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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF QUESTION ANSWER RELATIONSHIP(QAR)TO STUDENT’S READING ABILITY

Abstract
This study aims at improving the students’ reading comprehension of expository texts in determining the topic, main idea, and supporting ideas through the QAR strategy. This study employed a Classroom Action Research design to solve the students’ problems of reading comprehension the QAR strategy was effective to improve the students reading comprehension of expository texts
            This paper assert of the QAR strategy to help reading comphrehension of student of senior high school level,this papper occupy of the student problem to reading comphrehension in common.That will be resolved by QAR itself,supported by the teaching learning process in detail

Introduction

As we know there are four skill in Englissh learning such,Listening, speaking, reading and writing Reading is an important language skill because without it one cannot obtain the diversity of information acquired through reading textbooks, novels, newspapers and magazines. Through reading one can grasp a large amount of knowledge. Furthermore, students can obtain a wide range of information by reading books in English because English is recognised as an international language.

The English teaching syllabus of Senior high school states that reading is one of the most important of the four language skills. Therefore, the teacher needs to put an emphasis on teaching reading. This is a continuing challenge because the need for students to increase their reading capability to get the benefits of reading is ongoing. The teachers need to use many different kinds of techniques and to continuously renew their efforts to have the students attain the highest achievements.
In fact, most students have difficulties in grasping the content of reading comprehension text such as the topic, main ideas, and supporting details of the texts. Clarke and Silberstein (1987) argue that reading comprehension requires a reader to identify the main point and its supporting details. The difficulties might be caused by the students having insufficient vocabulary of English, do not know English comprehensively, lack motivation to read in another language because the texts given in the reading lesson are not interesting, and do not know how to apply certain techniques of reading in finding the information or content of a text accurately. The students’ problem of reading comprehension also might be caused by the ineffective strategy applied by the lectures or teachers in the reading instruction. Most reading teachers run the reading instruction in the form of lecturing and discussion; and tend to design the reading instruction based on the teacher-center approach.   Owing to the traditional way the lecturers conduct in the reading instruction, most of the students feel bored and discouraged in the reading activities.
It is then necessary to apply certain strategies and techniques of reading to help the students improve their reading skill and make them more active and interactive in the reading class activities. A good reader will use certain strategies or techniques in finding the content and the message of the text and to interact with the text in the pre-reading, whilst reading, and post-reading stages. As it is supported by the Metacognitive Theory of reading which argues that “learners’ knowledge and use of their own cognitive resources, which involve behaviors such as predicting, self-questioning, paraphrasing, summarizing, rereading to clarify meaning, and retelling” will facilitate comprehension and learning, (Carnine, et al. in Cahyono and Widiati, 2006:43).
This study applies an instructional strategy, a questioning strategy to develop the students’ reading comprehension that is the Question–Answer Relationships (QAR) strategy. The QAR strategy is proposed by Raphael (Raphael and Pearson,1982),  (Eanes, 1997:180) to assist the students to explore the text comprehensively with its four levels of questions namely Right There, Think and Search, Author and Me, and On My Ownquestions. The Right There question provides the readers to answer question directly in the text.  Also, the words in the question and the words in the answer are usually in the same sentence. It is a literal question level of the QAR strategy. The Think and Search question also gives the readers to find the answer in the text.  However, the words in the question and the words in the answer are not found in the same sentence.  The reader must put together different parts of the text to get the answer. The Right There and the Think and Searchquestions categories are literal reading comprehension questions. They are text based questions which provide the reader to find the information in the text, such as dates, year, name of a person, the topic, main idea, supporting ideas, and so forth.  Accordingly, Burns, et al, (1996:255) state that reading for literal comprehension is the same as acquiring information that is directly stated in a selection. It is very important in basic reading and it is also a prerequisite for higher-level comprehension.
A.    Statement of Problem

Reading is one of the basic ways of acquiring information in our society and
in academic settings in particular. The ability to read with understanding has become
an essential skill in modem society. Individuals who cannot read well are at serious
disadvantage with respect to educational and vocational opportunities. Theseindividuals may not be able to read and understand any material both for obtaininginformation or for pleasure reading since they do not have good reading skills. Skilledreading depends on a multiplicity of perceptual, linguistic and cognitive processesand for many children, reading difficulties reflect the inadequate development of oneor more of these processes.
The process of reading comprehension involves such things as abstracting themain ideas, understanding the sequence of events, recognizing the author's purpose,and drawing inferences. However, in language classrooms, reading comprehensionquestions usually focus on the identification of specific details in the text. Theassumption underlying this practice is that students who are able to extract therequired details from a text have understood the text well. In reading, it isnot sufficient just to focus on comprehension (the product of reading done). The
process of working through a reading task is often as important as producing correctresponses to comprehension questions.
           
Many student has a difficulty to answer many kind of question in reading text,because they are generally poor readers with limited language literacy .They may adept at phonicalisis but they donot know the meaning of many words.Their bottom up and Top Down processing skills are not utilised at the optium level In other word they are slow at decodig text and using their prior knwoledge in order to make meaning of the passage.In other hand the teacher doesnot give satisfaction media or strategic to solve the problem.Question Answer Relationship (QAR)is appropriate strategictohelp-student reading comphrehension.

B.     The Outline Theory
1.      Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is viewed as a process of comprehending a text which integrates decoding ability, vocabulary cognition, prior knowledge of the topic and appropriate strategies (Kintsch&Kintsch, 2005). If ESL educators can understand the process of comprehension, then they are able to teach students to comprehend effectively. According to Blanton (1990), students have not developed proficiency because they lack background in comprehending texts and dwell outside of the world of texts. Therefore, it is good if teachers assist students to create comprehension by providing stimulating tasks to create a bridge between students and the language. Shanahan (2005) further maintains that we must make a distinction between strategy and skill. Skills can be learned and people can be trained to acquire them, while strategies are applied with deliberate effort according to the demands of particular purposes and needs. A tremendous improvement in reading comprehension can be seen after a few months if systematic teaching strategies are applied (Daniel, 2007). Thus systematic teaching reading comprehension should be carefully planned.
2.      Language Reading Model
A reading model known as the Interactive model was proposed by Rumelhart (1977) to explain the reading process. Comprehension is said to occur in this interactive model as thereader approximates the writer’s ideas and constructs a mental text from the physical text (Maria, 1990). The reader is actively selecting relevant information from a text, and a mental representation of its linguistic and semantic content is constructed which entails the interaction between the reader and the text. It is closely related with the schema theory as comprehension is actually inputting some amount of information and searching for the schemata illustrating the information. When the schemata are found, comprehension is said to be generated. Using web-resources in reading comprehension allows readers to interact with the web-based texts actively by using links and hypermedia.
3.      Question-Answer Relationship (QAR)
a.      Background
Question-Answer relationship (QAR) is a strategy to be used after students have read. QAR teaches students how to decipher what types of questions they are being asked and where to find the answers to them. Four types of questions are examined in the QAR.There are the types:
  • Right There Questions: Literal questions whose answers can be found in the text. Often the words used in the question are the same words found in the text.
  • Think and Search Questions: Answers are gathered from several parts of the text and put together to make meaning.
  • Author and You: These questions are based on information provided in the text but the student is required to relate it to their own experience. Although the answer does not lie directly in the text, the student must have read it in order to answer the question.
  • On My Own: These questions do not require the student to have read the passage but he/she must use their background or prior knowledge to answer the question.
b.      The benefits
  • It can improve students' reading comprehension.
  • It teaches students how to ask questions about their reading and where to find the answers to them.
  • It helps students to think about the text they are reading and beyond it, too.
  • It inspires them to think creatively and work cooperatively while challenging them to use higher-level thinking skills.

Note:
When to use:
Before reading
During reading
After reading
How to use:
Individually
With small groups
Whole class setting

c.       Create and use the strategy
QAR is a simple strategy to teach students as long as you model,.
  1. Depending on your students, you may choose to teach each type of question individually or as a group. Explain to students that there are four types of questions they will encounter. Define each type of question and give an example.
  2. Read a short passage aloud to your students.
  3. Have predetermined questions you will ask after you stop reading. When you have finished reading, read the questions aloud to students and model how you decide which type of question you have been asked to answer.
  4. Next, show your students how find information to answer your question (i.e., in the text, from your own experiences, etc.).
  5. After you have modeled your thinking process for each type of question, invite students to read another passage on their own, using a partner to determine the type of question and how to find the answer.
  6. After students have practiced this process for several types of questions and over several lessons, you may invite students to read passages and try to create different types of questions for the reading.

Notes:
  • Students may work by themselves, in pairs or small groups. Remind students that they should be prepared to discuss and debate their reactions to the questions and how they figured out their answers.
  • QARs require students to activate both literal and critical thinking skills. For students who have a hard time thinking beyond the text, this will be a challenging task and will require a lot of time to apply to their own readings. These students will need consistent practice in determining the type of thinking the text is requiring them to do.
4.      Teaching-Learning Process
In this section, the writer presents the information or data obtained from the teaching and learning process based on the three stages of instruction: pre-reading activity, whilst-reading activity, and post reading activity. The interaction was observed and noted by the research collaborator using observation checklist and field notes.
a.      Pre-reading Activity
In the pre-reading activity of the first, second, and third meetings of the action, the teacher-researcher began the instruction process by conveying the objective of the instruction and introducing the intended strategy, the QAR strategy, to be employed during the reading instruction. The teacher-researcher activated the students’ prior knowledge about the topic which will be discussing in the whilst-reading activities by asking guided questions. The students were active during the pre-reading activities. However, in the certain circumstances, some students were still reluctant to express their ideas although the questions required their background knowledge or experiential knowledge only. Encouraging the reluctant students to speak, the teacher directly pointed the students to share their opinions on the topic being discussed; they finally motivated expressing their ideas freely.
b.      Whilst-reading Activity
Whilst-reading activity was the main activity in the current action of reading comprehension subject. In the whilst-reading activity, the students were required to work in groups of 3 and each group appointed its leader to run the group discussion.
In the first meeting, the researcher modeled the strategy by defining the concept of the QAR strategy and its types of questions like the Right There,the Think and Search, the Author and You and the On My Own questions. Then, the researcher distributed the students a modeling short expository text entitled The Problem of Being Too Fat. The teacher asked a student to read the text loudly. After reading the text, the teacher explained the content of the text per paragraph to help the students understood the text and identified the content of the text by employing the four categories of the QAR questions, the Right Therequestion: In answering this literal question, the teacher directly pointed to the text and showed the sentence in the text to the students. The second question category was the Think and Search question. In the modeling, the teacher asked the questions about the topic, main idea, and supporting ideas of the text. In order to find the topic, the teacher explained how to find the topic of the text. The topic of the text can be as the general concept of the text which can be as the main concern or subject discussed in the text and it can be seen in the title of the text or in the near beginning of the paragraph. The topic can be found as a single word or a phrase. The teacher showed the topic of the text to the students. After determining the topic, the teacher explained how to find the main idea of the text that main idea of a text can be found by asking yourself the question, what is the writer saying about the topic? Then, the main idea of a text could be the most significant statement that the writer is making about the topic. The main idea is a complete sentence referring to the topic. The last question was about the supporting ideas of the text. In determining the supporting ideas, the teacher told the students to search the information at the entire text. The supporting ideas can be as the specific information referring to the main idea. It can be found by identifying the signal words used such as first, second, next, finally, and so forth.
The third category question of the QAR strategy was Author and You. The answer of the question category can be varied for students. It depends on the students personal judgments of the author’ idea and relates it with their own schemata. The last category was On My Own question category which requires the students to create their own ideas in answering the question. The teacher explained that to answer the question, the students should not read the text at all because the answer is not found in the text. The students should create their own idea based on their own schemata.
Modeling really helped the students to understand the concept of the QAR strategy and how to understand the content of the text by using the strategy. It was interesting that the students were active in discussing another text after the researcher’s modeling in the next meetings. However, in the first meeting, most of the students were still confused how to find the topic and main idea of the text by employing the Think and Search and Author and You questions of the QAR strategy. In order to help the students easy to find the topic and main idea of the text, the teacher re-explained the way to find them, as it was explained in the modeling. The teacher also gave example of the topic and the main idea from the second text which had been discussed, The Unhealthy Fast Food. Yet, some types of the QAR questions were easy for students to answer like the Right Therequestions. It was because the Right There questions were literal questions in which the answer could be directly found in the text.
Furthermore, most of the students were reluctant and shy to express their ideas about the text. Although the texts were short and relevant with their real life such as The Unhealthy Fast Food and Why Exercise is Important?, they were afraid of making errors in producing sentences and in answering the researcher’s questions about the text. In order to encourage and motivate the students to express their ideas freely, the teacher-researcher told the students to speak and do not afraid of making errors. The teacher also motivated them by directly pointing the students to express their idea or opinions in answering the questions. This helped them built up their self-confidence. Besides, the teacher focused the language used by the students on the content, rather than on the form. Similarly, the teacher created good reading comprehension atmosphere to make the students felt comfortable in learning process. After doing so, the students gradually were courageously to speak freely although sometimes they made errors. However, it made them learning to be freely expressive in the reading classroom activities.
It was also found in the second meeting, especially in the Author and You category question, the students initially found difficulties in formulating their own words related to the author’s opinion stated implicitly in the texts. In solving the students’ difficulties, the teacher told the students to recall their experience from their life or information from the book or other resources they ever read and connect it with the information in the text. They had to evaluate or judge the author’s idea or information in the text, then, they might construct their own sentence to answer the questions. After re-explaining the way to answer Author and You questions, gradually, the students showed progress in formulating their own ideas relating to the author’s information from the texts. Yet, in the interview the students told that the difficult category of the QAR strategy question was the Author and You category because it mixed the information from the text with their real life experiential knowledge. Nevertheless, the students expressed that they had to think hard in answering the questions and tried to connect the information in the texts with their real experience.
In the third meeting of applying the QAR strategy of reading, the students were easy to explore the content of the texts using the QAR strategy and they really enjoyed reading expository texts using the strategy. All of the students tried to get the researcher’s attention to give them a chance to express their ideas in responding of the questions. It was interesting that some reluctant students in the previous meetings were really active in the third meeting. It seemed that the teacher’s direct pointing to reluctant students to share ideas could help them to be confidently involved in reading class discussion. They were happy and really enjoyed the reading class discussion without being afraid of making errors. It seemed that the students were really familiar with using the QAR strategy in comprehending the text after joining the class reading instruction.
c.       Post-reading Activity
During the action, the post-reading activities of all the three meetings were designed similarly. It was designed so because it emphasized only on the checking the students’ comprehension on the materials given and gave them opportunity to ask questions dealing with the strategy and the topic already discussed. In addition, the researcher in this stage always asked the students’ about what they had learnt from the texts already discussed previously. The students were really interested in sharing their opinions and experience about what they had learnt so far from the reading materials already given using the QAR strategy


C.    CONCLUSION

Reading is one of the basic ways of acquiring information in our society and
in academic settings in particular. The ability to read with understanding has become an essential skill in modem society.While,reading comprehension is viewed as a process of comprehending a text which integrates decoding ability, vocabulary cognition, prior knowledge of the topic and appropriate strategies (Kintsch & Kintsch, 2005).Individuals who cannot read well are at serious disadvantage with respect to educational and vocational opportunities. Theseindividuals may not be able to read and understand any material both for obtaininginformation or for pleasure reading since they do not have good reading skills.
The writer suggested that the QAR strategy is really effective in improving the students reading comprehension,  especially in determining the topic, main idea, and supporting ideas of expository texts. Through utilizing the QAR strategy, the students can identify the topic, main idea as well as the supporting ideas or detail information of the text accurately.
In order to apply the strategy successfully, the writer initially did modeling to help the students familiar with the QAR strategy in reading activities. After modeling, the researcher asked the students to explore the content of the reading passage in group of three or four by answering the questions provided in the light of the QAR strategy types of questions that were Right There question, Think and Search, Author and You andOn My Own questions. When the students have problems in using the strategy in comprehending the text, the teacher directly guided and helped the students to cope the problems.
Based on the good implementation of the QAR strategy, the students’ reading comprehension, especially on determining the topic, main idea, and supporting ideas of the expository text has successfully improved. The success of the action also was supported by the joyful learning atmosphere created by the teacher and the content-focused language production on the learners which can bring positive effect on the students’ self-confidence in learning and in turn can improve their learning achievement, especially in their reading comprehension improvement. It is then the QAR strategy was really effective in improving the students reading comprehension skills, especially in their skill of determining the topic, main idea, and the supporting ideas of the expository texts.
Despite of the current study primarily focuses on the students’ problem in identifying the topic, the main idea, and supporting information of the text through the use of the QAR strategy, the study also found that the students’ motivation in reading and their vocabulary were interestingly developed as the nurturing effect of the implementation of the QAR strategy.

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