The Effect of Integrating Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) Strategy with VEE Diagram on Students’ Reading Skill PDF

Saudi Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Abbreviated Key Title: Saudi J Humanities Soc Sci

ISSN 2415-6256 (Print) | ISSN 2415-6248 (Online)

Scholars Middle East Publishers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Journal homepage: http://scholarsmepub.com/sjhss/

Original Research Article

The Effect of Integrating Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)

Strategy with VEE Diagram on Students’ Reading Skill

Alfitriana Purba

, Asnarni Lubis

Department of English Education, Faculty of Education and Teacher Training, Universitas Muslim Nusantara Al Washliyah, Indonesia

*Corresponding author: Alfitriana Purba | Received: 02.01.2019 | Accepted: 11.01.2019 | Published: 30.01.2019

DOI:10.21276/sjhss.2019.4.1.7

Abstract

This research deals with the effect of integrating Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy with vee diagram

on students’ reading skill. This research was conducted in UMN Alwashiliyah Medan in which the population was all

semester II English students. Two classes with 30 students for each were selected as the sample of the research. To

achieve the aims of the research, quantitative research method was applied with true experimental design. Vee diagram

test was used as the instrument of the research. The study showed that the integration of Directed Reading Thinking

Activity strategy with Vee diagram significantly affected students’ reading skill. The data obtained also showed that

implementing Directed Reading Thinking Activity with Vee diagram significantly affected students’ reading skill.It

could be inferred that as long as cognitive skill was activated by Directed Reading Thinking Activity with Vee diagram,

students’ reading skill will be higher since reading is a cognitive process in which the students have to increase their

cognitive aspect into (C

) synthesis and (C

) analyze in order to be able not only to understandbut also to interpret the

text well.

Keywords : Cognitive process, Directed Reading Thinking Acitivity (DR-TA), reading skill, Veediagram, synthesis and

analyze.

Copyright @ 2019: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license which permits unrestricted

use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial use (NonCommercial, or CC-BY-NC) provided the original author and source

are credited.

INTRODUCTION

Reading is a cognitive process which requires

systematic activities undertaken by both lecturers and

students in order to achieve reading comprehension

satisfactorily [1]. While students are being in reading

process, they absolutely are experiencing the cognitive

process. According to Gleason and Ratner [2] readinng

is cognitive process since general cognitive process are

involved in learning to read as well as in all learning, in

which if the cognitive process experiences dysfunction,

it absolutely causes reading dissability. Gleason and

Ratner [2] also stated that prior knowledge, coding and

encoding system, associative learning, and serial

memory are the essential elements of cognitive process

situation during reading comprehension. Hence, the

cognitirve process the students actively process all the

information during the learning process through the

effort of students in storing the informations, and

relating those with the previous knowledge they have

[3]. Keat and Ismali [4] pointed out that cognitive

process becomes relevant to performance in reading

activities. The lecturers have three essential tasks for

teaching reading, namely; investigating students’ need

to decide the appropriate strategy [5]; creating the

innovative strategies to activate the students’ cognitive

and giving the students the opportunites to involve in

reading process or in short, strategies before, during and

after reading activities [6]. On the other hand, the

students need to also understandthe command; make

use of inferences and ideas given; understand author’s

motives and activate their cognitive skill in order to

scrutinize validity of claims in a critical sense [7].

Constructivism theory stated that all students have skills

to discoverthe problems found during reading process

[8-10]. In other words, the lectures have to let the

students involve actively in all the processes through

engaging them during reading activites. EFL students’

reading comprehension skill in UMN

AlwashliyahUniversity is unfortunately still considered

below the average [11]. The study also found that

students in Muslim Nusantara University who take

reading subject are not interested in reading and seem

less enthusiasticand being more passive. This is

possibly caused bylack of activities which involve the

students in order to explore, to interact, and to go

deeper into systematic reading activities. The lecturers

in UMN Al – Washliyah are also found to be

implementing the conventional teaching method as

reflected in their questioning skills in the which mostly

inquires on recalling information [12]. It is undeniable

that this case as discussed by Ashadi and Lubis [12] and

Purba and Prawiyata [11] affects the students’ reading

Alfitriana Purba & Asnarni Lubis., Saudi J Humanities Soc Sci, January 2019; 4(1): 47-55

achievements as seen from the final examination scores

of academic year 2016-2017 in which the data shows

that there are only 10% students who were graded “A”

with the score range from 90 to 100, 30% students

achieved “B” with thescore range from 79 to 70 and the

rest of students only had grade C with the score from 69

to 65.

The enrichment of students’ reading

comprehension is urgently needed by English students

in UMN Alwashliyah through the implementation of

appropriate teaching strategy. Thus, the reading class

will be more productive if it is taught by the integration

of Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) with

Vee Diagram. DRTA strategy is expected to meet

students’ needs because it will not only give the

opportunities for students to involve in reading

activities but it will also let the students to get absorbed

into the texts and to have a direct learning experience

[13-15]. The implementation of Directed Reading

Thinking Activity will be applied with Vee Diagram.

The use of Vee Diagram developed by Gowin is

assumed to help the students to take notes

systematically when they accomplish reading or writing

activities through providing relatable keywords [16].

According toWirahati [17] the term of Directed

Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) was developed

from Directed Reading Thinking (DRA)strategy which

only include the reading activity without allowing

students to pick up the texts that are really into the

students’ interest.Directed Reading Thinking Activity

(DRTA)pays an attention to students’ reading text in

which the students are blended with [18-20]. Stauffer

[21] who developed this strategy in 1969 also stated

that Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)is

teaching strategy conducted by the teacher in the

classroom which aim is to motivate both students’

effort and focus through engaging them in an

intellectual activity. Besides, the teacher also guides the

students to formulate the problem, to process the

information, and to evaluate provisional answer [5].

Lubis [22] also stated that Directed Reading Thinking

Activity (DRTA) focuses on how the students are able

to blend with the text they read because the students

will be asked to form the prediction and to prove the

prediction itself during reading process. Furthermore,

Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy

involves students actively in reading activities and

relate them to the text which content is on daily routines

or fictional stories [23]. Other benefits of implementing

Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy

are;

 Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)

involves the students in all reading activites

directly in which the students are not only expected

to gain the knowledgebut also to discover reading

materials which further train them to be

independent readers and learners. Moreover, it also

improves students’ referential and inferential

reading comprehension skills [5, 24, 25].

 Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)

motivates the students to apply all the reading

activities experienced in the daily life as well as to

significantly affect their fluency [26].

The implementation of Vee diagram found by

Gowin is the systematic note that helps the students to

collect the information taken from some sources, such

as; books, magazines, articels, papers, handouts, and

forum discussions [27]. Then, all the infomation found

will be analyzed and formulated more easily. Thus, the

students will have appropriate answer for the problems

they have formulated Vee diagrams are created from

four essential questions that help the students to find out

the correct answers [16], namely:What are the

questions?; What are the keywords?; What inquiry

method will be implemented?; Are there any other

claims?; How are the scores? In order to make the

students comprehend Vee diagram, there are five steps

carried out [28] namely:

 Starting with the concept, object, and events.

Concept and object are the things they understand,

and events are introduced by the lecturers

 Creating the question. Question is used to construct

the knowledge which is taken from the concepts,

objects, and events noticed. Thus, the students are

asked to consider the proper notes that are relatable

with the questions.

 Transforming the note and knowledge claims. It is

used to organize all the answers in order to solve

the question formulated.

 Describing principle and theory; the students are

expected to understand the text they have read, and

to explain the relationship between concept and

answer found in details.

 Claiming the score

Moreover, Anderson [29] argued that reading

is a recoding and decoding process in which the readers

in the decoding process have to create the logical

transformation from written words to oral language

meaning. Winarsih [29] also stated that reading is the

process of comprehending and constructing the

meaning of the text. The meaning formed are the result

of some reading interaction between reader’s schemata

and all facts, knowledge, and information found in the

reading text. The interactions are feedback interaction,

active interaction, and dynamic interaction. All these

interactions relates each other to achieve

comprehensive understanding of the text. Normally, if

the readers have a good schemata, they will easily

understand the text since they have had a previous

informationwhile the text is only kind of visual

information that support their understanding of the text.

Since reading is cognitive process, reading skill has a

close relationship with cognitive ability. Then, Suprapto

and Rahmwati [30] revealed that the use of Vee

diagram significantly affected on learning outcomes,

logical reasoning and intellectutal development.

Alfitriana Purba & Asnarni Lubis., Saudi J Humanities Soc Sci, January 2019; 4(1): 47-55

According to Roobins [29], there are two kinds

of ability, namley; 1. Intellectual ability, it is a kind of

ability that is showed through mental activities, 2.

Physical intellectual, it is kind of ability that is come

out from physical activites. The students with good

cognitive ability will be able to construct their own idea

based on the information they have read in the text. The

enhancement of students’ reading skill always come

along with the cognitive ability which can be improved

through the implementation of Directed Reading

Thinking Activity (DRTA) [31-33]. This strategy is

expected to affect students’ reading cognitive skill as

the students will experience three reading processes;

looking for the text they are interested in, finding out

the problems (or the difficult sentence) of the text, and

thinking of the answers of the problems [5]. Directed

Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy is

integrated with Vee diagram is hypothesized to help

students effectively in improving their cognitive skill

during reading process. In short, reading process will be

more systematically and the students may apply this

integration not only in the reading class but also in the

daily life which leads to character building [18, 21, 31-

33].

Similarly, Anggreni, Marhaeni and Dantes

[34] pointed out that the success of learning process

could be achieved by applying Directed Reading –

Activity Thinking as the students would be able to

explain the steps of academic discovery. Then, the

research conducted by Ulfah [35] concluded that

Directed Reading – Activity Thinking is an appropriate

strategy to increase students’ reading skill in

Muhammadiyah 7 Junior High School Surakarta

academic year 2015/2016. In this study, the students’

were able to identify the main problem of the text, to

decide the aim of the text, to find out the information

needed either implicitly or explicitly, to change the use

of pronoun and to guess the difficult words.

Considering the literature presented above, particularly

on the significance of the study to the students’ reading

skill improvement in UMN Al Washliyah, therefore, the

objectives of the research is to investigate the

effectiveness of students’ reading skill by implementing

the integration of Directed Reading – Activity Thinking

(DR – AT) with Vee diagram.

RESEEARCH METHODS

The aim of this research was to investiagte

whether the implementaion of Directed Reading –

Activity Thinking(DR – AT) with Vee diagram

affected on students’ cognitive skill in reading process

or not. To achieve this aim, this research was carried

out by using quantitaive research method with true

experimental design. According to Sugiyono [36] true

experimental design allowed the researcher to decide

both experiment and control classes randomly so that

experimental class (O

) would be given a treatment,

while control class (O

) would not be treated as well as

experimental class through posttest-only control design

as visualized as follows;

Table-1: True Experimental Research Design

Classes

Treatment

Postest

Experimental Class

Control Class

Clearly, the table above showed that postest

was used to investigate the effectiveness in which

experimental class (O

)was taught by the

implementation ofDirected Reading – Activity

Thinkingwith Vee diagram, while control class was

treated by Directed Reading – Activity Thinking.

Moreover, the English proficiency of semester II

English students academic year 2016-2017 was divided

into intermediate and advanced levels, yet most

students still achieved intermediate level in the second

year. This immediate fact led the researcher to select

semester II English students as the population of the

research, then, two classes of semester II English

students which were 30 students for each class were

chosen as the sample of the research by applying

purposive sampling technique. According to Sugiyono

[36] purposive sampling technique was one of non-

probability sampling technique in which the reasearcher

decided the sample of the research based on particular

consideration in which these two classes urgently need

a close attention and an appropriate treatment for

gaining the English skill. Furthermore, in this research,

there were two independent variables, namely;

Directed Reading-Active Thinking and Vee diagram

(X), while there was one dependent variable, namely;

studens’ cognitive skill (Y). Independent variables were

treated as treatment variableand dependent variable was

treated as moderator variable [36], thus, in this research

Directed Reading-Active Thinking and Vee diagram

(X) were highly expected to significantly affect on

students’ reading skill. then the data collection was

taken from students’ final Vee diagram text which had

been made by the students.The instruments of the

research was the students’ Vee diagram note in which

the students were asked to create their own Vee

diagram as soon as they have read the text. All the

students’ Vee diagram note would be scored by using

valid indicators of cognitive process of reading,

namely; Comprehending the text (feedbcak interaction),

Readers’ schemata and syntatic knowledge (Dynamic

interaction), Retelling the information of the text,

Relating the idea of the text with the conclusion [37]

[see Appendices-1]. Then, All the data found was

analyzed with normality test (one sample Kolmogorov

Smirnov) to obtain whether all the test used had

distributed normally or not, then, it was continued with

Overview

The Effect of Integrating Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) Strategy with VEE Diagram on Students’ Reading Skill

The study investigates the impact of the Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy combined with VEE diagrams on improving students' reading skills. Conducted at Universitas Muslim Nusantara Al Washliyah, the research focuses on semester II English students, utilizing a true experimental design. The findings reveal that integrating these methods significantly enhances students' cognitive processes in reading comprehension. This research is essential for educators seeking innovative strategies to boost reading skills in English language learners. Key Points Examines the effectiveness of DRTA strategy on reading skills Utilizes VEE diagrams to enhance cognitive processes Conducted with semester II English students at UMN Al Washliyah Employs a true experimental design for re…

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Figures

1: The Difference among students’ cognitive skill

2: The differences among reading indicator scores

FAQs

what is the effect of integrating directed reading thinking activity (drta) strategy with vee diagram on students’ reading skill

The study investigates the impact of integrating the Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy with the Vee Diagram on students' reading skills.

Findings indicate that this integration significantly enhances students' cognitive abilities related to reading comprehension. Specifically, the combination of these two strategies helps students to:

Engage actively with the text.
Improve their analytical skills.
Enhance their ability to synthesize information.

how does the directed reading thinking activity (drta) strategy improve reading skills

The Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy is designed to enhance students' reading skills by actively involving them in the reading process.

By encouraging predictions and critical thinking, DRTA allows students to:

Formulate questions about the text.
Verify their predictions as they read.
Reflect on their understanding and interpretations.

This active engagement leads to a deeper comprehension of the material, making reading a more interactive and thought-provoking experience.

what is a vee diagram and how is it used in reading comprehension

A Vee Diagram is a visual tool used to organize information and enhance understanding during the reading process.

In the context of reading comprehension, it helps students to:

Identify key concepts and ideas.
Make connections between different pieces of information.
Structure their thoughts systematically.

This structured approach not only aids in comprehension but also encourages critical thinking and synthesis of information, which are crucial for effective reading skills.

what are the findings of the study on drta and vee diagram integration

The study found that integrating the Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) with the Vee Diagram significantly improved students' reading skills.

Specifically, students demonstrated enhanced abilities in:

Comprehending and analyzing texts.
Constructing conclusions based on their readings.
Relating ideas from the text to their prior knowledge.

This integration not only boosted their reading scores but also fostered a more engaging learning environment.

how does the integration of drta and vee diagram affect cognitive skills

The integration of the Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) and Vee Diagram positively affects students' cognitive skills.

By activating higher-order thinking processes, students are able to:

Analyze and synthesize information more effectively.
Engage in deeper discussions about the text.
Enhance their overall reading comprehension.

This method encourages students to think critically and independently, which is essential for academic success.

what strategies are used in the drta method

The Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) method employs several strategies to enhance reading comprehension.

Key strategies include:

Predicting content based on titles and headings.
Asking questions before, during, and after reading.
Summarizing key points to reinforce understanding.

These strategies help students engage with the text and develop a more profound comprehension of the material.

how can vee diagrams be applied in educational settings

Vee Diagrams can be effectively applied in educational settings to facilitate learning and comprehension.

Applications include:

Organizing thoughts during reading assignments.
Visualizing connections between concepts in science or literature.
Encouraging collaborative learning through group discussions.

This tool promotes active learning and helps students structure their knowledge systematically.

what is the role of cognitive skills in reading comprehension

Cognitive skills play a crucial role in reading comprehension, as they enable students to process and understand information effectively.

Key cognitive skills involved include:

Memory retention for recalling information.
Critical thinking for analyzing text.
Problem-solving for interpreting complex ideas.

Developing these skills is essential for achieving higher levels of reading comprehension.

how does the drta strategy engage students in reading

The DRTA strategy engages students in reading by actively involving them in the learning process.

It encourages students to:

Make predictions about the text.
Ask questions to clarify their understanding.
Reflect on their reading experiences.

This interactive approach fosters a deeper connection with the material and enhances overall engagement.

what are the benefits of using vee diagrams in reading activities

Using Vee Diagrams in reading activities offers several benefits to students.

These benefits include:

Improved organization of thoughts and ideas.
Enhanced comprehension through visual representation.
Facilitated connections between new and existing knowledge.

Overall, Vee Diagrams support a more structured approach to understanding complex texts.