TOWARDS A COGNITIVE INTERVENTION IN READING COMPREHENSION FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

This work presents the results of implementing a reading comprehension workshop for three third-year secondary student groups of a public school. Changes were measured by using a pre-test / post-test design with a control group, and applying the Spanish section of the National Assessment of Academic Achievement in Schools [1] to assess reading comprehension. The intervention consisted of a weekly 45-minute session for 10 weeks using a cognitive approach and techniques based on the human information processing model: information acquisition, recording, and retrieval. A paired samples t test was applied to the ENLACE results, and it was found that: for the experimental group 1, the means increased from 11.92 to 12.55; for the experimental group 2, the means increased from 10.58 to 11.38; and finally, the control group had a decrease in performance with means going from 10.58 to 9.70. The results obtained in the two application stages were statistically significant for all the cases. Based on these results, we can conclude that the implemented workshop was useful to improve the reading comprehension level of the participating students since the experimental groups showed an increase in performance in contrast with the control group. The theoretical and practical implications of the obtained results are discussed.