Effects of Functional Instruction on Types of Achievement in Reading Narrative Texts

Abstract

Seventeen first-year Secondary School students with low levels of reading comprehension of mystery and horror stories, received training during two weeks in 50-minutes daily sessions. The structural planning was sequentially organized, in four types of teaching -learning situations going from lower to higher level of complexity. The instruction was implemented in accordance with four types of achievement levels: linked to the object, linked to the situation, non-linked to the operation, and non-linked to present situation. The results throughout the intervention revealed that in the two first levels (object-linked and operation-linked), average scores above 90% of achievement were obtained. In the two operation -non-linked levels (particular and present situation non-linked), averages scores between 73 and 76% of achievement were reached. Likewise, a significant change (p = 0.005) was found in a previous and post-evaluation of a school curricular unit for the group intervention, with no significant differences for the control group.