Chapter I Introduction Competent teachers play a critical role in student success.

Good teaching matters and the quality of reading instructions really matter. A big challenge lies in the hands of teachers to sharpen the minds of the youth. Reading is one of the most poorly developed of our daily skills and yet it is a vital medium of communication. In our society, greater demands are continually being made on the ability of people to read and comprehend. How to improve reading ability is an educational problem which has been with us for a long time. Formal education and to a longer extent, informal education depend upon the essential skill of reading comprehension. Greater demands are therefore being made upon students to read more quickly, to memorize, to synthesize and interpret content for them. In this situation, ineffective reading habits are an obvious handicap and they can read directly to academic failure. Reading is far more enjoyable when it is carried out efficiently. It is equally important in the production of well adjusted citizens who are adequately prepared for their proper role in society. Reading has broader purpose to widen the individuals field of interest, to assist in personal development, to provide entertainment and to be informative. Research shows that for people read at maximum speed and with complete understanding. The ability to read efficiently can be developed with training. One of the most perplexing jobs of any teacher is to help pupils grasp the meaning of the words they see before them. The entire act of comprehension constitutes the end product of reading. Teachers and students alike must understand the process of comprehending consist of many skills such as reading for the main idea; remembering details, understanding sequence of events, following directions, summarizing and organizing, reading critically and predicting outcomes. There are numerous methods of evaluating any childs skills development in these areas.

Alexander 1 defined comprehension process of constructing a supportable understanding of a text. Implicit in this brief definition are too important features of the comprehension process. First, seeking to comprehend a text in an active, international thinking process through which the reading constructs meaning. Second, Pressly 2 thinks students understanding of text are expected to vary as result of differences in their background knowledge and experience. The important print to remember here is that both what the reader brings to the text (knowledge of the topic) and the ideas conveyed through the words printed in the text are important to the comprehension process. For example, for readers of the same description of an important historical event may have differing positions regarding its legitimacy as a historical document on the authors purpose for writing it. However, if the readers have comprehended the text, the essential story they both understand the author to be presenting should be similar. In order to help children with this important phase of reading instructions, I would like to believe that the use of graphic organizers can help them understand what they have read and improve their reading comprehension. Something has to be done to help slow learners comprehend what they read. Zwiers 3 , a content literacy expert, posits the use of visual, such as pictures, graphic organizers, diagrams, acronyms and charts. For many students, particularly those who struggle the most in higher level, verbal activity are tortuous. According to Gardner4, father of the theory of the multiple intelligences, students often respond better to activities that incorporate other intelligences. Visual intelligence to be most akin to high quality teaching practices. Students who exhibit visual intelligence need mental picture to understand new information; do well with maps, charts and diagrams; and like mazes and puzzle. They are good in drawing, dancing and creating things. Visual intelligence is the mental skill of seeing and creating that a person can use to organize and process information. Zwiers recommends the use of graphic organizers. To develop the skill in using an organizer, he suggests that teachers take stock of what they themselves visualize while reading in order to help students do the same. Teachers have to transfer the skill to the learners so that in the end, they will not only use the skill but also develop their visual abilities as they learn.

Comprehension issues have been ignored, even with very young students, comprehension of text is critical. It is therefore, essential that the grade school teachers teach students the comprehension skills they need to succeed as future readers. A way to this is by teaching students strategies using graphic organizers. Graphic organizers are visual and spatial displays designed to facilitate the teaching and learning of textual material through the use of lines, arrows, and spatial arrangement that describe text content, structure, and key conceptual relationships (Darch & Eave, 1986, p.310, cited in Kim, A., Vaughn, S., Wanzek, J., Wei, S., 2004) 5Graphic organizers 1(GO) are also sometimes referred to as knowledge maps, concept maps, story maps, cognitive maps, advance organizers or concept diagrams. GOs come in many different forms each designed to suit its organizational criteria. For example, a Descriptive or Thematic Map works well for mapping generic information, but particularly well for mapping hierarchical relationships. They may also include semantic cues (Ellis, E.S. & Howard, P.W., 2009). 6 In his seminal work, D.P. Ausubel (1963) concluded that graphic organizers significantly facilitated the process of learning by strengthening a students existing or prior knowledge, by providing a meaningful framework for relating their existing knowledge to new information. In his article Aids to Text Comprehension, (1984), Mayer, supported Ausubels findings by using graphic organizers to successfully display connections among concepts. Mayer claimed that the use of graphic organizers may better allow readers to connect their existing knowledge base with the text information. Many scholars claim, by using graphic organizers, educators expect to facilitate the readers understanding of the text through visual depictions of key terms and concepts and the relationships among them (Simmon, Griffin, & Kameenui, 1988, cited in Kim et al. 2004). 7 The researcher would like to find out the effectiveness of graphic organizers in improving students reading comprehension. One of my of my objectives in this study is to help children understand what they have read using graphic organizers. The researcher will include the different graphic organizers in the next chapters so students will use them as they endeavor to understand the next or stories they read.

The use of graphic organizer will help the students generate ideas as they develop their thoughts visually. The possibilities associated with a topic become clearer as the students ideas are classified visually. This study will examine the effects of graphic organizers on reading comprehension on grade three students. The study will examine the attitudes of students toward graphic organizers. Fifteen students will be taught with grade of 77 below in Reading subject using the regular reading program for 4 weeks. Graphic organizers will be added to the reading curriculum during the next 4 weeks. Student performance will be assessed using the students average reading grades, the e Teacher Made Test in Reading and an attitude questionnaire. Results of the reading test will show that although there is a difference in reading comprehension when graphic organizer we used, the difference is not significant. However, the attitude of the students will have positive attitudes toward graphic organizers.