International Journal of Arts & Sciences, CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 :: 07(02):511–519 (2014) DEVELOPING THE RIGHT READING COMPREHENSION MODULES FOR THE RIGHT REASON WITH THE HELP OF READS Lin Siew Eng, Abdul Rashid Mohamed, Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail and Muhammad Javed Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia Reading Comprehension Modules were developed based on research, reading theories, and with reference to the mandated English Language Curriculum and Syllabus. A set of 6 modules consisting of a diverse collection of texts from different sources of varying text length were developed based on READS (Reading Evaluation And Decoding System) Assessment Kit previously developed by Abdul Rashid et al. (2010). READS assessment kit was utilised to capture students’ reading ability and comprehension skills and introspectively made sense of students’ actual reading ability in terms of what they could do and could not do. These modules were aim to improve the ESL students' reading comprehension skills by providing effective reading strategies, systematic steps, and precise framework for teachers to teach reading comprehension and subsequently help students develop the reading skills for each Performance Band (Band 1 to Band 6). The developed Reading Comprehension Modules will provide continuous opportunity for students to practise with texts of varied genres that are graded according to their reading ability and beyond as suggested by READS Assessment Kit. Each module consists of 3 sections namely; literal, reorganisation, and inferential comprehension questions. 320 Year 10 students from a secondary school sat for the READS test. From the test scores, the students were categorised from Performance Band 1 to Band 6 according to their reading ability. Subsequently, a series of intervention lessons using Reading Comprehension Modules were conducted based on the READS' test feedback to resuscitate and revive the learners’ shortcomings. Results of the post test indicated an increase in students’ overall test scores. According to the results of the post test, there was an increase in students’ test scores and their ability to handle the three reading comprehension skills amicably. The percentage of Year 10 students who meet standard on reading comprehension rose to 32.0% in the post test from 12.7% in the pre test. Consequently, the findings suggest that the deployment of Reading Comprehension Modules has the potentiality in improving students’ reading and comprehension ability. There was an incremental and progressive increased in test scores among the 320 Year 10 students. We believe that with this innovation, the ESL teachers may now add to their daily reading comprehension instruction and testing initiatives can make a difference in the lives of students’ and their reading skills development. Keywords: Reading comprehension modules, Literal comprehension questions, Reorganisation comprehension questions, Inferential comprehension questions. 511