Developing English Interferencing Reading Skills in First Secondary Students

Abstract

In order to carry on this study, special exercises for developing inferences skills were taught to the students by using Critical thinking along eight weeks. The researcher applied one diagnostic exam and two monthly exams fully developed on the four axes of the English language which gave special attention to the reading section asking for inference skills items. The data was collected, analyzed, and compared throughout the results of an interview to the teachers group at the beginning of the study and at the end of it. Two think aloud interviews were applied to six students chosen at random by the teachers group at the beginning and at the end of this study as well. The researcher count and graphed the worksheets to develop inference skills results besides, the researcher also analyzed and graphed the results of the exams and interviews. The data was recorded all over a two-month period and the researcher looked for graph designs, which showed in detail the results obtained throughout this study, The group with which this study took action was a first secondary junior high group with eight females and fifteen males, being a total of twenty three students; two students had special mental disabilities the researcher included all the students while working with the inference exercises and when answering the exams, however the students with mental disabilities were taken out since they would have affected the final result of this study. The majority of the junior high students have studied in primary bilingual schools, so they have a bilingual background. Our students’ socio-economic income is low to medium income, and most of our students come from unstable family backgrounds.