ARCEO, MA. ANGELA MAE A.

MAED ENGLISH

KWL Plus
 Ogle (1986) KWL is a reading and thinking strategy which focuses on the student as a
learner. It is a highly effective strategy that supports nonfiction inquiry and clarifies
thinking. Research involves identifying what you know about a topic, wondering what
more you would want to learn about it, and finding more information which leads to the
formation of new ideas. KWL Plus (Ogle 1987) is an extension of the strategy that helps
students organize and summarize important information from the text.
The KWL-Plus helps students:
• Recall what is known (K);
• Determine what students want to learn (W);
• Identify what is learned (L); and
• Map text and summarize information (Plus).
Using a KWL chart is an excellent way to activate prior knowledge a student has in a
given area. It allows students to recognize that they already have some knowledge of a subject
upon which they can build. This becomes important when students begin to make connections
between prior knowledge and newly acquired knowledge.
Mapping and summarization were added to the original KWL strategy through the “Plus”
activity. This was done because writing and restructuring of text are powerful tools in helping
students process information. The expanded strategy engages readers in constructing meaning
from text and fosters student independence. Students become independent learners through
instruction that gradually shifts the responsibility for initiating the strategy from the teacher to
the student.
PROCEDURE
Step 1: Distribute copies of the KWL worksheet to the class. Activate background knowledge.
Guide students in brainstorming ideas and discussing what they know about the topic. As
unanswered questions about specific points emerge, students can save them and refer to them
later as information they want resolved when they read.
Step 2: After brainstorming and discussing, ask students to note on the KWL worksheets their
knowledge of the topic. This forms the K (what is known) of the KWL technique.
Step 3: Guide students in generating questions as they read. Those questions become the basis
for the W (what students want to learn). Questions can be developed from information gleaned in
the preceding discussion and from thinking of the major categories of anticipated information.
By developing questions in this manner, students learn to define independently their purpose for
reading, which allows them to focus on the text and to monitor their learning.
Step 5: the students should divide the text into manageable segments, at first by the teacher, then
as they become familiar with the technique. Depending upon an individual student’s needs and
abilities, one or two paragraphs may be all that a student can handle before he or she interrupts
his or her reading and pauses to monitor comprehension by referring to the questions listed in
column W. In this way, before the students read the entire passage, they become aware of what
they have learned as well as what they have not comprehended.
Step 6: As students read and encounter new information, they can add questions to the W
column. Thus, as students proceed through the material, they constantly think about what they
read, monitor their learning, and perhaps generate additional questions to guide their reading. As
they read, they also should note new information in the L (what students learn) column of the
worksheet. This helps students select important information from each paragraph, and it provides
a basis for future reference and review.
Step 7: Help students categorize the information listed under column L. Have students ask
themselves what each statement describes. In doing so, they often discover more categories that
can be used in future reading.
Step 8: Guide students in creating a map of the information. Through listing and categorizing,
the most difficult tasks of constructing a map—i.e., selecting and relating important information
from text—are already completed. Instruct students to use the article title as the center of their
map. Categories developed with the KWL Plus worksheet become the map’s major concepts,
with explanatory details subsumed under each. Lines show the relationship of the main topic to
the categories. All information categorized on the worksheet acts as supporting data on the map.
Step 9: Guide students in writing a summary of the material. The most difficult part of
summarizing— selecting information and organizing it-has already been completed. Instruct
students to use the map as an outline for their summary. Because the map depicts the
organization of the information, a summary is comparatively easy to construct. The map’s center
becomes the title of the summary. Then students should number the categories on the map in the
sequence they prefer. Each category forms the topic for a new paragraph. Finally, supporting
details in each category are used to expand the paragraph or explain the main idea

IMPLICATION
Research indicates that using effective reading strategies work effectively towards enhancing
reading comprehension by using meta-cognitive strategies. It is evident that students who use
proper reading strategies and who use meta- cognitive reading strategies before, during, and after
reading can monitor better reading skills such as understanding and making predictions as they
read. They are also more capable to summarize after they read. The KWL Plus strategy is one of
the meta-cognitive strategies intended to provide students with better opportunities of
comprehending reading texts.
KWL Plus reading strategy is evidently useful in different aspects. First, at a theoretical level, the
KWL can contribute to the cumulative body of research based on the theory of the relationship
between reading development and other literacy skills such as writing. Second, this can be used
as instructional implications and strategies for teachers who teach English as a second language.
Second, at a more general level, this can help to identify reading problems at each school types
(public and private) and can reveal whether students at public schools possess the same reading
abilities that their peers at private schools have.

REFERENCES
Al Khateeb. (2010). The Impact of Using KWL Strategy on Grade Ten Female Students' Reading
Comprehension of Religious Concepts in Ma'an City. European Journal of Social Sciences. 12 (3),
www.eurojournals.com/ejss_12_3_14.pdf. (accessed 15/3/2014). [2] Al Shaye. (2000). The effectiveness
of metacognitive strategies on reading comprehension and comprehension strategies of eleventh grade in
Kuwaiti high schools. PHD thesis, Ohio University, USA

Erawati, Ni. (2012). A Comparative Effect of Metacognitive Self-Monitoring Strategies on Students’

Reading Competency Based on Text Types. E-Journal Program Pascasarjana Universitas Pendidikan
Ganesha Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa, 1 (1), 1-19.

Weisberg. (1988). A change in focus of reading comprehension research: A review of reading/learning

disabilities research based on an interactive model of reading. Learning. Disability Quarterly, 11, 149-
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