Mediación docente y niveles de comprensión lectora en una escuela rural andina: un estudio de caso instrumental en el sur del Ecuador

Abstract

Research on reading comprehension has focused largely on urban schools with technological resources, whereas Andean rural contexts remain underdocumented. This study examines teacher mediation in the development of reading comprehension in a rural school in Loja, Ecuador, during 2025-2026. An instrumental case study with a mixed-methods convergence design was conducted with eleven sixth-grade students and their Language and Literature teacher. Data were collected through a semi-structured interview and a Likert-scale questionnaire, followed by thematic analysis, descriptive statistics, and triangulation. Findings reveal an uneven distribution of mediation across the reading process. Pre-reading activation strategies and lexical scaffolding during reading are applied consistently and recognized by students, whereas post-reading practices involving elaboration, visual organization, and critical evaluation occur less regularly. This asymmetry appears to be associated primarily with contextual constraints, including curricular pressure, limited reading materials, and restricted family involvement. Based on these findings, the study proposes mediational asymmetry as an analytical category and introduces MEDIAR, a low-material-demand device designed to strengthen reading mediation under rural school conditions.