Collaborative Strategic Reading: the Influence of CSR in the Reading Comprehension and Reading Motivation of Fifth Grade Students: Escuela Normal Superior la Hacienda. Barranquilla, Atlántico

Abstract

During the last two decades, Klingner and Vaughn’s (1998) approach called Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) has been implemented in different EFL and ESL settings as a resource to foster reading performance. Although CSR is not actually a popular approach, it constitutes an alternative departure from the traditional way to read individually. Instead, it focuses on specific reading strategies to use in cooperation with others. The theoretical evidences show that this methodology has been useful for the students to increase their reading performance in a collaborative but still challenging manner. Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze the influence of CSR in the reading comprehension and motivation of a group of ten students at a public school in Colombia. Specifically, the study explored the effect of CSR in fifth graders’ attitudes, cooperative behaviors and use of reading comprehension strategies and roles while reading narrative texts in teams. The sources of data employed in this qualitative study included two focus group interviews, two reading tests, learning logs and class observations. The analysis of the data collected revealed that the use of CSR with this target population reinforced students’ development of reading skills at the literal, inferential and critical levels. In addition, the learners’ increasing motivation towards reading narrative texts in accordance with their level and interests was noticeable.