Developing critical thinking skills to improve reading comprehension

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between critical thinking skills and reading comprehension.  Data was collected from treatment sessions, a self-evaluation and a test on critical thinking skills with two groups of learners from a language department at an Ecuadorian university.  The results showed insignificant relation between critical thinking skills and learners' reading comprehension.  The findings also revealed both groups had small differences during the pretest and posttest.  The pretest and posttest showed minimal changes between groups, as well.  Participants’ lack of concentration in texts, the unawareness and scarce use of their critical thinking skills were evidenced in their grammar, syntactic and semantics’ mistakes.  The implications of these findings suggest further research in this area, exploring teaching practices that foster students’ critical thinking skills and reading comprehension.