A text structure analysis of fourth and sixth grade Maltese textbooks

Abstract

Reading comprehension is essential for students to be successful in school and active participants of society. The ability to understand text is facilitated by text structures which encourage readers’ ability to locate, organize information, and to recall main ideas. To investigate the presence of text structures, an analysis of four Maltese language textbooks and two social studies workbooks, used in fourth and sixth grade in state schools in Malta, was conducted. Two independent reviewers analysed the books using fve criteria: overall book structure, task type, text type, text structure, and reading comprehension strategy. Results showed that whereas narrative texts were the most common text type in fourth grade, more emphasis was placed on expository texts in sixth grade. Most books included cause-and-efect and problem-and-solution text structures. Recall of factual information was the predominant reading strategy, with limited exposure to other crucial strategies such as main idea identifcation. All textbooks gave importance to tasks that required drawings and games representing the child’s understanding of the text. Results indicated a high level of agreement between the raters’ analysis of Maltese language and social studies texts. This research suggests that texts used in the state school curriculum need to be structured in a way that refects interventions such as the text structure strategy, to encourage main idea selection thereby facilitating comprehension of text.