Contextual Clues and Reading Comprehension

Abstract

The current research study aimed to analyze students' perspectives on the use of contextual clues and their influence on English reading comprehension. A total of 81 first-year students (42 women, 36 men, and 3 who preferred not to say) from the Bachillerato General Unificado (BGU) program at the Oxford Unidad Educativa, in Salcedo-Cotopaxi, Ecuador, participated in this study, which used a descriptive, non-experimental design and a mixed approach. The data collection instrument was a 21-item survey using a Likert scale (Always 5, Frequently 4, Occasionally 3, Rarely 2, Never 1) designed based on the three research questions related to the objectives. Its validation by five experts gave an Aiken V coefficient of 0,97, demonstrating high content validity. In addition, a pilot test applied to ten students obtained a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0,92, confirming the internal consistency and reliability of the instrument. The results revealed that students use semantic contextual clues from synonyms and definitions when reading in English, which provide a relation between unknown words with familiar terms and direct meaning. Syntactic clues from the coordinating conjunction or give lexical equivalents, facilitating vocabulary understanding. In terms of reading comprehension levels, students emphasized the inferential level of interpreting implicit meanings and the literal level of recognizing explicit information, while critical and creative comprehension were less frequently used, showing limitations in analyzing and reinterpreting texts. As for reading comprehension strategies, the most commonly adopted were monitoring, prediction, and visualization, suggesting an active engagement, anticipation, and creative representation of the text. Although the summary strategy was expected to be one of the favorites, its limited use, despite being a traditionally employed practice, indicates the need to reinforce it through activities that strengthen the synthesis and organization of information.