Using Graphic Organizers to Teach Reading Comprehension Essay

Using Graphic Organizers to Teach Reading Comprehension - Essay Example In addition, there is an assumption that in reading that all text have structures (Jiang & Grabe, 2007, p.34). And at the same time, â€Å"students in most class rooms are at different mental levels† (McMackin & Witherell(a), 2003, p. 11). In this regard, Hughes, Maccini, & Gagnon, (2003) argue that students at the upper-elementary, secondary and intermediate grades receive less individual attention than in primary grades. As a result, these new expectations and demands give more challenges in the process of learning and comprehension. And the required skills to comprehend become more challenging particularly for students with Learning disabilities (LD). And this becomes more challenging when a class does not represent a one particular type of students rather it is occupied with the students having different understanding abilities, comprehension power and retention. A class of students represents diversity and this diversity provides more challenging time for teachers who are expected to identify each student’s learning level and the teacher is expected to provide the targeted instruction (McMackin & Witherell(b), 2005). Additionally, with the passage of time as students progress, reading and comprehension increasingly incorporates expository text; from which the students are required to learn and comprehend. However, learning through expository is not easy a task for many students rather they are challenged with the reading assignments such as fiction (Kim et al., 2004). For instance, the material of expository text is of more informative nature and most of the time it is included by unfamiliar technical vocabulary terms and expressions. And these terms and expressions considerably differ from those expressions and terms that students had read in their primary classes. In addition, such text material is not organized properly rather poorly. This puts more pressure on students to use some additional complex cognitive tasks with an aim of comprehe nding the expository material (Lapp, Flood, Ranck-Buhr, 1995). With this added pressure from expository material, students face pressures and retention capabilities are directly hit or they become more exhausted; putting more psychological pressure to ensure learning the context of expository material. Additionally, some authors on the topic, suggest that there is a strong reason to believe that the students would under perform or may not be able to comprehend the context and material inside the expository text, for that purpose, they put forward their assertion that much of the expository material is filled with the huge amount of information. And this piece of information is not limited nor in its context, nor in its implications. Aggregately, there can be no boundary to determine the extent of expository material given a particular subject or topic. As a result, the students do not perform as they are expected to. Constantly, they under-perform and their aggregate graph of learni ng does not seem to be moving upward rather downward. In this regard, more innovations have been made in order to assist those students who are less equipped to face or manage the challenges of the expository material. Different learning strategies have been developed to assist students with LD (Dexter & Hughes, 2011). They need explicit content enhancements to assist in verbal (e.g. text or lecture) comprehension and graphic organizers (GOs) have often been recommended as an instructional devise to assist these students in understanding increasingly abstract