Alexander Izquierdo Castillo
I.E.D. Bicentenario, Colombia
alexizquierdo1@hotmail.com

This article reports on an action research project conducted with six ninth grade students in a rural public school in Colombia. The purpose of the study was to determine how the implementation of three reading strategies (skimming, scanning, and making predictions), when reading topics selected by learners, helps them to improve their reading comprehension and promotes their autonomy in the learning process. The results show that these learners developed some autonomous features such as making decisions for learning and doing assigned homework, increasing reading awareness and motivation. Additionally, the training on reading strategies allowed them to succeed in their reading comprehension. We conclude that these reading strategies are tools that take learners along the path of autonomy.

En este artículo se reportan los resultados de un proyecto de investigación-acción llevado a cabo con seis estudiantes de noveno grado en un colegio público rural. El propósito fue determinar el impacto de tres estrategias de lectura en inglés (identificar información específica, entender la idea principal y hacer predicciones) en la promoción de la autonomía y la compresión lectora. Los resultados evidenciaron que los estudiantes adquirieron algunos rasgos de autonomía, tales como tomar decisiones para aprender y hacer sus tareas asignadas, ser más conscientes de su proceso de lectura y estar más motivados para el aprendizaje. Así mismo, la capacitación referente a las estrategias de lectura les permitió mejorar su comprensión lectora. Se puede concluir que estas estrategias son herramientas que le sirven al estudiante para su formación en autonomía.

This article reports the results of an action research project conducted with six ninth grade students in a rural public school in Gachetá, Cundinamarca, Colombia. The project aims at determining how the development of three reading strategies (skimming, scanning, and making predictions), when reading topics selected by learners, helps them to improve their reading comprehension and promotes their autonomy in the learning process.

Reading is one of the most vital skills that a person can acquire in his or her life because it is an interactive process which allows the reader to access information about the latest achievements of science and technology and transform it into know-ledge. Reading in English will help the learner to get updated and in contact with knowledge regarding many issues such as agriculture, culture, economics, politics, tourism, and telecommunications. Moreover, reading in English is essential because people depend on the internet for information. An important aspect when dealing with English in Colombia is that students in state and private schools must take the Saber PRO exam in the eleventh grade in order to access higher education and the English component of this exam is based mainly on reading comprehension. However, we noticed that the students in our target group faced a variety of difficulties while reading in English. Even though they were expected to understand the main idea, make predictions, and identify specific information in a text, they could not do it. This was mainly due to the fact that they did not apply any strategy while reading in English and their reading skills were elementary. Consequently, we considered it useful to give them practice that helps them to develop three reading strategies (scanning, skimming, and making predictions) that can promote autonomy. In addition, the learners were asked to select topics of their interest before we implemented the training program. The main purpose was to help them become effective and efficient readers as well as autonomous learners in terms of making decisions about their learning. With well-developed reading skills, learners would be expected to make greater progress and accomplish better results in their academic subjects.

Another important aspect to highlight regarding reading is its social dimension because reading operates in a social context. Wentzel (1996) supports this idea when reflecting on the importance of the social aspects of reading. Her position focuses on the fact that learners read for social reasons because they construct and share the meanings gleaned from reading with friends and family. By doing this, students in rural settings are able to learn by themselves, particularly by checking information about their work in the countryside. For instance, they can find new ways of managing and operating the farms for more effective cattle raising strategies, how to process and grow agricultural products like coffee, bananas, sugar cane, blackberries, and pineapple. Thus, applying these reading strategies will better help them to read effectively in English in order to broaden their perspectives about their quality of life; for example, to become better farmers, housewives, and merchants in the future because they will be able to read and keep updated about their environment and their living conditions.

This study is based on the following theoretical constructs: autonomy, motivation, reading, and reading strategies.

Autonomy

Autonomy is a relevant issue nowadays because we live in a society which is constantly changing day by day. Therefore, education must deal with those challenges it brings, which means that educators must provide learners with the appropriate strategies to be proactive. Autonomy has become a key issue in today's world, particularly because it offers learners the possibility of modifying and transforming their lives according to their needs. As a consequence, it is advisable that learners become aware of those new challenges that society presents and to be able to make their own decisions in their learning process. They must have the tools and skills to become responsible for their own duties by taking control of the process and finding the motivation to succeed.

The aforementioned features of autonomy will empower them to integrate themselves successfully in any context. Little (1991) supports this idea when reflecting on the importance of autonomy, defining it as the capacity to reflect critically, to make decisions, and to act independently. Autonomy refers to the way the learner transfers what he/she has learned to different contexts. Furthermore, Holec (1981) states that individuals must develop the abil-ities that society demands, and those abilities enable them to take more responsibility in solving the new challenges of the society they live in. Reflecting on the same issue, Dickinson (1995) highlights that autonomy is an attitude toward learning in which students are equipped to take responsibility for their learning. Also, Dickinson (1995) states that there is a link between autonomy and motivation due to the fact "that learning success and enhanced motivation are conditional upon learners taking responsibility for their own learning, being able to control their own learning and perceiving that their learning success or failure are to be attributed to their own efforts and strategies rather than to factors outside their control" (pp. 173-174). Consequently, Dickin- son outlines that motivation is a condition for learners to become autonomous learners.

Motivation

We viewed motivation as a key factor to undertake a reading process, especially since our target group was particularly unmotivated to read and carry out their homework. The latter was considered a key point in this context since the learners had only two hours a week of class and homework allows them to practice and build up autonomy. We believed that the promotion of reading strategies as well as giving learners the opportunity to select reading topics by themselves would provide the motivation they needed to carry out the reading process in a meaningful way. Authors have stated that reading challenges can be overcome more easily if students are highly motivated to read. As Guilloteaux and Dörnyei (2008) note:

Similarly, Guthrie, Wigfield, Metsala, and Cox (1999) carried out two studies to explore the relationship between reading and motivation. They found that motivation had a major impact on reading comprehension, providing the best single explanation for reading performance. Motivation was also the strongest single factor predicting the amount of reading done by students (Guthrie et al., 1999).

Reading

Reading is an interactive process in which the reader gives sense and meaning to the issues he or she gets in touch with. Alderson (2000) defines reading as a "process of interaction between a reader and the text" (p. 3). In the same spirit, Nunan (1999) states that reading is an interactive process that involves the exploitation of linguistic knowledge (sound, symbol correspondences, grammatical knowledge) and real-world (content) knowledge. He outlines that skilled readers have a range of strategies at their disposal and select those strategies that match the purposes for which they are reading.

Nuttall (1996) states that reading is the process of "getting out of the text as nearly as possible the message the writer put into it" (p. 4). Likewise, she states that effective reading involves "word attack," "sentence attack," and "text attack" skills. To her, reading involves not only looking at sentences and words and going through them at random but also recognizing and understanding them intellectually. This helps students to pick up new words, syntax, and writing styles.

Jiménez (2000) defines reading as "the learners' ability to interpret or work out the meaning of a written text and react towards it as a result" (p. 10). This means that comprehension is involved in this process. Her main concern is the development or improvement of this ability through the teaching and practice of reading strategies in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL).

Ríos and Valcárcel (2005) state that reading is an individual process which develops self-study habits. Also, they think that reading is a good resource to have students become conscious of their own learning processes, particularly using reading strategies such as making predictions, skimming, scanning, extensive reading, and intensive reading.

Reading Strategies

Carrell (1989) states that "reading strategies are of interest to many researchers as they show how readers interact with the written material and in what way they are associated with text comprehension" (p. 121). Likewise, Cantrell and Carter (2009) state that reading strategies help educators to instruct effectively less proficient readers in their reading comprehension.

The three reading strategies used in this research were selected because they were basic for our learners to improve their ability to understand and process text. They are defined as follows:

• Scanning has to do with looking for "specific information, for example, the relevant times on a timetable, items in a directory, or key points in an academic text" (Hedge, 2003, p. 195). Williams (1996) states that "scanning is reading for particular points of information. It is a selective reading, and its purpose is to achieve very specific reading goals" (p. 107).

• Skimming deals with getting main ideas of the text without reading every single word. An example could be previewing a newspaper "by reading rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing on headings and first lines of paragraphs" (Hedge, 2003, p. 195).

Nuttall (1996) defines skimming as:

• Making predictions has to do with making assumptions regarding what the text is about based on the title, images, pictures, or charts and then reading to confirm expectations. Training learners in the use of this skill will ensure their active involvement and make reading easier to practice (Nuttall, 1982).

We think that reading strategies are a useful tool to foster learners' reading proficiency and autonomy. By using this tool, learners will gain meaningful insights about how to make decisions for learning and develop awareness about effective reading, motivation, and responsibility for their own tasks. We allowed the students to select the topics they wanted to read about in order to engage them in the reading process.

We used qualitative action research because we carried out a pedagogical intervention to solve a problematic situation which we identified through observation of our context. Likewise, in this study we had to analyze the specific situation of the classroom and collect data systematically on our everyday practices and analyze the data in order to identify the problem and make decisions to improve our future teaching practices (Wallace, 2002). We were interested in describing and theorizing about our students' reading strategies, particularly developing scanning, skimming, and making predictions.

Therefore, learners were expected to take some significant responsibility for their own learning, responding to instructions and, particularly, being expected to improve their reading comprehension and promote some features of autonomy such as making decisions for learning and setting up goals when reading about topics selected by them.

This action research project was set to answer the following research question: To what extent does the implementation of three reading strategies (scanning, skimming, and making predictions), when reading about topics selected by learners, promote autonomy?

By answering the research question the researchers aimed to accomplish the objectives described below.

Research Objectives

General Objective

To determine how the implementation of three reading strategies (scanning, skimming, and making predictions) promotes autonomy in reading when reading about topics selected by learners.

Specific Objective

To analyze the effects of student training in the three reading strategies (scanning, skimming, and making predictions) on students' reading skills when reading topics selected by them.

This study was carried out with a group of six students in ninth grade in a small rural agricultural public school where one of the researchers taught English. There were three girls and three boys aged 14 and 15 years old. These students come from a low socioeconomic background and belong to farming families. The learners' parents never had the opportunity to go to school, so they cannot read and write. They believe that the farming chores are more important than studying, so learners must help them with the farming duties, particularly milking cows, feeding chickens, cows, horses, cooking the food, cutting grass, and felling trees. Additionally, none of the learners had a computer at home or any other resources such books or dictionaries plus they had to make a big effort to go to school by walking long distances.

The learners' English level was elementary because they only had the opportunity to learn it at school. They were particularly strong at writing, but they had serious difficulties with reading comprehension.

Ethical Considerations

Participants in this study were volunteers. The main objectives and the activities were explained to them, to their parents, and the school principal through consent letters. The letters were in Spanish in order to avoid misunderstanding and the parents, the group of learners, and the school principal understood each detail of the research project. The participants were told about the implications, benefits, and impact that the research project could have on their academic development.

A training program to promote reading strategies was implemented and data were collected from different sources as described below:

a. A students' pre-implementation, self-assessment checklist to compare with a similar instrument at the end of the implementation to see if the reading strategies have fostered autonomy and to analyze the effects of reading strategies training on students' reading skills (see Appendix A).

b. Three questionnaires (one for scanning, one for skimming, and one for making predictions) in order to check if learners have improved their reading skills and have developed autonomy. These questionnaires were used at the end of the implementation of each reading strategy (see Appendix B).

c. A post-lesson self-evaluation for the teachers in order to see what went well, what did not go so well, what were the lesson objectives, and if the reading strategies had been useful in fostering autonomy.

d. A students' post-implementation, self-assessment checklist to see if learners have developed better insights about autonomy in relation to the use of the three reading strategies and also to see if those strategies helped them to improve their reading skills (see Appendix C).

e. A reading achievement test: This test was necessary to know if learners had improved the process of using reading strategies to foster reading for main ideas and for specific information in a text. The test was administered at the end of the study.

Validity and Reliability

The information elicited from the five instruments was triangulated to find out if students had improved their autonomy and reading skills through the strategy training program.

The focus and amount of data obtained allowed us to determine whether or not the research question had been solved. In order to reach reliability, all the data were consistently and systematically placed in categories and subcategories. Likewise, we went along this research project through a number of "checkpoints" to make the research project valid. We had regular meetings to discuss how the project was going on following the "checkpoints." They included the following questions (Burns, 2010, pp. 130-131):

The main objectives of the strategy training program for this project were as follows:

1. Helping the learners to learn how to use the three reading strategies (skimming, scanning, and making predictions) to foster autonomy when reading topics selected by them.

2. Helping the learners to learn how to improve reading comprehension through the use of the three reading strategies implemented in the project.

In this sense, we were facilitators by providing our learners guidance and reading strategies input to enable them to develop autonomy towards reading. The program integrated 11 sessions of two hours each, which were developed with the learners from February to May, 2012. Appendix D describes in detail the steps and processes that were followed in order to carry out the implementation of the project. The program was organized based on Williams (1996), who suggests that for the effective teaching of reading in the classroom, the lesson should be divided into three consecutive phases: pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading. The first phase, according to Williams, "aims to introduce and raise interest in the topic, to motivate learners by giving them a reason for reading and to provide some language preparation for the text" (p. 37). Therefore, in this phase we provided our learners with the opportunity to explore ideas, knowledge, and personal experiences regarding the readings. This stage is important to activate schemata and to prepare students for reading. The second phase, while-reading, is the most active stage. According to Williams, it enables the students to understand the writer's purpose, the text structure and to clarify text content.

In the post-reading stage, the teacher may ask the students about their reaction to the text. For example, the students may answer whether they have liked and enjoyed it, or found it useful or not. This stage is also important since it is supposed to evaluate and examine the output and feedback from the students. In addition to that, the post-reading phase enables the students, according to Williams (1996), "to consolidate or reflect upon what has been read and to relate the text to the learners' own knowledge, interest, experience or views" (p. 39).

For the analysis of the data gathered during the implementation, the researchers used the grounded theory approach, which allowed them to generate, build, and interpret the findings following open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Open coding, according to Stern and Porr (2010), "involves breaking up data into segments, and then collapsing them into one or more conceptual categories" (p. 64). Axial coding, following Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2007), "is understood as the stage to link categories and codes" (p. 493). Selective coding, based on Cohen et al. (2007), is the stage to establish a core code and to clarify connections between the core codes and other codes.

After exploring the data gathered and applying the coding strategy to reduce the quantity of information collected with the instruments, two categories and three subcategories related with the research question emerged (Table 1).

Fostering Autonomy Through the Use of Reading Strategies

Data taken from the students' pre-implementation checklist, the three questionnaires (one questionnaire for each strategy), the post-lesson/self-evaluation report, and the students' post-implementation checklist supported the fact that most students increased their autonomy, principally by making decisions for learning and doing assigned homework, increasing awareness of the reading process, increasing motivation, and improving their reading skills by using the three reading strategies (scanning, skimming, and making predictions).

Decision Making for Learning and Doing Assigned Homework

After the researchers implemented the initial questionnaires and activities, the learners started expressing their interest in learning the target language. They carried out their reading comprehension tasks using the three reading strategies proposed by the teacher and, through those tasks, learned to make decisions about their reading process autonomously. They started taking initiative in order to approach specific activities, such as finding out the meaning of unknown words, locating specific information in a text, finding main ideas in a passage, and relating the content of the reading to their own schemata. By doing this, they felt empowered to carry out their assigned homework on their own and to transfer those strategies to reading effectively in Spanish about other subjects. These features of autonomy led them to be less dependent on the teacher and more focused on their reading tasks. Excerpt 1 demonstrates the process the students followed in order to develop the three reading strategies for fostering autonomy.

Little (1991) mentions that when defining autonomy, one must take into consideration some aspects such as the capacity learners have to work on their own, their responsibility, and their ability to make decisions for learning. After students practiced the use of the three reading strategies, they realized the usefulness of these strategies to aid in making their own decisions in their learning process, developing responsibility and commitment.

Decision making for learning and doing assigned homework was identified by the researchers as a key finding due to the fact that learners started acquiring more determination and initiative towards reading, and there was more enthusiasm when they used the strategies taught in class. As a result, they were more committed to doing their homework:

Increasing Reading Awareness

The second subcategory came up as another way in which learners developed their autonomy. During the process of the implementation of the three reading strategies, learners became more conscious of their reading process through the use of the strategies taught. As a result, they were more open-minded and reflective regarding how to use and apply the reading strategies to promote their autonomy. After the implementation of the strategies, all the students agreed that their process was better when using reading strategies.

As mentioned in the theoretical framework, Dickinson (1995) states that autonomy is an attitude toward learning in which students are prepared to take responsibility for their learning; therefore, having this responsibility toward learning increases their awareness of their learning process. This was done through the students' training in the use of the reading strategies. Excerpt 3 demonstrates the importance given by learners to their reading process, particularly increasing awareness about the use of the reading strategies to foster autonomy.

Promoting Motivation

Motivation was fostered with the implementation of the three reading strategies (scanning, skimming, and making predictions). This was evidenced by the fact that learners read more easily and faster, and reported that they enjoyed their reading more and that they felt more motivated by going to the question first and then going to the text to find out what they needed to focus on, disregarding vocabulary and words they did not know. They clearly stated that they became more interested in reading with the use of the reading strategies. As a result, learners became more autonomous readers. The following excerpts demonstrate that motivation was promoted with the development of the reading strategies because these strategies allowed the students to enjoy the reading process.

These findings are similar to the ones reported by Aguirre and Ramos (2009) after conducting five workshops on reading strategies such as skimming, scanning, and predicting in a semi-distance learning program. The authors found that the use of reading strategies had contributed to the reading process of students. The students' attitude and motivation towards English changed. Through the teacher's guidance in terms of how to use reading strategies, students were able to develop metacognitive skills and, as a result, build up confidence and motivation to work by themselves on assigned tasks.

Improving Reading Performance

This category emphasizes the importance of the three reading strategies for the improvement of the reading skills. Learners were able to use and apply the reading strategies to read faster, more easily and with increased comprehension. Consequently, they were able to locate main ideas, find specific information in a text, and make predictions. The use of these strategies empowered learners as effective readers and they became less dependent on the teacher than they used to be.

The excerpt below demonstrates how learners improved their reading process when they implemented the reading strategies.

Finally, and to support the fact that learners progressed in their reading skills, a reading achievement-test was applied at the end of the process which confirmed the success of the three reading strategies (scanning, skimming, and making predictions).

The use of the three reading strategies (skimming, scanning, and making predictions) is a very enriching process to guide learners along the path of autonomy, particularly in terms of decision making for learning and doing assigned homework, increasing awareness of their own reading learning process, and promoting motivation. Also, these strategies encouraged students to see that they were builders of their own knowledge and possibilities. Through this process, learners were more open-minded and reflective regarding how to use and apply the reading strategies for effective reading and to promote their autonomy.

In addition, the effective use of reading strategies made learners feel more motivated while reading. This motivation was due to the fact that learners read more easily and faster, and reported that they enjoyed their reading because the topics had been selected by them. Also, they were able to locate specific information, identify general information, and make predictions about a text without depending a lot on the teacher.

Finally, there was improvement of their reading skills due to the efficient use of the reading strategies.

The conclusions mentioned above led to the identification of various issues teachers should take into consideration when teaching English, especially when teaching reading strategies to EFL learners.

First, in many EFL classrooms translation is still used as a method, and little or no attention is given to training in reading strategies for an effective and meaningful reading process. Through the application of the reading strategies (skimming, scanning, and making predictions) learners could not only improve reading comprehension, but also develop some features of autonomy such as metacognitive skills, reading awareness, motivation, and decision making. The guidance in terms of how to use reading strategies helps learners to achieve a better performance as well as to enjoy the learning process due to the fact that they become more efficient and have more fun. Furthermore, other language skills (listening, speaking, and writing) might be improved through the implementation of the reading strategies.

Secondly, reading strategies should be taught explicitly in order for learners to understand them and put them into practice in other contexts. For example, learners could use scanning to locate specific information in a biology text or use skimming to identify the main idea in a Spanish passage.

In addition, readings must be selected taking into consideration the learners' interests, age, English level, needs, and context allowing them to select the reading topics they want to read for the term. By doing this, learners will see English reading as a tool to access real life situations concerning their context and will be engaged in the English learning process. Moreover, motivation will make them more successful because it will encourage them to accept responsibility for their own learning. Therefore, teachers should take into consideration the importance of promoting motivation in the reading process in order for learners to perceive their progress and reach their goals.

Teachers are also encouraged to implement the stages of reading proposed by Williams (1996) for effective reading (pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading) since they are helpful to scaffold the reading process in a sequential and effective way (see Pedagogical Design).

It is suggested that similar studies be conducted with other types of reading strategies such as inferring or extensive reading. It would also be interesting to study how learners acquire language structures and vocabulary through reading activ-ities. Likewise, it would be interesting to implement these reading strategies in a virtual learning environment to identify if learners take advantage of them to improve their reading comprehension.

Moreover, this study could also be replicated with larger groups of participants to explore the variety of their insights and see if students would also be willing to develop better reading skills, autonomy, and commitment to carry out their homework as well as to foster different types of interaction and awareness regarding their reading process. Finally, we would like to highlight the importance of using the list of "checkpoints" proposed by Burns (2010). By doing this, we kept an eye on the evolvement of our research project due to the fact that it allowed us to be focused, objective, reflective, and well documented. Also, it was useful for us in evaluating our research project and making adjustments based on the findings to reach trustworthy conclusions.

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Alexander Izquierdo Castillo holds a Master in English Language Teaching—Autonomous Learning Environments from Universidad de La Sabana (Colombia); a BA in English Language Teaching (UniAmazonia, Colombia), Assessment for Competency Based Learning (Centro Espiral Mana, Alajuela, Costa Rica). He works at I.E.D. Bicentenario High School in Funza, Colombia.

Sonia Jiménez Bonilla holds an MSc in Teaching English for Specific Purposes from the University of Aston (Birmingham, U.K.), and a is a certified ICELT Tutor, University of Cambridge—ESOL, U.K. She is the Academic Coordinator of the Master program in English Language Teaching—Autonomous Learning Environments at Universidad de La Sabana (Colombia).

1. Can you identify specific information in a text? Yes or No? Why?

2. Do you think that the scanning strategy implemented in class is useful for your use in other contexts? Yes or No? Why?

3. Do you feel motivated when you are able to locate specific information in a text in English? Yes or No? Why?

4. Do you think that having the option of selecting topics of your interest has promoted more autonomy to read about other subjects? Yes or No? Why?

5. Have you improved your reading skills after the implementation of the scanning strategy? Yes or No? Why?

6. Do you do your activities or tasks with responsibility, interest and commitment? Yes or No? Why?