IMPROVING THE READING LEVEL OF GRADE 2- MATIYAGA LEARNERS

THROUGH
READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM
I. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand a written passage of text.

It’s the bridge between the passive reader and active reader, and the crucial link to

effective reading – essential for a rich academic, professional, and personal life.

Reading comprehension involves several different processes, such as imagining

what the words describe, understanding the context of the book, and being able to

answer questions related to a text. Without reading and comprehension skills,

children will struggle to grow academically, as reading is the foundation to all

academic subjects such as History, Mathematics, and Science. It also influences

your child's ability to write. (Keyser, Adele Feb. 19, 2021)

The findings from the 2018 Program International Student Assessment (PISA)

are in, revealing which countries scored better according to certain indicators. This

global assessment of education systems is done every three years by the

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), measuring 15-

year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills

to meet real-life challenges.

China and Singapore ranked first and second in math, science, and reading,

followed by Elstonia and Canada.

According to the PISA 2018 Insights and interpretations report, “The aim with

PISA was not to create another layer of top-down accountability, but to help schools

and policymakers shift from looking upward within the education system towards

looking outward to the next teacher, the next school, the next country.

“In essence, PISA counts what counts, and makes that information available

to educators and policymakers so they can make more informed decisions. The
OECD countries that initiated PISA tried to make PISA different from traditional

assessments in other ways too.

Overall, while certain countries have improved their rankings since the last

assessment in 2015, the scores don’t show a significant rise over the years, despite

heavy investment in education systems in certain countries. The reading proponent

on the test show that there is an overall declining interest in reading, and that reading

skills are not improving on time – although they have improved in a few countries

such as Scotland.

The assessment found that there is a certain drop in literacy rates. Reading

skills have not improved significantly over the past few years, even in high- and

middle-class-income countries. According to the report, “Over ten million students

represented by PISA in 2018 were not able to complete even the most basic reading

tasks – and these were 15-year-olds living in the 79 high- and middle-income

countries that participated in the test.”

However, when measuring literacy, the test went beyond reading

comprehension. The PISA 2018 defined reading literacy as “understanding, using,

evaluating, reflecting on and engaging with texts in order to achieve one’s goals, to

develop one’s knowledge and potential, and to participate in society.”

The assessment found that the proportion of 15-year-olds who scored at the

highest levels (Level 5 or 6 on the PISA reading test) rose only slightly since the last

assessment in 2009 – from 7 percent to 9 percent in 2018. Even in high-performing

Singapore, only one in four 15-year-old students achieved the highest level.

The lack of increase in reading ability could be tied to the rise to technology,

as the survey also found that reading habits have also changed in this digitally

focused generation.
 The findings showed that “students seem to read less for leisure and to read

fewer books of fiction, magazines or newspapers because they want to (as oppose d

to because they have to). Instead, they read more to fulfil practical needs, and they

read more in online formats, such as chats, online news or websites containing

practical information.” In fact, the survey found an increase in students who find

reading “a waste of time”, and that fewer students read for enjoyment purposes.

Therefore, schools must do more to increase reading proficiency and foster a natural

interest in reading.

In this era of fake news and accessibility of information via the internet,

students must also have digital literacy when it comes to reading online. As the report

states, “All students need to be able to read complex texts, distinguish between

credible and untrustworthy sources of information, and between fact and fiction, and

question or seek to improve the accepted knowledge and practices of our times.”

(https://www.studyinternational.com/news/pisa-2018-reading-skills-improve

worldwide/)

The Philippines scored second to the lowest in reading comprehension

among the participating countries and economies in PISA 2018. Consequently, the

result of the national assessments of the Department of Education reveals that there

are still many early grade learners struggling to meet the learning standard in early

language, literacy, and numeracy; low achievement levels in English, Math, and

Science appear to be caused by gaps in learner's reading comprehension which

means that there are many low performing learners who could not comprehend (read

and understand) Math and Science word problems that are written in English. Hence,

they are unable to demonstrate knowledge in these subjects; Lastly, Elementary, and

high school learners are still deficient in literacy skills both in languages and content

areas, more so in reading.

affecting the accumulation and development of reading skills. Early evidence shows

that COVID-19 will slow down the goal of lowering learning poverty—which is defined

as the percentage of 10-year-old children who cannot read and understand a simple

story—by at least half the global rate by 2030. Pre-COVID, it was estimated that the

global learning poverty would go down from 53 percent in 2015 to 27 percent by

2030; post-COVID, it is 43 percent by 2030. Learning poverty for the Philippines was

estimated at 69.5 percent in 2019 based on TIMSS (Trends in International

Mathematics and Science Study) 2003 outcomes. With the impact of COVID-19,

learning poverty could further increase vastly affecting the development and

acquisition of reading skills.

In a move to bridge literacy gaps among learners, the Department of

Education (DepEd) is intensifying its campaign on reading proficiency with the

unveiling of the Hamon: Bawat Bata Bumabasa (3Bs) initiative on November 25,

2019, at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC). With previous

national assessments revealing that learners still need improvement in literacy skills,

DepEd’s 3Bs initiative encourages offices from central to division level and schools to

intensify their advocacies for reading to make every learner a reader at their grade

level and capacitate teachers to become effective reading instructors, according to

DepEd Memorandum No. 173, s2019. (https://www.deped.gov.ph/2019/11/28/bawat-

bata-bumabasa-a-priority-in-depeds-quest-for-quality-education/)

In DepEd Region 1, results of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-

IRI) revealed a relatively high number of learners struggling to meet the learning

standards of literacy.
 The pre-test result of the FLAT for the Grade II-Matiyaga learners during this

present school year showed that more than half of the percentage of the class fell in

the below letter level. It is in this context that the researcher will conduct the study to

improve the reading level, comprehension, and vocabulary skills of the selected

learner-participants through a Reading Intervention Program.

Several theories led teachers to beliefs about instructional choices to help

children develop successful reading skills.

Schema theory is an explanation of how readers use prior knowledge to

comprehend and learn from the text (Rumelhart, 1980). The term "schema" was first

used in psychology by Barlett as "an active organization of past reactions or

experiences" (1932,p.201), the later schema was introduced in reading by Rumelhalt

(1980), Carrell (1981), and Hudson (1982) when discussing the important role of

background knowledge in reading comprehension (all cited in An, 2013). The

fundamental principle of the schema theory assumes that written text does not carry

meaning by itself. Rather, a text-only provides directions for readers as to how they

should retrieve or construct meaning from their own previously acquired knowledge

(An, 2013).

According to schema theory, comprehending a text is an interactive process

between the reader's background knowledge and the text. Efficient comprehension

requires the ability to relate textual material to one's knowledge. As Anderson (1977,

p.369) points out, "every act of comprehension involves one's knowledge of the world

as well". Reading comprehension operates in two directions, from the bottom up to

the top and from the top down to the bottom of the hierarchy. Bottom-up processing

is activated by specific data from the text, while top-down processing starts with

general to confirm these predictions. These two kinds of processing are occurring
simultaneously and interactively, which adds to the concept of interaction or

comprehension between bottom-up and top-down processes (Carrel and Eiserhold,

1983. Cited in An, 2013).

Another theory is Constructivism. Constructivism emerged in the 1970s and

1980s, giving rise to the idea that learners are not passive recipients of information,

but that they actively construct their knowledge in interaction with the environment

and through the reorganization of their mental structures. Learners are therefore

viewed as sense-makers, not simply recording given information but interpreting it.

This view of learning led to the shift from the "knowledge-acquisition" to the

"knowledge-construction" metaphor. The growing evidence in support of the

constructive nature of learning was also in line with and backed by the earlier work of

influential theorists such as Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner. While there are different

versions of constructivism, what is found in common is the learner-centered

approach whereby the teacher becomes a cognitive guide of the learner's learning

and not a knowledge transmitter.

Lastly, the researchers have the Universal Grammar by Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky concluded that children must have an inborn faculty for language

acquisition. According to this theory, the process is biologically determined - the

human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain linguistic

information at birth. The child's natural predisposition to learn a language is triggered

by hearing speech and the child's brain can interpret what s/he hears according to

the underlying principles or structures it already contains. This natural faculty has

become known as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Chomsky did not suggest

that an English child is born knowing anything specific about English, of course. He

stated that all human languages share common principles. For example, they all
have words for things and actions - nouns and verbs. It is the child's task to establish

how the specific language s/he hears expresses these underlying principles.

The above-mentioned theories guided the researchers in their study because

it is much related to the study.

Furthermore, the result of this study will help the educators of Siwsiwan

Elementary School in crafting and implementing their School Reading Intervention

Program.

II. ACTION RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study will seek to answer the following questions:

1. What is the reading status of Grade II-Matiyaga learners before and after

the implementation of the Reading Intervention Program?

2. Is there a significant difference in the reading level of Grade II-Matiyaga

learners before and after the implementation of the Reading-Intervention

Program?

3. What are the perceived benefit/s of the Reading Intervention Program to

the learners, parents, and teachers during this pandemic?

III. PROPOSED INNOVATIONS, INTERVENTIONS, AND STRATEGY

The growing concern about the worsening handicap in the reading of many

learners, specifically in reading comprehension, posits one of the most pressing

challenges in terms of communication in the country today, especially during this time

of the pandemic.
 Reading Intervention provides students with an opportunity to increase

reading, writing, test taking, and study skills at their instructional level. Each class is

designed to meet the individual needs of students within a small group setting. The

pace of instruction is modified to allow for different rates of learning.

A key aspect of reading intervention is developing self-esteem through

acquisition of reading and writing skills and strategies. Students gain confidence and

their skills improve through instruction in decoding, comprehension, writing, study

skills, and test taking strategies across our school district curricula and units of

study. Students read fiction and nonfiction books that are chosen to dovetail with the

regular class curricula but are written at the students' instruction level. Students

also have many opportunities to write in response to reading.

Learners who will attend reading intervention are part of a community of

learners who have an opportunity to increase their skills to become strong

and confident readers and writers.

Anchored on the action plan of the teacher’s Project:Read, the Reading

Intervention Program is offered to learners in Grade 2 Matiyaga. Learners are

selected based on teacher recommendation, class performance, and FLAT

assessment results.

Upon determining the learners to be catered, the teacher/researcher shall

prepare the needed materials needed in the intervention program. Printout of

excerpts of reading passages from books shall be produced accordingly. One

reading passage shall be given every month within six months.

A meeting shall be held with the selected community reading facilitators

(partners/paraprofessionals) to provide them details and understanding of the

intervention program to be done as well as coaching and mentoring following the

IATF protocols.

The school shall write a letter of request and secure permission from the

Local Government Unit to allow them to hold the reading intervention program. Small
groups of learners, (composing of five to ten) shall meet once a week with the

selected community facilitators as well as reading teachers at the school in a

specified place to convene to receive supplemental support that complements

classroom curricula and instruction that shall run within a six-month duration. For

learners who will be absent during their scheduled meeting, the

teachers/researchers/reading facilitator shall call the learner via Messenger and

make him/her read the passage of the month with follow-up questions and exercises.

As an extension of reading class, learners in Grade 2 Matiyaga will read self-

selected books for homework each night. These books have been leveled so that

each student can easily select "just right books" for reading at home.

Progress reports and feedbacks shall be issued monthly, and parent

conferences will be scheduled monthly in concert with the reading

teacher/community facilitator.

Parents are always welcome to visit their child's reading intervention class or

to make additional appointments to discuss their child's progress.

IV. ACTION RESEARCH METHODS

A. Sources of Data

The participants of the study are selected Grade 2 Matiyaga learners that are

currently enrolled at San Gabriel Central School, San Gabriel, La Union for the

school year 2022-2023.

B. Data Gathering Methods

that involves observing and describing the development of the participants'

reading skills.

2. The main data gathering tool of the study is the FLAT. The said tool in

assessing reading competence is a valid and reliable tool developed by the

Department of Education. This made the researchers decide not to subject

the tool to further validation and pilot testing.

C. Data Analysis Plan

The percentage of correct answers to comprehension questions will be used

to qualify the profile of the pupils.

1. To address the first problem of the study, the mean will be utilized to

determine the reading level of Grade 2 Matiyaga learners through

Reading Intervention Program

2. To answer the second problem, T-test dependent will be used to

determine if there is a significant difference in the reading level of Grade 5

learners before and after the implementation.

3. What are the perceived benefit results using the Reading Intervention

Program?
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