Contrasting Mexican children’s reading strategies in Spanish

Good and poor readers

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study whose main objective is to describe and contrast the strategies children use to read and comprehend texts in Spanish. The literature review includes the analysis of aspects such as: the stages of development and reading, reading comprehension strategies and reading strategies in children. The research design is qualitative and methods such as: observation and focus group were administered. The research instruments include: an interview guide, a reading class observation checklist and the children's learning portfolios. The subjects in this study were 6 primary school students. The context was a public primary school in Puebla, Mexico. The results are presented considering the research questions in the study, and they reveal some differences in the strategies good and poor readers use. The main conclusion is that some conditions which foster reading comprehension depend on the children’s strategies; however, the others depend on external factors.