Creative strategies applied in the reading development of high school students

Creative strategies applied in the reading development of high school students

Estrategias creativas aplicadas en el desarrollo lector de estudiantes de básica media

Estratégias criativas aplicadas no desenvolvimento da leitura de alunos do ensino médio

The research covers the creative strategies for the development of reading, with the objective of analyzing the didactic strategies used by teachers for the teaching-learning of reading comprehension in the middle basic sublevel of the C03_04 circuit of the Buena Fe Canton. The applied methodology had a qualitative approach of an exploratory type, taking the position of several authors and the opinion of two experts on the subject that allowed affirming the criteria proposed in the investigation. A survey was applied to teachers to identify the teaching strategies they use to develop reading comprehension in students and an interview with experts to determine the characteristics of the creative teaching resources that teachers should use. The results reflect the limited application of creative strategies to encourage reading comprehension in students. It was concluded that the results of the research determine different innovative strategies through ICTs that teachers can use and in turn allow the student to build their own knowledge, considering their particularity or style at the time of learning.

Keywords: high school; teaching-learning; creative strategies; skills; reading; comprehensive reading.

La investigación abarca las estrategias creativas para el desarrollo de la lectura, teniendo como objetivo analizar las estrategias didácticas que utilizan los docentes para la enseñanza-aprendizaje de la comprensión lectora en el subnivel básica media del circuito C03_04 del cantón Buena Fe. La metodología aplicada tuvo un enfoque cualitativo de tipo exploratorio, tomando la postura de varios autores y la opinión de dos expertas sobre el tema, que permitieron afirmar los criterios planteados en la investigación. Se aplicó una encuesta a docentes para identificar las estrategias didácticas que utilizan para desarrollar la comprensión lectora en los estudiantes, y una entrevista a expertas para determinar las características de los recursos didácticos creactivos que deberían utilizar los docentes. Los resultados reflejan la escasa aplicación de estrategias creativas para incentivar en los estudiantes la comprensión lectora. Se concluyó que los resultados de la investigación determinan diferentes estrategias innovadoras a través de las Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones, que pueden utilizar los docentes y, a su vez, permiten al estudiante construir su propio conocimiento, considerando su particularidad o estilo al momento de aprender.

Palabras claves: educación básica media; enseñanza-aprendizaje; estrategias creativas; habilidades; lectura; lectura comprensiva.

A pesquisa abrange as estratégias criativas para o desenvolvimento da leitura, com o objetivo de analisar as estratégias didáticas utilizadas pelos professores para o ensino-aprendizagem da compreensão leitora no subnível básico médio do circuito C03_04 do cantão Buena Fe. A metodologia aplicada teve uma abordagem qualitativa de tipo exploratório, tomando o posicionamento de vários autores e a opinião de dois especialistas no assunto, o que permitiu afirmar os critérios propostos na investigação. Foi aplicado um questionário aos professores para identificar as estratégias de ensino que utilizam para desenvolver a compreensão leitora nos alunos e uma entrevista com especialistas para determinar as características dos recursos pedagógicos criativos que os professores devem utilizar. Os resultados refletem a aplicação limitada de estratégias criativas para estimular a compreensão leitora nos alunos. Se concluyó que los resultados de la investigación determinan diferentes estrategias innovadoras a través de las Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones, que pueden utilizar los docentes y, a su vez, permiten al estudiante construir su propio conocimiento, considerando su particularidad o estilo al momento de aprender.

Palavras-chave: educação básica média; ensino-aprendizagem; estratégias criativas; Habilidades; leitura; leitura abrangente.

Reading is one of the intellectual processes that can have the greatest influence on the formation of the personality of students. The importance of this process is of such magnitude that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) and the Regional Center for the Promotion of Books in Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLALC) have proposed the Law for the Promotion of Reading, Books and Libraries as a regulatory instrument that all Latin American countries must comply with.

From the point of view of Zayas (2016), the process of reading a text does not mean that it will be immediately understood. Hence the need to carry out different didactic strategies that generate motives, interests and knowledge in students to introduce them to the exciting world of literature. Loor (2021) defines that creative methodological strategies are planned processes, aimed at achieving significant learning in students; to reach this achievement they must be applied in a flexible, dynamic and adaptable way. For this, it is necessary to empower students in their own teaching-learning process, through motivation and involvement in the construction of knowledge and development of skills.

According to Pereda (2015), the teachers determine to incorporate strategies such as the reading plan, work in groups to debate, elaboration of outlines and summaries, case studies and problem solving to improve reading competence and the development of the reading habit among students. On the other hand, Duran (2019), In relation to the didactic strategies for learning to read and write, it states that prediction and inference is a key strategy in reading comprehension. In this sense, the reader with more experience will be in better conditions to apply this strategy, compared to the less expert ones, even when it is argued that it is not an exclusive strategy of reading, because it is predicted on different facts and/or events of everyday life.

Based on the criteria of the authors in question, it can be indicated that there are various creative strategies for the development of reading, it is only a matter of teachers knowing how to properly use the tools of the texts, Information and Communication Technologies, together with other elements of the teaching-learning process that influence the attitudinal and value components of the students.

Another aspect that stands out in the literature, as evidenced by the study by Farrach (2016) in relation to strategies to improve reading comprehension, is the participatory nature of creative strategies, which allows to strengthen student confidence, teaching skills and, therefore, educational quality. Creative strategies allow reading to become a pleasant, permanent and progressive exercise that leads to the enhancement of the human intellect, to awaken in children and young people a genuine taste for reading that remains throughout their lives. In this sense, there are strategies that must be put into practice by teachers, such as the choice of texts of interest to the students themselves, their use in classes and other spaces in a way that promotes interest and involvement in learning.

Another study in the national context, carried out by Carrera (2021), showed that the microcurricular planning of reading promotion does not have a real applicability nor is it flexible; by not adapting to the conditions of the students in terms of knowledge, tastes and motivations, with rigid and poorly contextualized content. The main strategies used are the reading plan, group work to debate, receive criticism and make judgments, drawing up schemes and summaries on the theoretical part of the subject, case studies and problem solving; encouraging students to appropriate the information and raise arguments based on their experiences and prior knowledge.

Based on the above, the importance of this type of research is recognized, since it will allow the teacher to use appropriate and innovative methodologies and techniques for the process of teaching reading, through various creative strategies. This will allow children and adolescents to increase their motivation for reading, based on respect for individual differences in terms of tastes and learning styles. These strategies will allow the teacher and the family to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the student in the development of comprehensive reading.

In the exploratory study carried out, prior to this investigation, it was shown that the teachers who work in the middle basic sublevel of the 03_04 Buena Fe-Los Ríos circuit have weaknesses to put into practice didactic actions in order to promote creative strategies for the development of comprehensive reading in students from their virtual and face-to-face classes.

For this reason, some of the causes that affect the development of reading in students were analyzed, such as: the lack of support at home, the face-to-face pedagogical accompaniment between student and teacher, the misuse of technological tools, among others, that has led to the student's disinterest in reading comprehension. It should be noted that the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (Unesco) within the Sustainable Development Goals 2015-2030 literal 4.6, establishes for 2030 to guarantee that all young people and at least a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, have reading, writing and numeracy skills.

In accordance with this problem, the main objective of the research was established to identify the didactic strategies used by teachers to develop reading comprehension in students in the middle basic sublevel, which corresponds to students in 5th ^,6th and 7th grades . Basic Education, whose school age ranges from 10 to 12 years.

The methodology used in the research had a qualitative approach; The data collection techniques were a survey of teachers and an interview with experts.

The research was carried out in the 12 fiscal educational institutions of the urban area of the C03_04 circuit of the Buena Fe canton, Los Ríos province, Ecuador. The population of teachers of the average basic sublevel is 73; After applying simple random sampling (Calero, 2003), a sample of 62 subjects was obtained to be surveyed.

An online survey was designed and applied to these teachers, through the digital tool Google forms and standardized interviews with the experts through videoconferences through the Zoom digital platform, with the aim of identifying the didactic strategies they use to develop the reading comprehension in students, especially in the pandemic and post-pandemic stage, generated by COVID -19.

In relation to the interview, non-probabilistic sampling was applied for convenience, by contacting two experts in education at the national and international level; to determine the characteristics of creative teaching resources that teachers should use.

For the validation of the research instruments, the expert judgment method was taken as a reference, who presented their opinions and experiences in the approval processes of the instruments, with criteria of quality, validity, reliability, which allowed obtaining relevant data from the subject of study.

The analysis carried out was carried out by applying the systemic, inductive-deductive and statistical research methods, through data description techniques, with the calculation of frequencies and means, using the Microsoft Excel processor.

As a first result of the research, table 1 shows the teaching strategies used by the teachers surveyed in relation to working with reading comprehension in class.

Table 1- Teaching strategies used to work on reading comprehension in classes

No.	Alternatives	Absolute frecuency	Relative frequency (percentages)
1	brainstorm	38	60%
2	I paraphrase	13	21%
3	flipped class	7	11%
4	Graphic organizer	2	4 %
5	Summary	2	4 %
	TOTAL	62	100%

As can be seen, the most used strategy is brainstorming, expressed by 60% of teachers and followed by paraphrasing (21%). It is also highlighted that the graphic organizer and the summary are only used by 4% of teachers in each case. In general, it stands out that 60% of the teachers gave their favorable point of view on the use of the brainstorming technique to work on reading comprehension in middle school students, while 40% prefer to opt for other traditional strategies. , such as: paraphrasing, flipped class, graphic organizer, summary, etc.).

The results of table 1 show that the highest percentage of strategies used are traditional, based on the process of decoding, finding sequences of actions and identifying main ideas in the development of the teaching-learning process of reading.

On the other hand, the use of digital resources to promote comprehensive reading in students was consulted, obtaining the following results:

Table 2- Digital resources that are used most frequently

No.	Alternatives	Absolute frecuency	Relative frequency (percentages)
1	educational videos	22	36%
2	E-books	16	25%
3	Personalized virtual classes	13	21%
4	online libraries	7	11%
5	audiobooks	4	7%
	TOTAL	62	100%

According to the applied survey, educational videos and electronic books are preferred by 61% of teachers, while virtual classes were selected by 21 % and, to a lesser extent, online libraries (11%) and audiobooks (7%); which denotes a knowledge on the part of teachers of this type of resources to support the work of reading comprehension.

The following table shows the behavior of the responses in relation to how parents can be encouraged to support the development of comprehensive reading and critical thinking in students from home.

Table 3- Strategies to encourage parents

No.	Alternatives	Absolute frecuency	Relative frequency (percentages)
1	Create creative spaces for reading	24	39%
2	Read to students and ask questions	21	32%
3	Let students read at their leisure	13	21%
4	Encourage students to read	2	4 %
5	Take students to libraries and other reading spaces	2	4 %
	TOTAL	62	100%

According to the results observed in items 1 and 2, 71% of the teachers responded that parents should be encouraged to support the development of comprehensive reading and critical thinking from home, establishing creative spaces for reading in family, through reading books to their children and asking questions about the subject. Meanwhile, in item 3, 21% indicate that students should be allowed to choose to their liking. On the other hand, 4% of teachers indicate that students should be encouraged to read, not imposed on them, and the same number of respondents agree with taking them to the library or bookstore where they have contact with books. In this regard, it is evident that most believe that family support is essential for student learning. The meaning of parents considering reading as a social practice is relevant here, since the attitude they assume and the commitments they make to give continuity to the activities started in the classroom depend on it.

Below is the calculation of the mean value of certain questions, which were answered based on a scale of 1 to 10.

Table 4- Creative strategies to be used by teachers to attract students to reading

Evaluated aspects	Middle value
Level of training to apply creative strategies	4.2
School infrastructure conditions	4.8
Level of application of technologies to reading comprehension work	5.2
Level of support from families	4.9

The average values of the analyzed scales oscillate between 4.2 and 5.2, evidencing that in the four aspects evaluated the situation is not very favorable, therefore there are reserves to be taken advantage of in schools in terms of teacher training, infrastructure conditions, the support of families and the application of technologies.

The results obtained from the interviews applied to the experts in the research topic are shown in table 5, where the creative strategies that teachers should preferably use are specified.

Table 5- Strategies to be used by teachers to attract students to reading

expert 1	expert 2
Book club among students	Make dynamic and attractive reading corners
Theater plays	Inviting parents to be participants in the classroom
Drama with puppets	Lend the books between students so that they can take home and read the story that they like the most
Create free reading spaces	Digital resources to promote comprehensive reading

The table above summarizes a set of strategies that promote participation and interaction between students, teachers and families in the context of the classroom, school and home as teaching-learning spaces. The experts revealed the importance of the use of Information and Communication Technologies in the definition and implementation of strategies that strengthen reading comprehension in students of the middle basic level.

The main strategy used by the teachers surveyed to promote reading comprehension was brainstorming, which is a good strategy to activate students' prior knowledge, which will mark their lives in the future (Armijos et al., 2017). This technique requires them to express everything they know about a particular topic or idea, before starting a reading or writing a piece of writing. Students can work individually or in pairs, first brainstorming all the ideas they have on a specific topic and then sharing them with the group. The teacher lists the ideas on the board and then invites them to discuss them. As students listen to each other's ideas, they often recall additional information or acquire new knowledge.

As noted in the results of the applied survey, during the school periods that classes have been taught virtually due to the health emergency caused by COVID-19, it has been detected that there are shortcomings in the application of creative strategies for the development of the reading. The distance between what happens in the schools studied and the criteria of the two experts consulted is shown in table 5. It should be noted that creative strategies should promote self-regulation, metacognition, organization of memory and will, creation and execution of plans, sensitivity in relation to the environment, among other benefits (Velásquez, 2017).

The schools of the Buena Fe canton must increasingly apply policies and actions to promote effective training of teachers, which allow them to improve their creativity skills, considering that a good teacher must be able to create learning situations that motivate, interest and attract the attention of their students (Espinoza, Tinoco and Sánchez, 2017).

On the other hand, the interviews conducted with the experts show that teachers must apply optimal creative strategies when returning to face-to-face classes, which must be worked on together with parents for better efficiency in the teaching-learning process. The involvement of the family in the education of children and young people is recognized (Luna et al., 2019), which makes education a social practice that is enriched by the relationships between the different actors or interest groups, that generate collective self-learning processes.

Both experts agree that it is essential to create reading corners in classrooms in an attractive way for students and, in the same way, to involve the entire educational community in them; In this sense, the authors complement these recommendations by indicating that it is necessary to implement the circle of readers, plays, dramatization with puppets, create open spaces for reading, exchange books according to their preferences, among others.

In agreement with Tovar and Riobueno (2018), the reading club is a creative strategy that is inserted within the promotion of reading, considered so because one of its objectives is to encourage and create the link between the material and the individual or group. In addition, these strategies are conceived as a planned action, where the didactic means lead to achieving the objectives proposed by the promoter.

The development of creative strategies is carried out under the precepts of meaningful learning and the constructivist pedagogical model; according to Dueñas (2021, p. 1):

the student builds new knowledge from the knowledge he has previously acquired. This can be by discovery or receptive. But he also builds his own knowledge because he wants to and is interested in it. "Meaningful learning" is sometimes built by relating new concepts to concepts you have and at the same time relating new concepts to experience you have.

Educational models in Ecuador increasingly assume these positions, as evidenced in the Institutional Educational Projects (PEI) issued by the Ministry of Education, and whose main postulate in the teaching-learning process is marked by three stages: exploratory, confrontation -restructuring and application; in which the active interaction of the student with his classmates, teachers and others involved is achieved, in the specific context of the classroom and its environment, where the knowledge, analysis and solution of specific situations or problems are located in the center of the curriculum, specifically in reading ability.

One of the aspects recognized by teachers, and which was also highlighted by the experts consulted, is the use of Information and Communication Technologies in improving reading comprehension; those that allow increasing the didactic strategies and the communication modalities that can be offered for the improvement, optimization and scope of the educational task, in addition to raising the social relevance of the process (García et al., 2019).

It should be noted that not all technological applications are effective in working on reading comprehension, since, for example, audiobooks, practice links, interactive blocks, among other technological educational contributions to work on reading comprehension, are not always used correctly nor do they have the training and accompaniment required by teachers.

Ramos and others (2020) point out that technologies, far from being perceived as a threat to reading, can be used as a motivating potential to bring reading closer to students, using the audiovisual and interactive possibilities they offer, among other stimulating elements, as long as they are used with the appropriate methodology and in coordination with the families.

Teachers must have the pedagogical knowledge, the didactic experience, and the skills of their environment; these tools will serve in the application of creative strategies for students to increase their reading comprehension, among other benefits.

Regarding the fulfillment of the proposed objective, it was possible to identify the conceptions that teachers had about didactic strategies for teaching reading comprehension, and to describe the strategies that they apply for the same purpose. Therefore, it is concluded that the didactic strategies used by teachers to develop reading comprehension and critical thinking in students of the middle basic sublevel are good; however, as the experts interviewed state, creative strategies should be applied to arouse curiosity about reading in students, using creative, innovative, participatory, playful methods, with an emphasis on the digital component.

The need to promote the use of Information and Communications Technologies was evidenced, which can be used by teachers when returning to face-to-face classes. It should be emphasized that virtuality is not going to disappear and rather technology is a fundamental contribution to education, as discussed above. Because of this, digital resources offer new opportunities in teaching-learning processes by incorporating image, sound and interactivity as elements that reinforce student understanding and motivation.

Similarly, the role that families play in promoting the reading habit was identified, for which reading routines must be established at home and accompany the process of acquiring reading skills; as well as, by educational institutions, improve teacher training and infrastructure conditions in schools.

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The authors have participated in the writing of the work and analysis of the documents.