Innovative
Strategies for Third Grade Reading Skills in the Educational
Estrategias
Innovadoras Para Las Habilidades Lectoras Del Tercer Grado
Alexandra Caicedo Hurtado1
Abstract
Achieving a good level of performance from an
educational point of view at the national level is very complex, even more so
because territorial differences affect learning. Objective: to design a
pedagogical strategy that allows the strengthening of reading comprehension
skills. Methodology: It was developed following the qualitative methodology of
participatory action, applying semi-structured interviews to 10 teachers and
support with documentary review. Results: The results highlight that teachers
promote an active pedagogical exercise and manage cultural practices to
motivate students, to generate empathy in the teaching and learning process,
although there are multiple limitations in access to didactic resources,
technologies and infrastructure, teachers seek an innovative and resilient
practice. Conclusions: It is concluded that teaching strategies must
appropriate social, cultural and socio-political factors, including the
component of worldview, practices and traditions, which together with the
teaching and learning process contributes to the improvement of reading
comprehension skills.
Keywords: Communication skills, strategies, innovation, linguistic skills,
performance.
Resumen
Alcanzar un buen nivel de desempeño desde un punto de
vista educativo a nivel nacional es muy complejo, más aún, porque las
diferencias territoriales afectan el aprendizaje. Objetivo: diseñar una
estrategia pedagógica que permita el fortalecimiento de las habilidades de
comprensión lectora. Metodología: Se desarrollo siguiendo la metodología
cualitativa de tipo acción participativa, aplicando entrevista semiestructurada
a 10 docentes y apoyo con la revisión documental. Resultados: en los resultados
se destaca que los docentes promueven un ejercicio pedagógico activo y manejan
prácticas culturales para motivar a los estudiantes, para general empatía en el
proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje, aunque, existe múltiples limitaciones en acceso
recursos didácticos, tecnologías y de infraestructura, los docentes buscan una
práctica innovadora y de resiliencia. Conclusiones: se concluye que las
estrategias de enseñanza deben apropiar los factores sociales, culturales y
sociopolíticos, incluido el componente de cosmovisión, prácticas y tradiciones,
que unido al proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje contribuye al mejoramiento de las
habilidades de comprensión lectora.
Palabras clave: Habilidades comunicativas, estrategias, innovación,
competencias lingüísticas, desempeño
Introduction
Reading comprehension is an essential skill in the
learning process; it goes far beyond simply identifying words and requires
children to master a range of knowledge, strategies, and mental processes. It
fosters the ability to reflect on a text, draw on prior knowledge, reach
conclusions, and express ideas. Furthermore, it is essential for a child’s
academic and personal development, as it serves as a tool or means for
acquiring new knowledge.
However, today it appears
that many students lack the capacity for deep, thoughtful comprehension, as
stated in the 2023 analysis report by the academic committee for the Saber Pro
3, 5, and 9 exams, which assesses students to gather data for measuring their
competency levels. This evaluation of student performance during the exams was
conducted at a group of selected testing sites in the villages of Boca,
Papayal, Cacao, Comba, and Secadero.
This information is
valuable at the national level for making public policy decisions that
positively impact the quality of education in the country, and at the
institutional level, it helps determine what kind of education children in the
region are receiving, despite all the shortcomings and needs of Black
communities in rural areas.
Therefore, it is important
to encourage teachers to reevaluate their teaching practices to adapt them to
the needs of the region, thereby contributing to the development of reading
comprehension strategies and, consequently, the children’s thinking skills.
Methodology
This research is based on the analysis, description,
and proposal of pedagogical strategies that foster innovative communication
skills, using a descriptive qualitative approach. Data will be collected
through a survey assessing teachers’ skills (focus group) to address reading
comprehension. A literature review on communication skills—which are
fundamental to the development of reading comprehension processes in third
grade—will also be conducted. Finally, a pedagogical proposal will be
developed, incorporating innovative strategies to help improve reading
comprehension skills among children and adolescents.
The study population is
defined as a universe characterized by similar traits, while the sample
consists of the specific group from which the required data will be collected.
The population
participating in this study is centered at the Nuestra Señora
del Perpetuo Socorro Educational Institution in Rio Mayorquín,
in the District of Buenaventura.
The study included 10
third-grade students from the school’s branches located in the villages of
Boca, Papayal, Cacao, Comba, and Secadero,
all part of the educational institution.
Active school
administrators from the institution’s branches located in the villages of Boca,
Papayal, Cacao, Comba, and Secadero.
Data Collection Tools
The Interview: This was
conducted to identify the teaching techniques used for communication skills and
reading comprehension among third-grade students. Divided into three
stages—teaching techniques, communication skills, and reading comprehension—it
allowed for a precise analysis of the teachers’ challenges and recognition of
their strengths.
Focus Group: A
semi-structured questionnaire was designed to guide the focus group of
third-grade school administrators from the following campuses: Francisco in the
village of Boca; San José del Palmar in the village of Cacao; Nuestra Señora in the village of Papayal;
Antonio Aragón in the village of Papayal #2; and
Santa Teresita in the village of Comba. The other group consists of members of
the institution’s Academic Council, which is responsible for reviewing student
performance levels in both internal and external assessments.
Document analysis. The
analysis of the institution’s internal documents allows us to gather a great
deal of information relevant to the research, since the documents held by the
educational institution were created specifically for it: its Institutional Educational
Project, the strategies for carrying out its plans, as well as its projects,
and the follow-ups to assessments—such as the SABER tests—which provide
valuable information.
Results
Scope of Objective 1: To identify the factors that
influence the teaching of reading comprehension to third-grade students at the
educational institution. Below is an analysis of the interview conducted with
the lead teachers at the third-grade campuses of the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro Educational Institution in Río Mayorquín. Based on the analysis of the results, the
teacher’s role will be to facilitate these learning environments so that
children can learn spontaneously, ensuring that the process is continuous and
that the goals set at the beginning of the school year are achieved. Rural and
urban areas alike require innovative educational policies that take real needs
into account and seek an education grounded in respect for diversity and full
recognition of the social identity of each community.
One of the most notable
findings observed in the results of the teacher interviews was the low level of
performance on the placement tests for advancing from 3rd to 5th grade; the
academic analysis revealed a concerning low level of achievement, which raises
the question of what shortcoming leads students to reach such a level, but at
the same time, it is confirmed that the school does not know how to address the
writing process; it either ignores or suppresses it, failing to recognize that
good writing is that produced by the child themselves.
One hundred percent of
teachers cite the lack of teaching materials as one of the most pressing issues
throughout the Mayorquín River basin; they report
that materials are already obsolete and available in very limited quantities
for the student body, which is organized by campus. “There is an urgent need to
acquire new teaching materials that can support instruction and are easy to use
to reinforce student learning.”
Other factors relate to
health: “There are children who travel long distances on their small ponies;
they arrive tired and completely exhausted to attend class, and then must
return to their communities just as tired to review what they learned in class at
home.” For their part, educators point out that education in rural areas has
been neglected because there is no implementation of teaching methodologies
that contribute to children’s education; added to this is the lack of support
for improvements to school facilities, a situation that further increases
children’s disinterest in attending school.
The interview with the
Academic Council of the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo
Socorro Educational Institution also yielded results that shed light on this
focus group’s perception of the issue of students’ reading comprehension. In
response to the question, “How did students perform on last year’s ‘Evaluate to
Advance’ tests?” In the academic analysis, 100 percent of the council agreed
that performance was very low; the students’ level was significantly affected
during the “Evaluate to Advance” test. Moving on to the question, “What
teaching tools does the institution have to strengthen reading comprehension?”
Books were provided to the campuses participating in the PTA (Todos Aprender)
program, for grades preschool through fifth grade, with the aim of transforming
teachers’ instructional practices.
In conclusion, in response
to the question, “Does the institution have projects to improve reading
comprehension levels?” 100% of the Academic Council unanimously responded that
the flexible programs offered by the institution have provided great support to
the community, as they allow students to access a more inclusive education
without having to miss school or the instruction they receive due to reasons
beyond the institution’s control. These include programs such as Brújula,
Accelerated Learning, Caminar, Literacy, Sabatino, and SENA in Schools.
Another initiative provided
by the institution, as mentioned by the Academic Council, is teacher training
offered by the District Education Secretariat through the PTA (Todos Aprender
Program), the Teacher Well-being Program, and the Ministry of National
Education.
Scope of Objective 2:
Analyze conceptual information on the fundamental skills involved in the
development of reading comprehension processes in children and youth.
Objective 3: Develop an educational proposal with
innovative strategies that improve community skills and reading comprehension
among children and youth.
The concept of a teaching
strategy, therefore, refers to an organized, formalized, and goal-oriented
procedure designed to achieve clearly established objectives. Its practical
application requires procedures and techniques whose specific selection and design
are the responsibility of the teacher; at the same time, it involves planning
the teaching-learning process, in which the teacher consciously and
reflectively selects the techniques or activities to be used in order to
achieve the proposed objectives. This study proposes instructional strategies
aimed at improving reading and writing processes among children in the rural
area of Mayorquín, taking into account the students’
needs within their various contexts.
“Teaching Strategy for
Promoting Reading in the Classroom”: This researcher aims to make it clear that
reading is one of the basic intellectual processes that facilitate learning;
therefore, the curricula and educational programs of various educational levels
include its promotion as one of their essential objectives.
EDUCATIONAL PROPOSAL
Below is a series of tools
for use in the classroom with students, parents, and teachers:
Ancestral Creative Writing:
Through ancestral, profound, and representative stories—which are an innate
reflection of our territories and our ancestors—students can explore the
cosmology of Afro-rural culture through written narrative.
Peace Is Not a Fairy Tale:
debate and presentation activities that facilitate discussion of the topic of
peacebuilding from an ethnic-territorial perspective
The Voice of My Mayorquín River: an initiative to create a student
newspaper that allows students to express themselves regarding events occurring
in their village or along the Mayorquín River
basin—topics of their choice and interest
Knowledge of the Mother
Tongue: a space for training and the exchange of experiences aimed at teachers
and administrators, with the goal of reviving ancestral practices and
integrating knowledge from academic disciplines with ancestral traditions.
Raise Your Voice: Digital
creations featuring educational content to be posted on social media, designed
to bring children, adolescents, and young people—along with their families and
teachers—closer to the world of literature through Reels that showcase
literature in creative ways.
The River Carries the Words
Away: Opportunities to share readings aloud with classmates, fostering the
value of active listening.
Time Travelers: a space for
older adults and students to participate in knowledge exchanges and the
generational passing down of ancestral memory, covering topics related to
ancestral medicine, culinary practices, and traditional self-care and
self-protection practices.
Strategy Aimed at Teachers
at the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro
Educational Institution
GATHERINGS AND FELLOWSHIP
AS A STARTING POINT FOR UNDERSTANDING
“Gatherings and Fellowship”
is an initiative rooted in the ancestral practices of the region, particularly
in the rural area of the Mayorquín River; the strategy is to implement it at
every campus of the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro Educational Institution.
Teachers will acquire
knowledge about various techniques and methodologies for developing
communication skills, enabling children to advance their cognitive development.
They will learn to expand their abilities to speak, listen, understand, engage
in dialogue, converse, and present arguments, overcoming their fears and, above
all, fostering a free flow of ideas to incorporate into their future work.
The process to be followed
for implementing this methodology is outlined below.
THE GATHERING
As an essential principle
of this proposal, “La Juntanza” (teamwork)—rooted in ancestral practices of
joining forces to achieve a goal—ensures that no one is left behind.
The teacher organizes
students into teams to solve a series of challenges and puzzles until they
reach the goal, at which point they will share their experience of how they
arrived at the final destination. The activities are tailored to the students’
environment and will therefore take place outdoors in nature, outside the
classroom.
COMADREO
The experiences of these
ancestral practices are passed down from generation to generation thanks to the
oral tradition characteristic of the Pacific region’s population. Rural
students must carry on this noble ancestral legacy by developing communication
skills with an ethnic and territorial focus specific to their region.
Recreational activities such as décimas, rhymes, verses, songs, and traditional
games will also be part of this chapter of strategies designed for third-grade
students at the educational institution’s respective campuses.
4. Discussion
Programs aimed at rural
education constitute the government’s main strategy for addressing the pressing
needs of the rural education sector, with the goal of combating low coverage,
as well as the lack of quality and relevance in an educational service that
fails to meet social needs and does not serve as an agent of transformation.
These policies have served as the framework for elevating education to its
highest potential, giving thousands of children the opportunity to prepare for
and experience school life.
This is a latent reality
that simply becomes, day by day, a way of life for these children. Unable to
learn to read or write, they are part of a society that focuses solely on their
ability to generate income through work, rather than on the opportunity to grow
in real-world environments that provide genuine learning through experiences
with their peers. As teachers, and through our ongoing engagement with
educational communities facing these challenges, we aim to raise our voices and
ensure that the ongoing reflections on the shortcomings in education are taken
into account. Our goal is to nurture well-rounded individuals capable of
functioning successfully in the world, able to face its challenges and live
fully within it. Therefore, we call for the provision of relevant educational
options that promote the integration of education with productive and social
development, so that a strong connection may emerge and greater meaning be
given to the very act of achieving a better quality of life.
Another point to address is
teaching materials; in these rural areas, educational materials should be
geared toward working with the natural environment. This is because, in this
way, students can strengthen their knowledge by engaging with their own surroundings—learning
from what they already know and putting it into practice. For this reason, we
propose the design of strategies that allow for the real-world application of
the child’s context.
Finally, there is the issue
of multigrade classrooms, which are characterized by bringing together students
of different ages and at different grade levels in a single classroom, where
the teaching-learning process is managed by a single teacher. Regarding this
type of classroom, there are currently no educational policies in Colombia that
provide guidance for teaching practices in multigrade classrooms. In a
multigrade classroom, teachers must address varying levels of difficulty and
different learning paces, as factors such as age, grade level, knowledge
acquisition, and each student’s progress in the educational process come into
play.
Conclusions
When considering the rural context, education must
address educational needs that differ from those of the urban sector, since the
activities typical of that environment are shaped by specific activities and
diverse needs unique to rural areas. Because rural life gives schools and their
curricula distinct characteristics
Reading and writing are of
great importance in human life, as they enable individuals to understand
themselves and their surroundings; for this reason, children should be
encouraged from an early age to develop a strong foundation in these skills, so
they can construct meaning through understanding and engaging with the world
around them.
Considering the model’s
unique characteristics and its applicability, we must proceed from the simple
to the complex, taking into account each child’s learning pace, the needs and
specific circumstances of the community, and ensuring that lesson planning
focuses primarily on teaching strategies tailored to the children.
As teachers, and through
our ongoing engagement with communities facing shortages of educational
materials, we aim to raise our voices and ensure that the ongoing reflections
on the shortcomings of education in the scattered rural areas are taken into account.
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