The Explicit Instruction of Reading Strategies: Directed Reading Thinking Activity vs. Guided Reading Strategies

Investigating the efficiencies and deficiencies of reading strategies is one of the noticeable issues in the related theory and research in reading comprehension instruction. This study was to examine the impact of Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) and Guided Reading (GR) on reading comprehension. Sixty three Iranian students of grade one in Shahed high school in the city of Bojnourd took part in the study. They were assigned in three groups, one control and two experimental groups. The instruction lasted for ten weeks. This study utilized a pretest posttest control group in quantitative quasi- experimental design. The same reading comprehension test was administered as pre-test and posttest. The results were twofold: First, the instruction of learning strategies could foster reading comprehension skill. Second, while the explicit instruction of both strategies could improve the students reading comprehension skill, Directed Reading Thinking Activity had a more significant positive effect than Guided Reading.