Comprensión de textos en contextos desfavorecidos: El efecto de un programa de intervención sobre la habilidad de detectar errores e incongruencias en textos escritos

Abstract

La comprensión de textos es una de las competencias fundamentales para el desarrollo social y educativo de los seres humanos y constituye un tema esencial en la agenda educativa. Sin embargo, el estudio y la sistematización de los efectos de programas que buscan mejorar la comprensión lectora, sobre todo en el caso de alumnos pertenecientes a entornos sociales desfavorecidos, son todavía escasos. Se presentan los resultados de una intervención realizada en un grupo de alumnos de primero y segundo año de nivel medio y de contexto desfavorecido de una escuela de gestión social de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina). Dicha intervención estuvo basada en la habilidad metacognitiva de detectar errores e incongruencias, fundamental para el proceso de comprensión de un texto. Inicialmente fueron evaluados 50 adolescentes con un test de eficacia lectora, una prueba estandarizada de comprensión de textos y una prueba específica que evalúa la habilidad de detectar errores e incongruencias. Se conformó un grupo control con 23 participantes y un grupo experimental con los 27 restantes. El entrenamiento se llevó a cabo durante tres meses, con una frecuencia de una hora semanal y una vez finalizado, ambos grupos fueron reevaluados. Los resultados muestran un efecto positivo de la intervención sobre el grupo experimental, que alcanzó una diferencia estadísticamente significativa entre la cantidad de respuestas correctas de la evaluación inicial y de la evaluación final.

Reading comprehension is one of the core competencies for social and educational development of human beings and an essential topic in education agenda. However, the study and systematization of the effects of programs that seek to improve reading comprehension, especially in students from deprived social backgrounds, are still scarce. As a strategic skill that requires a conscious and active reader who can process the text and formulate a plan according to his or her purposes, reading comprehension must be flexible enough to adjust text demands. In this respect, a good reader should be aware of his or her cognitive abilities in order to understand a text successfully. Hence training in metacognitive skills improves significantly whole reading comprehension ability. Metacognitive training allows children to internalize and also anticipate the effective and useful strategies to be applied in each case. This paper aims to promote social inclusion to adolescents from a deprived social environment. To gain this goal, a program was designed considering, measurable, agreed and communicable targets, according to real deadlinesthat fit the raised population needs and realities. It presents the results of an intervention in a group of students of first and second year from secondary school from a deprived context in Gran Buenos Aires (Argentina). This intervention was based on the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies, fundamental to understanding texts. 50 adolescents were initially evaluated with a reading efficiency test, a standardized reading comprehension test and a specific proof to assess the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies. 23 students were part of the control group and 27, were involved in the experimental group. The one hour training was held weekly for three months and once thistraining was completed, both groups were reevaluated. The training involved twelve sessions which kept the same structure. First the ability was orally introduced. A video, a song, a painting, language games, among other resources, were used to include an error (or more) and / or a mismatch (or more). Then, the students altogether discussed, orally, the strategies used to resolve de introduction activity in order to detect these errors and inconsistencies. In third place, an understanding activity that included a situation that supposed an error or inconsistency wasintroduced. A fourth step was to present a written activity to strengthen the target ability, asking the children to produce a similar situation. The session finally ended with a pooling of production. This scheme wasrepeated over the 12 sessions by modifying the content thereof. The last two activities were carried out in pairs to stimulate mutual learning. In every session the information was presented with Powerpoint Program, in differentiates place from, especially assigned for the interventions. The results show a positive effect of the intervention on the experimental group, whose performance achieved a statistically significant difference between the number of correct responsesfrom the initial to the second assessment. One-sample t test was applied to compare the means of performance from the same population before and after the intervention. For the experimental group,statistically significant differences between means were checked before and after the intervention in both variables. time and right answers. For the control group, which received no intervention but had traditional instruction, a t test showed that the difference in performance between the first and second evaluation was not significant.