Strengthening Motivation By Reading Comprehension Strategies in Primary Education Students

Abstract

One of the biggest problems faced by schools is to find ways to help their students improve their learning and academic performance. The purpose of this research is to propose a way to help students with poor academic performance to improve their grades by becoming involved in a program of significant independent reading. The hypothesis of the study are that the lack of significant independent reading in students contributes to their poor academic performance and that the assimilation of reading comprehension strategies in students generates motivation for reading. To increase reading comprehension an Instructional Reading Program (PIL as its Spanish acronym) was created and student motivation toward reading was measured before and after using the PIL through the Intrinsic Motivation Instrument (IMI) designed by Ryan and Deci (2000). It was confirmed that there is a strong correlation between academic performance and significant independent reading and that the use of PIL increases the level of student motivation toward reading independently.