teacher confirms the prediction by giving the next sentences. Those are done repeatedly throughout the story in order to ease the students to find the conclusion
of the story. In summing up, the purpose of directed reading-thinking activity is to
assist the students to comprehend the text or the story using clues of the text such as some sentence clues, pictures and charts. Furthermore, this strategy helps the
students in activating their prior knowledge to develop their critical thinking, logical predictions and their comprehension and to make inferences related to
what are printed in the text.
3. The Procedures of Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
In one source on internet, the main procedure of using Directed Reading- Thinking Activity is divided into 3 steps:
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a. Direct Teachers direct and stimulate students thinking prior to reading a passage
by scanning the title, chapter headings, illustrations, and other explanatory materials. Then teachers should use open-ended questions to direct students as
they make predictions about the content or perspective of the text e.g., “Given this title, what do you think the passage will be about?”. Students should be
encouraged to justify their responses and activate prior knowledge. b. Reading
Teachers should have students read up to the first pre-selected stopping point in the text. The teacher then prompts the students with questions about
specific information and asks them to evaluate their predictions and refine them if necessary. This process should be continued until students have read
each section of the passage. c. Thinking
At the end of the reading, teachers should have students go back through the text and think about their predictions. Students should verify or modify the
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Directed Reading-Thinking Activities: Classroom Strategies, 2011, Retrieved on September 21, 2015 from http:www.adlit.orgstrategies23356
accuracy of their predictions by finding supporting statements in the text. The teacher deepens the thinking process by asking questions such as “What do
you think about your predictions now?”, “What did you find in the text to prove your predictions?”, “What did you find in the text that caused you to
modify your predictions?” Meanwhile, Walter proposed procedures to conduct DR-TA strategy in
teaching reading as follows: a. Prepare the text. Pre-read the text and identify the segments that contain the
major events of the story. Try to divide the story into segments that will promote deeper thinking.
b. Prepare the students. Prepare students for reading the text by developing background concepts and language. Show the book cover and predict what the
story will be about. c. Read a segment of the text. Read the first story segment. Have students
compare their predictions to the actual reading passage to either verify their predictions or identify the parts of their predictions that were in accurate or are
still unknown. d. Repeat and continue the process. Ask more predicting questions based on the
reading. Record the predictions. Read the next segment. Ask verifying questions.
e. Review and reread the whole story. After completing the story, discuss the predictions, reactions, and impression. Read or have students reread the story
as a whole.
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Teresa Walter, Teaching English Language Learners: The How – To Handbook, Longman: Pearson Education Inc., 2004, pp. 73 – 74.
E. Teaching Reading Narrative Text Using Directed Reading-Thinking Activity DR-TA Strategy
First : The teacher determines the narrative text to be used and pre-select points
for students to pause during the reading process. There should be 4-5 pauses or adjusted to the quantity of paragraphs in narrative text.
Second : The teacher asks the student to read only the title of the narrative text
and then asks students to make predictions what the story tells about. The teacher may use these questions: “What do you think a passage with title
like this might be about?”; “Why do you think so?” and so on.
Third : The teacher lists the predictions on whiteboard and initiates a discussion
with the students by asking them to respond to the following question: “Which of these predictions do you think would be likely one?”; “Why do
you think this prediction is a good one?” and so on.
Fourth : The teacher asks the students to read the story until the pause point only.
The teacher may use these questions: “Now, what do you think?” or “Any other ideas?”
Fifth : The teacher asks the students to continue their reading until the next
pause point this step is repeated until the students have finished reading the story. The teacher may use these questions: “Were your predictions
correct?”; “What do you think now?”; “What else?”; “What will happen next?”; “What made you think of this prediction?”; “What in the passage
supports this prediction?”
Sixth : The teacher asks the students to finish reading the story and reflect their
predictions through responding to the following questions: “What predictions did you make?”; “Were your predictions correct?”; “Do you
still agree with this prediction?”; “What did you find in the text to prove your prediction?”; “What did you read in the text that made you change
your predictions?”
