Intervention in the development of FL reading comprehension skill

<< Background >>The writing of the project was motivated by the findings of the project coordinator's previous research projects, which pointed to the necessity of applying interaction of cognitive processes with the development of reading comprehension skills when teaching reading in a foreign language. One of the options is intervention - an in-depth approach to the text as a socio-psychological model structure and work with model text structures. Not every teacher knows the strategies to support reading comprehension in general and for the age category and level of language proficiency of their students, and if they do, they do not always know how to apply them. Teachers rarely analyse the reading process, they do not notice which parts of the text the student reads more slowly or needs to read them more than once. Based on these current needs a literate person in the 21st century, the project aimed to meet one of the main objectives of European education policy: to develop reading comprehension in general, but also in detail, to develop reading strategies and text interpretation, critical and analytical thinking when processing information from the text either for personal use or for its use in international cooperation. << Objectives >>The main objective of the project was to develop and validate an Intervention Program (IP) for Reading Comprehension in English and German for A2 language proficiency level and to disseminate its implementation and impact. The result of this process is two IP textbooks with prepared materials for their use in teaching to develop reading comprehension and 4 language versions (EN, SK, CZ, PL) of a monograph explaining theoretical concepts related to reading predictors, the intervention process, IP and research results.The main goal took into account several aspects: ●sociological - preferred genres and topics, reading interests and habits of students, leisure activities of forming the context of reading, cooperation of school and family, ●linguistic and psycholinguistic - interaction of linguistic and cognitive variables and its influence on text comprehension, ●methodological and application - development and implementation of IP for English and German and based on the analysis of methodological principles - types of reading comprehension, type of text in terms of their authenticity and style, types of tasks and questions related to the text; they were designed to correspond to the methodology of developing reading literacy.<< Implementation >>The main activity of the project was the design and development of the Intervention Program (IP) for Reading Comprehension in English and German at A2 level of language proficiency and their subsequent implementation and two-phase validation by teachers in lower and upper secondary schools in all partner countries of the project. In the creation of the IP modules, activities related to the design and structure of the IP, testing, monitoring, observation, feedback, interviews with teachers and students were carried out. The IP verification process represented activities such as a pedagogical action experiment, measurement, monitoring activities, feedback, as well as mutual communication between teachers and academics from partner institutions not only in the form of transnational project meetings (TPM 1 in PL, TPM 2 in SK, TPM 3 in CZ) but also in the form of online meetings and communication among teachers at schools and with the university. Other activities were related to management and planning of activities, publishing IP textbooks for English and German languages and monographs with theoretical foundations of IP, dissemination events for teachers and partly also for students in the form of workshops and seminars.<< Results >>The project results in two validated reading comprehension intervention programs (IP): IP for English and IP for German, which are published in textbooks. Each module of the IP textbook with its practical application includes a methodological guide for teachers and a worksheet for learners, text, and copying material. The project also results in a set of monographs (in English, Slovak, Czech, Polish) with a theoretical explanation of the intervention, the structure of IP modules, and predictors of reading comprehension. Another result is dissemination events that were implemented in the form of interactive workshops for lower and upper secondary school teachers in the project partner countries, where the IP was presented. In order to disseminate the project results, interactive workshops were organized in various regions not only for teachers, but also for learners and future teachers (SK: Gymnázium Zvolen and ZŠ Rastislavice, Oct. 2023; Gymnázium Marianum Komárno and Gymnázium Veľký Krtíš, Nov. 2023; CZ: seminar for English will-be-teachers at OU, the students subsequently applied the acquired knowledge as part of their teaching practice at ZŠ Kreťova, winter semester 2023/24, workshop for mentor-teachers at OU and others).