dan teman di lingkungan anak harus mampu menjadi teladan yang baik sehingga dapat memberikan motivasi, insfirasi dalam pendidikan karakter anak dalam rangka menuju Indonesia emas 2045. Kata Kunci: Keterpurukan Moralitas, Ketauladanan Orangtua, Guru, Teman Membangun Pendidikan Karakter

Activities of Student Centralisation, Questionnaire, Modelling, and KBAT Among Science and Non-Science Students

The purpose of this study was to identify whether or not there was a significant difference in the variables of student centralisation, teacher questioning, teacher modelling and high-level thinking skills of students based on class stream for low-performing school students in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia. This quantitative study used a survey method involving 250 respondents from the stated population. This study referred to the Absorption Learning Model (Swartz, Fischer and Parks, 1998) as the basis model for the study. The data were analysed using the T-test with Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) version 22. Based on the class stream in Kudat district, the findings showed that there was a significant difference in the involvement of student centralisation between Science and non-Science students; there was no significant difference in teachers' questioning between Science and non-Science students; there was no significant difference in teacher modelling between Science and non-Science students; there was a significant difference in thinking skills level between Science and non-Science students. It is hoped that this study can provide useful inputs for improving the practice of teaching infusion of teachers to students from every class stream in Kudat region in particular and throughout Malaysia in general.

The Role of Annotations in Summarization

In today's reading education, the importance of explicit instruction of specific cognitive literacy strategy that promotes readers' active participation in the reading process is highly recognized. This active participation is synonymous with readers' interaction with the text, the context, and himself/herself. Hence, this study was conducted to investigate the role of annotations in the ability of the students to write a summary. This chapter considered teacher-modelling as an important factor in the students' annotations. Explicit instruction and modelling gave the students' opportunity to learn the skill until they could independently apply the strategy without the guidance of the teacher. A qualitative analysis of the students' annotations revealed that those who have both verbal and non-verbal glosses had better output in their summary. This implies that annotations provide students better interaction with the text, themselves, and the world.