Written Retelling Strategy in Improving Reading Skill among ESL Students in Malaysia

Skills of reading and comprehending in English are crucial for academic success in schools. Pupils with low reading ability skill may result in obtaining low grades and poor test scores. Traditionally pupils are taught to lift specific information as a reading strategy to answer comprehension questions, comparatively, this study uses retelling strategy to evaluate pupils’ understanding. Past research indicated that retelling strategy enhances accuracy and greater comprehension. Thus, far study that investigates effectiveness of this strategy remains scarce in Malaysian English as Second Language (ESL) primary schools. As reading skill starts to develop in early stage of schooling, it is deemed necessary to conduct this study among primary level pupils. The present study specifically analyzes the effects of written retelling strategy on pupils’ understanding of story structure among year three primary school pupils in Malaysian ESL classroom. A quasiexperimental research design with pretest and posttest was adopted to carry out the study. Pretest and posttest questions consisting of structural comprehension questions and written retelling were used to measure the effects of written retelling strategy on the pupils’ achievement in reading comprehension and their understanding of the story structure. A pretest was conducted before teaching and learning took place. This was followed by a posttest. An independent t-test was used to obtain the mean values and standard deviations. The results obtained in this study conclude the written retelling strategy had notably improved the pupils’ reading skill as they are able to retain information from the story and make better predictions. Subsequently, it increased their abilities in answering the comprehension questions. The results also indicate that written retelling could be a prospective reading strategy along with other strategies for primary ESL learners in Malaysia and similar context.