An Analysis of the oral reading difficulties of Ilocano pupils in grades IV and VI in the public elementary schools, Baguio City 1972-1973

Abstract

The importance of reading has long been recognized in the field of education. Studies have repeatedly shown as a positive correlation between reading proficiency and achievement in other school subjects, Indeed, the learner’s performances in almost all his school work depends in a great measure on his proficiency in reading. However, in spite of the modern techniques and procedures which were adopted and tried out to revitalize the teaching of reading so as to equip the learner with the needed skills, the performance on reading is still far from satisfactory. Considering this fact that good oral reading is the foundation of good silent reading, the researcher conducted this research to find out the common oral reading difficulties among the Ilocano pupils in grade IV and VI in the public elementary schools of Baguio City. This study attempted to answer the following questions: 1. What are the common oral reading difficulties among the Ilocano grade IV and VI pupils? 2. How do the Ilocano grade IV and VI pupils compare in their oral reading difficulties? 3. What are the possible causes of the common oral reading difficulties of the Ilocano grade IV and VI pupils? The following hypotheses were included to test the reliability of the findings. 1. There is no significant difference between Ilocano grade IV boys and girls in their oral reading difficulties. 2. There is no significant difference between Ilocano grade VI boys and girls in their oral reading difficulties. 3. There is no significant difference between Ilocano grade IV and grade VI pupils in their oral reading performance. 4. There is no significant difference between Ilocano grade IV and grade VI pupils in big and small school in their oral reading performance. This study was limited to the four supervisory districts of the division of city schools in Baguio City. For the purpose of this study, one big school and one small school in each district were selected at random to represent the big and small schools in each district. A big school is one that is under a principal 3 with fifty or more teachers. A small school is one that is under a principal 1 or a head teacher with less that twenty-five teachers. The schools included in this study were South Baguio Central, Magsaysay, Lucban, Rizal, Mabini, Quezon and Laurel Elementary schools. Two hundred Ilocano grade IV and two hundred Ilocano grade VI pupils were selected at random from the eight schools included in the study. The standardized oral reading paragraphs for grade IV and VI by Arthus Grey were used in the individual oral reading test to assess the common oral reading difficulties of the subjects. The oral reading difficulties analyzed and observed were omission, mispronunciation, repetition, substitution, reversal, insertion, mispronounced vowel, disregard for punctuation, word-for-word reading and hesitation. Steps were undertaken to answer the following questions: 1. What are the common oral reading difficulties among the Ilocano grade IV and VI pupils? With the use of the Arthur Gray’s standardized oral reading paragraphs for grades IV and VI an individual oral reading test was given to the 400 cases in this study. The common errors committed by each pupil while reading aloud were noted down by the researcher on the copy of the paragraph used for noting down the errors committed by the National coordinating center for the study of Filipino children and youths. The common errors to be observed and analyzed were substitution, mispronunciation, reversal, mispronounced vowel, omission, insertion, word-for-word reading, disregard for punctuation and hesitation. Frequencies for each error-type were tallied and summed up. Aggregate sum for all frequencies of the different error-type committed by sex and by grade was computed. From the frequencies of each error-type the most common oral reading difficulty to the least common oral reading difficulty was classified and ranked. The Ilocano grade IV pupils committed ten common oral reading difficulties ranked as follows: substitution, mispronunciation, insertion, mispronounced vowel, repetition, omission, reversal, hesitation, disregard for punctuation and word-for-word reading. Similarly, the same procedure was done in grade VI. The findings show that the grade VI pupils committed eight out of the ten error-type committed by the grade IV pupils. They are ranked as follows: substitution, insertion, omission, mispronunciation, repetition, reversal, hesitation and mispronounced vowel. 2. How do the Ilocano pupils in grades IV and VI compare in their oral reading difficulties? The means of the sum and aggregate frequencies of errors were computed by sec and by grade. To find out whether significant difference exists between sexes and grade levels, the means of the sum of the frequency of errors by sec and by grade were compared with the used of the t-test. The same procedure was used to find out whether a significant difference exists between the means of the grades IV and VI pupils in the big and small schools in the public elementary schools in Baguio City. 3. What are the possible causes of the common oral reading difficulties among the Ilocano grade IV and VI pupils? The errors recorded for each reader were classified as substitution, mispronunciation, repetition, omission, mispronounced vowel, word-for-word reading or disregard for punctuation. After having classified the errors, the nature of the difficulties were further analyzed. Attempts were made to ascertain the words commonly substituted, reversed, mispronounced, hesitated or repeated. The position of the errors in the word, that it, whether it was in the initial, medial or terminal position were likewise identified. From this analyzes made in the errors, the following came out to be the possible causes of the oral reading difficulties: poor word recognition, in adequate reading vocabulary, failure to discriminate speck sounds, carelessness, carry-over effect of the home language on the second language and the poor habit in oral reading. 1. The almost identical error-type committed by the grades IV and VI pupils imply that a school reading should include provisions for the development of skills necessary to prevent or at least minimize these reading difficulties in all grade levels. 2. The total frequency of errors in oral reading tests fir both grades show that the most common reading difficulty is substitution. Analyses of the substitution errors seem to point out that poor word recognition and limited vocabulary are the causative factors of this difficulty. The reading program of the schools, therefore, should strengthen the vocabulary development phase of its program to increase the pupils’ reading vocabulary. Increased vocabulary would bring about improved word recognition. Likewise, the teaching of the phonics should be evaluated to find out ways and means of revitalizing it to make it an effective tool in the development of reading skills. 3. The findings reveal that proficiency in oral reading is in a certain measure affected by the length of time the language is taught to the pupils. This justifies the inclusion of English as a subject as early as in grade I. From the findings obtained in this study, the following conclusions should be drawn: 1. Generally, Ilocano pupils in grades IV and VI have common types of oral reading difficulties. These substitution, mispronunciation, insertion, mispronounced vowel, repetition, omission, reversal, hesitation, disregard for punctuation and word-for-word reading. 2. Substitution is the most common oral reading difficulty for both Ilocano pupils in grades IV and VI. 3. There is no sex difference within the grade in oral reading difficulties. 4. Ilocano pupils in grade VI perform better in oral reading than the Ilocano pupils in grade IV. 5. There is no significant difference in the reading performance of the pupils in big and small schools. The results of the study pointed out the need to improve the oral reading proficiency of both grade IV and VI pupils. To this end, the following measures are hereby suggested. 1. The following are already being done in the reading program of the Bureau of Public Schools but stress should be given to develop more proficient readers. a. Diagnostic oral reading test should be given at the beginning of the school year to determine the pupils’ reading level and to determine the nature of error-types committed by them. By doing this errors could be minimized if not prevented. b. There should be a continuing evaluation of the reading performance of the pupils. c. School reading programs should be provide a functional program on remedial reading instructions to help the pupils with reading difficulties. 2. A. Special reading teacher should be assigned in every school. While it is true that all teachers are reading teachers, their competency to diagnose the reading difficulties and to select the appropriate remedial measures for a particular difficulty is still inadequate to produce the desired result. A reading teacher with special training for this task could undoubtedly do better than one who does not have such training. 3. Attention should be given to the developmental skills such as word attack skills through the use of pictures, configuration, context clues and vocabulary skills for independent word recognition; comprehension and study skills for location and interpretative skills. 4. A replication of this study is suggested to find out if the common oral reading difficulties found in this study are common to all pupils in grades IV and VI with different home language.