TITLE OF Reading Difficulties of Junior High School Students of
RESEARCH PSAT: Basis for Reading Intervention Plan
I. Context and Rationale
Proficient reading and writing skills are critical to success. If students are not
competent readers, they are at risk for academic, behavioural, social and emotional
difficulties. Students with reading disabilities have the potential to be unsuccessful
academically and socially. (MacInnis, 2004). Children with reading difficulties
throughout school and into adulthood, said how embarrassing and devastating it was
to read with difficulty in front of peers and teachers, and to demonstrate this weakness
daily. This type of failure affects children negatively earlier than we thought. By the
end of first grade, children having difficulty learning to read begin to feel less
positive about their abilities than when they started school (Reid Lyon, 2003).
Researchers have made considerable progress in understanding all types of
reading disabilities (Fletcher, et.al. 2007). For purposes of research, "reading
impaired" children may be all those who score below the 30th percentile in basic
reading skill. Among all those poor readers, about 70-80 percent have trouble with
accurate and fluent word recognition that originates with weaknesses in phonological
processing, often in combination with fluency and comprehension problems. These
students have obvious trouble learning sound-symbol correspondence, sounding out
words, and spelling. The term dyslexic is most often applied to this group. Another
10-15 percent of poor readers appear to be accurate but too slow in word recognition
and text reading. They have specific weaknesses with speed of word recognition and
automatic recall of word spellings, although they do relatively well on tests of
phoneme awareness and other phonological skills. They have trouble developing
automatic recognition of words by sight and tend to spell phonetically but not
accurately. This subgroup is thought to have relative strengths in phonological
processing, but the nature of their relative weakness is still debated by reading
scientists (Fletcher 2007; Katzir, 2006; Wolf & Bowers, 2009). Some argue that the
problem is primarily one of timing or processing speed, and others propose that there
is a specific deficit within the orthographic processor that affects the storage and
recall of exact letter sequences. This processing speed/orthographic subgroup
generally has milder difficulties with reading than students with phonological
processing deficits.
Reading had been a long-lasting and widespread problem among pupils in the
primary level. One of the challenges facing teachers is how to motivate the pupils to
read. The implementation of the K to 12 curriculums also swell with the problem in
reading of grade one pupils. During the first year of its implementation, grade one
pupils who cannot read can be promoted to the second grade. The second-grade
teachers have trouble in teaching due to poor reading ability of the pupils. This year
the product of such curriculum was in grade three who will also take the National
Achievement Exam. The question is with the poor reading ability of the pupil, will
they pass the NAT exam.
Most pupils in grade one has trouble in learning how to read. They have
difficulty in learning phonetics, syllables and words. Some of them are scared to
attend classes when reading lessons started. Due to this situation, some of them drop
out from school and do not continue until the next school year begins.
The Department of Education from the national level down to the school level
launched different programs to solve the problem in reading. One of such is the
Project READ (Reading Empowerment for Academic Development) of the Division
of Oriental Mindoro and Project Reach for the STAR (Strive Toward Achievement in
Reading) of the District of Victoria on the same Division. Project READ is a five-year
program aimed to reduce the frustration readers by 20% every school year starting
S.Y. 2014-2015 to 2018-2019 (D.O. No. 16, S. 2014). Project Reach for the STAR is
designed to address the problem of non-readers and readers under frustration level in
the whole district. It aims to improve reading fluency, reading skills and
comprehension skills of the pupils both in English and Filipino. Currently, it has been
implementing and all hoped that the objectives will be achieved after its
implementation and will solve the problems in reading.
The situations above triggered the researcher to conduct an action research on
the reading difficulties of grade one pupils in
_______________________________________
II. Action Research Questions
The study will seek to answer the following questions:
1. What is the level of reading ability of grade one pupils in terms of :
1.1 Phonics
1.2 Phonemic Awareness
1.3 Vocabulary
1.4 Fluency
1.5 Comprehension
2. What is the most difficulties of the reading ability of Grade One pupils?
3. What reading intervention plan may be proposed to improve the reading difficulties of
Grade One pupils?
4. What is the future plan of the reading intervention plan after its implementation?
III. Proposed Innovation, Intervention and Strategy
This study aims to make an action plan for the poor reading difficulties of
grade one pupils in ______________________________
This action research will be beneficial first and foremost to the sixty-three grade one
pupils for they will learn how to address their difficulty in reading and will help them develop
their reading comprehension. As the respondents of this action research, they will be elevated
from the non-reader and frustration level to at least instructional level. As the pupils improve
their reading comprehension, they will also easily learn lessons under the curriculum and will
improve their academic performance.
The teachers will also be benefited from this action research for they will learn
how to address the difficulty of grade one pupils to learn how to read. They will also learn
the strategies on how reading comprehension of pupils will be improved. As the pupils’
reading performance elevated from non-reader and frustration level to instructional and
independent level, the teacher will also improve his/her performance on her Performance
Appraisal System for Teachers (PAST) and in the Individual Performance Commitment
and Review Form (IPCRF) under the Result-Based Performance Management System
(RPMS).
The school will also be aided from this action research because the pupils’
performance and teachers’ performance reflect the school performance. When pupils
improve their academic performance, it will reflect on their performance on Reading
Profile (Phil-Iri) as one of the criteria in the Performance Based Bonus (PBB). Dropout
rates will lessen when pupils’ performance in reading and in all subjects is in average to
proficient level.
IV. Action Research Methods
A. Participants and/or other Sources of Data and Information
This action research used the descriptive correlational method of research.
Descriptive research involves description, recoding, analysis and interpretation of
conditions that currently exist. The main aims are to describe the nature of a condition as it
exists at the time of the study and to explore the causes of the particular situation.
This action research utilized triangulation method as a data gathering procedure
through survey questionnaire, observation, interview and field notes.
B. Data Gathering Methods
A letter of request was secured from the School Principal. Upon its approval, proper
coordination with the class advisers and parents of the pupil respondents was done by the
researcher.
The researcher personally administered the questionnaire to ensure that all items will
be answered, and 100% percent retrieval will be attained. The interview, observation and
field notes were also personally done by the researcher.
C. Data Analysis Plan
In response to the study’s statement of the problem, Quantitative and Descriptive
Statistical Analysis will be used to treat the data gathered with the qualitative interpretation of the
participants’ responses. The following statistical tools will be used to analyse and interpret the data:
1. Reading Profile Interpretation for S.Y. 2020-2021 where the results of pupil’s progress are
being presented by illustrations and graph.
2. Bantay Basa where the list of struggling learners is stated depending on their reading level or
ability.
3. Questionnaire
IV. Action Research Work Plan and Timelines
ACTIVITIES Month Month Month Month Month Month
1 2 3 4 5 6
Shade the corresponding month per
activity
Add rows if necessary
1.Orientation of the program
implementation to the
school with Grade 1 pupils,
parents and the teacher-
participants
2.Conduct a Survey using
questionnaires before the
implementation of the
program.
3.Ongoing implementation/
monitoring
4. Conduct a Survey using
questionnaires after the
implementation of the
program.
5.Assessment of the program
VI. Plans for Dissemination and Utilization
DISSEMINATION Month Month Month Month Month Month
ACTIVITIES 1 2 3 4 5 6
add rows if necessary
1.Presenting the Action
Research proposal to the
checker.
2. Present the results to the
Curriculum and Instruction
Department of the division for
necessary actions and
recommendations
3. Presenting the Action
Research full paper to any
conferences
4.Conduct a follow-up study if
necessary
5.
VII. REFERENCES
Fletcher Janis M., Lyon GR, Fuchs LS, Barnes MA., (2015), Learning disabilities: From
identification to intervention. Retrieved on: June 29, 2016, Retrieved from:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079378/
Katzir Tim., Kim. Y., Wolf M., (2015), Reading fluency: the whole is more than the parts.
Annals of Dyslexia, Retrieved on: June 29, 2016, Retrieved from:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0074061
Lyon, Reid G., (2015), Reading Disabilities: Why Do Some Children Have Difficulty
Learning to Read? What Can Be Done About It? Retrieved on: June 29, 2016, Retrieved
from: http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/reading-difficulties-disabilities
MacInnis, Eric., 2015, Teaching Students with Reading Difficulties and Disabilities,
Retrieved on: June 29, 2016, Retrieved from:
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/read.disability.lyon.pdf
Wolf, M., & Bowers, P. (2015), The double-deficit hypothesis for the developmental
dyslexias (Reading Disability), Retrieved on: June 29, 2016, Retrieved from:
http://www.templatezone.com/marketing2006/Temp/Carol/carol.htm
VIII. Annexes
a. Research Instrument
b. Consent Form
