Raising the Reading Skills of Grade 3 Students of Bagumbayan Central

School

An Undergraduate Action Research

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course of

Field Study 1 and 2

Ramos, Leonardo R. l Losañes, Junjun l Cabildo, Judylyn A.

Context and Rationale

Reading is a complex process as it involves sensation, perception,

comprehension, application, and integration (Tomas, M.J, Villaros, E., Galman S.M,

2021). It requires so much more than knowing what’s in the printed materials. Aracelo

(1994) as cited by Panerio (2008) reported that “85% of the things that people do

involve reading”. Individuals read street signs, advertisements, menus in restaurants

and recipes from cook books, dosage of medicine and others. Reading serves as one of

the foundations of the students in in-depth learning.

According to Bagulong, N. and Usop, A. (2021) In Early Childhood, phonemic

awareness and alphabet knowledge were being taught, it serves as a foundation, before

actually teaching the students to read texts, however, students still struggle in fluency

and understanding the text that students read. Despite the practices during Early

Childhood Education, the reading skills of the students is still low.

Philippines is one of the countries that participated in PISA or also known as

Program for International Student Assessment that happened last 2018. The PISA

revealed that reading skills of Filipino students ages 15 years old and below were

significantly lower than the other participating countries. The assessment revealed that,

80% of the Filipino students did not reach the minimum level of proficiency in reading. It

also implies that the students low scores in tests or exams were because of the

students lack of ability in basic reading and comprehension ( Tomas, M., Villaros, E. and
Galman, S. 2021 The Perceived Challenges in Reading of Learners: Basis for School

Reading Programs).

The complexity of reading is not the only reason why students have low reading

skills. According to the study of Dr. Tan, A. (2018) the students that were assessed

during the PISA 2018 came from low-income backgrounds where family and school

environments do not motivate growth mindsets. Ms. Rochelle Irene G. Lucas, Chair of

DLSU’s Department of English and Applied Linguistics also stated that students

belonging to lower income groups may find academic requirements as a burden as they

prioritize work to help their families earn a living. The study of Dr. Tan, A. (2018)

confirmed that the child’s environment and resources motivates the children to learn

and improve their skills and learning. The low awareness of reading strategy is also one

of the reasons why reading skills of the students is low. According to Allan Benedict I.

Bernardo, Chair of DLSU’s Counseling and Educational Psychology Department, there

were students who identified themselves as having difficulty in reading, thus the

motivation to read dies down. Based on the articles and studies in this action research

improving the reading skills of the students is possible.

This action research aims to improve the learning of the grade 3 students in

Bgumbayan Elementary School by helping the students to improve their reading skills.

Improving the reading skills of the students means helping them to have a higher order

thinking skills which will help them to have critical-thinking and problem solving skills

that the students can use in real-life situation.

Action Research Questions

This study aims to improve the reading skills of Grade 3 students section

Swan at Bagumbayan Elementary School. Specifically, it will seek answers to the

following questions:

1. What are the issues and concerns that affects the reading skills of grade 3

section Swan involving:

a. teachers

b. students

c. parents

or

what are the issues and concerns of grade 3 section swan students in terms of

reading?

2. What are the current program/s/ activity/ies at BCES in relation to improving the

reading skills of the/ grade 3 students?

3. What strategies can be implemented to further improve the reading skills of

grade 3 section swan students?

 Propose Innovation, Intervention and Strategy

The grade 3 students from Bagumbayan Central School has a total population of

120 students, and 45% of the grade 3 population doesn’t know how to read or have low

reading skills. With this, the researchers realized that an additional program is needed

in order to further improve the reading skills of the students.

To further improve the grade 3 swan students reading skills teachers and

researchers should know the reason behind the students’ low reading skills and the

teachers should also know how to improve low reading skills. There are also other

reading variables aside from the students’ reason, such as: negative self-reading

concept, low awareness of reading strategies, low enjoyment of reading and low

reading of fiction for leisure (Lacsamana, B. 2021).

The Department of Education launched its reading program to combat the

existing learning problems in public schools. According to National Economic and

Development Authority, one of the partner agency of DepEd in combating learning

problems, students in Australia were being rewarded in every book that they’ve read.

Based on the researchers’ observation to grade 3 swan, students were not

motivated to read. Most of the students thought that reading is not enjoyable and that

they rather play than read. In order to motivate the children to read, it’s important to

know the students interest. Hildebrand, K. (2019) stated that the teachers teaching

strategy has a huge impact on students learning. The students interest can be use by

the teacher to gain the attention of the students.

 Teachers should also put reading corners in the classroom. In kindergarten

classroom there are different corners where the multiple intelligence and interests of the

students were being catered. Putting reading corner inside the classroom will help the

students to gain interest in reading. Teachers just need to make sure that the reading

will be cozy and interesting.

In the reading program that DepEd launched, the teachers should assess the

students reading skills first before teaching them how to read. Assessing the students

reading skills will help the teacher to figure out where to start and how to start. Each and

every student have different learning style that the teacher should know to effectively

increase the students’ ability to read.

According to Hildebrand (2019) to encourage reading, teachers should also do

read-aloud in the class. Teachers can do story-telling once or twice a week. Through

read-aloud, teachers can also introduce parts of the book or introduce new words.

Teachers can also model sounding out tricky words and after reading, teachers can ask

questions to assess if the children understood the story.

Another strategy is to let the students to choose a book that they want to read.

Letting the students to choose the book that they will read gives independence and

ownership of their reading. It also gives the students belief that the students have the

ability or freedom to choose the book that the students want.

Reading, for most of the students is not an enjoyable, that is why the teachers

should make remedial reading enjoyable and interesting.