Individual Report: Reading Skills and Academic Achievement

This report delves into the critical role of reading skills, specifically comprehension and retention, in enhancing the quality of learning and boosting academic achievement. It explores the interconnectedness of these skills, emphasizing how comprehension, the ability to understand the materi...Read More

Individual Report: Reading Skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
A: Discuss the role of building comprehension and retention in improving quality of learning
and increase academic achievement of students.........................................................................3
B: Evaluate the obstacles pertaining to building comprehension and retention........................4
C: Draw conclusion based on these key points...........................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Reading skills are very necessary in students like they feel what they are reading at
present and remember it for long time. Comprehension and retention in students is about these
two things like they understand what they are reading and remember for future reference. This
report is conducted to know about comprehension retention how it will help the students to
increase their quality of learning. Also, it contains discussion on the factors which affects the
reading skills.
Main Body
A: Discuss the role of building comprehension and retention in improving quality of learning and
increase academic achievement of students.
Comprehension and retention are related to reading, but they give different meanings like
comprehension is understanding the reading material, it forces going through with texts written
in books while retention is remembering the things you have read and learned from it. To
improve the quality of learning there are lot of ways to enhance comprehension and retention in
students. It plays major role to increase output results, like comprehension can be build among
the students by guiding them in right of reading, as they need to know why they are reading the
topics or books, what will be the conclusion of reading that particular topic or book, as it gives
clear vision of reading the book so students are more active reader, and they can visualize the
concept. To understand the things more clearly which are written in the book they need to
imagine it. If they don't understand the meaning of texts, re-read the sentence, enhance
vocabulary(Hung and Chen, 2018). If any confusion created, it is because of misunderstanding
the words, may be author wants to say something else and the reader reads it in different way and
conclude other meaning of it. So, enhancing vocabulary, taking proper guidance, grab more
knowledge about things which are written in the book, visualize etc. will increase the
comprehensions skills in students.
When students read a book they try to grab the knowledge about topics they read, they
understand what is written on it. As they read the topics, they remember about the things like
what is the topic, what message it gives and make a conclusion. As students have to learn and
remember after reading, it includes their memorizing power should be good, as they read they
grab knowledge from it, they use it for their future guidance. So students have good retention

skills with them, to increase it, they first need to focus on reading whatever they read they give it
full attention. If they can't remember things, they should prepare notes about it, make some
comparisons, take reference from internet. Also increase their visualization about things, so it
remembers for long time. If they don't understand the topics they should re-read and note down it
on paper. Read aloud, so they listen and remember thing in their mind(Lee and et.al., 2015).
Students focus on their comprehension and retention skills will improve quality of
learning and increasing their academics achievements. They use it in their exam times, they
prepare accordingly, they achieve their goals. As they discuss they topics in groups, practice at
home as they research on the topics they are reading, do the assignments on time as they plan
their reading, like what they require reading, it helps in preparing reports about lessons. All these
practices on increasing comprehension and retention skills will lead to good learning. It helps
them to securing good marks, good positions in their academics.
B: Evaluate the obstacles pertaining to building comprehension and retention.
The evaluation of factors which affects the comprehension and retention skills of reading.
As reading comprehension includes two people, one is reader and second one is reader. Any
book or topic is read by the person, is for some motive either personal or professional. There are
many obstacles which affects the reading comprehension. Some obstacles are as follows
Word identification, it is a process in which any word or sentence read by the reader and the
results in appropriate outcome from the reading or the process of comprehending text is not
exact. Different readers will interpret the things written in book according to their knowledge
which may be varied like they know something else about topic, they know different language
structure, they have different level of engagement. So it would lead to misinterpretation of the
text.
Quality of reading material, there are lots of writers which writes about the things from their
experiences, their researches, their passion etc involves in their writing skills. Some writers have
better writing skills than others, while some plays with words in such ways that it makes
complex things to understand by readers. There are two types of text written in books,
Considerate text and Inconsiderate text. Considerate text are well written and well organized by
writers while inconsiderate text are poorly organized and difficult to understand. So readers will
have problems in understanding inconsiderate text as they don't posses background, abilities, or
motivation, to overcome from these obstacles.

Trouble in decode and recognize words it leads to massive difficulty among the students as they
don't recognize or decode the words properly, it creates difficulty for them to understand the
texts and next they come to another level of reading they find it more difficult it would loss their
interest in reading and it affects their comprehension and retention skills(Zabidin, 2015).
Poorly developed language skills, as topic says itself that reader has poorly developed skills
about reading, it has no knowledge of topics, poor language structure, low vocabulary, so it will
loss him in taking advantage from reading of text.
Improper Guidance, if the teacher will not give proper instruction to the students then it will
create confusion and may be the student will choose wrong reading material, and he will not be
able to understand the text.
Loss of focus, as the student does not pay attention to the reading material, like they use TV,
smartphones along with reading, they will loss their focus from it, they will not able to
understand the text.
Lack of Concentrating Power, if student is not able to concentrate on the reading, because of
noise, or disturbing elements in the environment(Vaughn and et.al., 2015).
C: Draw conclusion based on these key points.
As building good reading skills, the students should be able to read first, they have some
basic knowledge about the things or topics they choose to read. If they have some basic
necessary knowledge about reading material, they would be able to understand it in right way.
The significance of enhancing reading skills like comprehension and retention will help the
students in their future, as they have developed the habits about reading. Reading and thinking
about topic would lead to conclusion. As the students have problems will be identified at early
stage that it is unable to recognize words and not able to decode words will be considered by
parents and teacher. Those students will be treated with more attention to enhance their reading
skills. Those students who have potential but can't focus, teacher and parents can give them right
direction to follow(Al Ghamdi and et.al., 2016). If these students follow the instruction will lead
them to be a good reader.
Some have inbuilt potential of reading comprehension and retention they will analyze the things
while reading and imagine them, they also give their opinion about the topics. As they try to
collect more facts about text from internet, from communication, having group discussion will
increase in their knowledge.

Students who are facing obstacles in reading skills can work on it. Like they can discuss
the factors which affect their reading comprehension and retention, they can take guidance from
their seniors, parents, teachers. So that, they help them to overcome form these issues. As they
read with free mind, they don't take stress about anything will lead their brains to grab more
knowledge and focus on reading properly. Finding out the solutions enhance their capability of
reading. These reading skills will help them to make research and reports on the topics in the
future. Students can improve their learning abilities if they focus on reading skills, make
improvisation in reading techniques, make evaluation of their reading, preparing notes, think
over and over again on the topic to analyze the true meaning(Zulela and Rachmadtullah, 2019).
It will bring awareness in students about their psychology of learning. They find their qualities
and weaknesses about themselves as they can improve their mistakes. It will lead to increase in
quality learning in students.
Getting the right criteria of improving comprehension and retention of reading gives lots
of benefits in different ways, like if students are reading they can enjoy while imagining the
things, it gives pleasure to their mind. They remember the things for long term. Their knowledge
increases and also it brings awareness in them.
CONCLUSION
Discussion about the reading skills gives the direction about improving in learning and
understanding the things more clearly. As the students follows the instruction given to him about
reading, it will be helpful as they choose right reading material, no misleads to students will
improve their interpersonal quality of learning things. They overcome from their fears of
learning. They give their best attempts to understand the reading. Hence, they should focus on
comprehension and retention of reading skills.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Al Ghamdi, E.,and et.al., 2016. The effect of screen size on mobile phone user comprehension of
health information and application structure: An experimental approach. Journal of
medical systems, 40(1). p.11.
Asrobi, M. and Prasetyaningrum, A., 2017. Trait Based Assessment on Teaching Writing Skill
for EFL Learners. English Language Teaching, 10(11). pp.199-203.
Hung, I.C. and Chen, N.S., 2018. Embodied interactive video lectures for improving learning
comprehension and retention. Computers & Education, 117. pp.116-131
Lee, S.P., and et.al., 2015. Effects of audio-visual aids on foreign language test anxiety, reading
and listening comprehension, and retention in EFL learners. Perceptual and motor
skills,120(2). pp.576-590.
Vaughn, S., and et.al., 2015. Improving reading comprehension for high school students with
disabilities: Effects for comprehension and school retention. Exceptional Children, 82(1).
pp.117-131.
Zabidin, N.B., 2015. The Use of Humourous Texts in Improving ESL Learners' Vocabulary
Comprehension and Retention. English Language Teaching, 8(9). pp.104-111.
Zulela, M.S. and Rachmadtullah, R., 2019, January. Constructivism Approach in Learning to
Write Narrative at Elementary School. In International Conference on Islamic Education
(ICoIE 2018). Atlantis Press.