4. Structure Strategy
This strategy is similar to mind-map and graphic organizer strategy which deals with certain structure and parts of the text. Signal words can be used as the clue
on what structure the passage is about. According to Meyer and Poon 2001, in Meyer and Ray, 2011:128 signaling words can cue text structures and assist readers
toward building coherent text representations. Meyer, Brandt, and Bluth 1980, in Meyer and Ray, 2011:128 say that readers
who apply a “Structure Strategy” seek to identify and use the organization of the author to organize their understanding. The Structure Strategy facilitates
comprehension by helping the reader to organize concepts based on the explicit or implied relationships that are communicated by the text.
Lorch and Lorch 1995, in McNamara, 2007:356 defines Structure Strategy is one of the strategies which focuses on seeking coherence among text ideas. This
strategy highlights the connection among sentences in a paragraph and grasps the interrelation of it to know the writer’s flow of thoughts, so students are able to
understand how the writer organize his idea. According to Meyer and Ray 2011: 30 Structure Strategy displays that the
more structured the text, whether it is causative or descriptive, the more students will be able to remember the contents of the text. Freedle’s data support this finding by
showing that comparison and causation structures have greater benefits for recollecting, in comparison to description for the college learners. However, this
does not happen in the same way for adults with little training, middle aged and also
young learner, because they work better with descriptions than comparison structure Carrell 1984 in Meyer and Ray, 2011:130.
Furthermore, Meyer and Ray explains about the power of teaching students the Structure Strategy is that it enables them to a follow the logical structure of text to
understand how an author organized and emphasized ideas; b use processes parallel to these structures to increase their own learning and thinking e.g., comparing,
finding causal relationships, looking for solutions to block causes of problems; and c use these text structures to organize their own writing, such as written summaries,
recalls, and essays. There are stages of teaching Structure Strategy
to increase students’ comprehension by Meyer and Ray 2011:131. The stages are as follows:
1 Teacher modeling on Structure Strategy: in this stage, the teacher informs that
each of a text has its own structure. He also teaches on how to make a structure strategy diagram that will help them to comprehend the text.
2 Guided practice for students: in this stage, students need to be able to fill each of
the text structure with the suitable information found in the text after they are shown how to make the Structure Strategy diagram as the visualization of the
structure strategy. 3
Modeling on how to use Structure Strategy diagram in understanding text: students are trained on how to use the diagram to increase their comprehension as
well as their recalling ability on the information that is found in the text.
The use of structure strategy has been found to improve the reading comprehension of narrative as well as expository text passages for students. As stated
by Gaddy and Bakken 2008:101, text organization exists in both narrative and expository text. For example, narrative texts include patterns of characters, events,
goals, plots, and conclusions. Based on research done by Fitzgerald and Spiegel 1983, using structure strategy in narrative text can increase comprehension in this
kind of text. It is worth to see the impact of this strategy in school in Indonesia.
5. Text Organization
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