Factors Affecting Reading Ability of Non-Readers in Dao-an National High School

CHAPTER ONE

The problem

I. Introduction

The act of reading involves examining a collection of written symbols and deriving
meaning from them. When we read, our brains translate the written symbols—letters,
punctuation, and spaces—that our eyes see into words, sentences, and paragraphs that make
sense to us. We can read silently (in our heads) or out loud (so that other people can hear). The
best way to learn something new is by reading. It is a healthy practice that promotes optimistic
thinking. Because it imparts valuable life lessons, it's an effective method to decompress and
lower stress. It aids in your thought process and opinion expression. Additionally, it enhances
interpersonal skills, shapes personality, and improves us as people. Undoubtedly, reading is a
skill. It needs to be picked up and learned. Many different things influence it. The first factor is
the reader's general proficiency in the target language. Let's define this procedure and expertise.

Ability is described as a person's capacity to carry out various activities in a certain

career. To put it simply, ability refers to your capacity for action. Ability, often known as talent,
is the capacity to perform a task. The process of comprehending written text is called reading.
Reading is a communication skill that allows the reader and the writer to exchange knowledge
and information. Writing, listening, and speaking exercises all aid in the development of reading
skills. Your goals will be best met by utilizing the relationships between skills, especially the
reading and writing connection, even in classes that may be categorized as reading.

According to Pahwin Alfarizi, Dahma, Fitri Ani Siregar and Deslina Sari, 2020 reading is
one of the most important skills in English and it gives many benefits for us. Reading is the
window of the world reading is bringing meaning to the students can enlarge their language and
it can also make them. Reading is the process of looking at a series of written symbols and
getting meaning from them. When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbol (letters,
punctuation and marks and spaces) and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences
and paragraphs that communicate something of us. In short, reading is a process of
communication from the writer to the reader by understanding the written or printed materials.
Reading comprehension is not merely a process of exact identification of letters, words, and
ultimately sentences leading to comprehension built from letter to word to phrase to sentence.
Readers make use of their existing background knowledge (schemata) to make predictions about
what is coming next in the text and about how some new, unfamiliar piece of information relates
to what is already known. It is clear basic decoding processes are important for readers in
comprehension and are used by readers in interaction with the more complex processes of
meaning generation. However, it is equally clear that readers engage in reading in order to gain
information.

In language learning, mastering all four skills is considered ideal. Some say speaking
comes naturally, even in the learning of a foreign language. Listening sis also a language skill
many links with the skills of speaking. One needs to listen to how a language sounds to be able
to imitate the sounds. Writing skills, although has been seen as a difficult skill by many, are
skills that people need -be it formally or informally. Finally, comes reading skills. There are
extensive reading skills where people read on a regular basis – “feeding” on information that can
either be considered as leisure, formal or even academic. When it comes to academic reading
many have mixed feelings-making that of fear. (Michael L. Estremera and Geraldine L.
Estremera, 2018).

Ülper (2019) states that reading is a linguistic process, the features of the language used
by the author should be known, in other words, decoding the linguistic code of the text is
important at this point. reading comprehension; refers to processes such as associating words,
comprehending, inferring, evaluating, reacting.
When students get home or have free time, reading does not appeal as an option because
of the mindset that it is not fun. Parental involvement in early childhood reading is favorably
associated with children's reading ability, and parental reading companionship also nurtures early
reading ability (Silinskas, 2012). Relevant studies stated that even when parents do not guide
their young children's formal reading or writing, a youngster who read with their parents and
scrawl graffiti at home begin reading and writing quite early. These activities help children
recognize the characters in their environment, which leads to more opportunities (Deng, 2015).
It has been found that the cooperation of the school and families on reading
comprehension plays an important role on the performance of the students. When teachers and
parents involve in their children’s education, not only students will have higher achievement in
schools but also the morale and the motivation of the individuals will increase. Considering that
reading is one of the most powerful sources of learning, reading books, articles, and newspapers
is evidently a crucial concomitant of intellectual engagement. Because reading is not limited with
respect to content, it comes close to the “hungry mind” that is open to new ideas. (Sait Akbaşlı,
Mehmet Şahin, and Zeliha Yaykiran, 2016).

Learning to read is essential to learners’ well-being. Reading habit is however the single

most important determinant of a student’s success in education and in the modern complex
society (State, n.d.) A child who cannot read at a comfortable level will experience significant
difficulties mastering many types of academic content and may have the risk tofail in school
(Reid, n.d.). It was further stressed that every learner must become
fully proficient in reading to be successful in school. (Jocelyn Eyorcadas, 2020).
 
(Aina, A J;Okusaga, T.O.; Taiwo,Adebowale and Ogundipe, 2011). Moreover, Cayubit
(2015) added that any Filipino childwith sufficient reading skills would have greater chances of
success in school compared toa child whose reading skills are poor.Due to the importance of
reading, it became a dream of every teacher that everystudent in her class is a reader who can
acquire knowledge, skills and understanding to combat the challenges of life in order to meet the
global demand. In the journal Reading Culture: A Panacean for Educational
Development published by Delta State, reading is the Corner stone of learning. Thus, one can
safely say that reading is the backbone of learning Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and
other subjects. However, the reality shows that many young learners are experiencing some kind
of difficulty and struggles in learning to read especially in our present world where there are
many distractions like games and other social media, which make their interest in reading suffer.
In fact, because of technological development and the widespread of the use of social media,
students ‘reading habits are changing. Today, while technology is slowly taking a steady control
over individual lives, the reading habit is fast vanishing. Students now lack the skill and interest
in reading and instead they spend more hours on electronic media, playing online games and
browsing their Facebook and Twitter accounts (Adu-sarkodee, Asante, & Akussah, 2015).

Many children who have been brought to us an non-readers with individual instruction
and proper motivation, learned to read quite easily by ordinary methods when they were given
individual instruction and proper motivation; others proved to be mentally deficient. (Grace M.
Fernald & Helen Keller, 2014).

According to Mendoza (2015), learning institutions need to intensify renewed efforts as

well as commitment in promoting and sustaining effective skill, in a rapidly changing
condition. Most often, the determinant of a successful learning institution is through their
students’ reading proficiency. Apparently, in the Philippines, the ability to read and write is our
priority that the government puts effort to promote effective readers and enhance high
literacy. One can be literate, but not necessarily a reader because reading is a skill that requires
the development of a habit that must be exercised regularly, if it is to be retained and enhanced.
Consequently, non-reader can be considered as having with reading disability. Anon-
reader is an individual, with a reading disability, who demonstrates difficulties in reading skills
that are unexpected in relation to age, cognitive ability, quantity and quality of instruction, and
intervention. The reading difficulties are not the result of generalized developmental delay or
sensory impairment. Reading disability may be characterized by: • difficulties in single word
reading; • initial difficulties decoding or sounding out words; • difficulties reading sight words; •
insufficientphonological processing; that is, the understanding that sentences are comprised of w
ords, words aremade up of syllables, and syllables are made up of individual sounds
or phonemes. (Jocelyn Eyorcadas, 2020).

A number of variables, such as learning strategies, motivation, family support, classroom

instruction, etc., have an impact on students' reading literacy. These variables can essentially be
broken down into three levels: individual, family, and educational. Success as a reader requires a
number of different talents to come together in a youngster. Understanding these fundamental
elements of reading development and, more importantly, implementing instructional strategies
that have been shown effective are essential for both general and special education.

Statement of the Problem

1. What is the level of the reading comprehension/ability of non-readers in Dao-an National

High School?
 2. How may the following physical factors, cognitive factors, family factors, alphabet
principle, and phonemic awareness affect the reading ability of non-readers?
3. Which among the factors greatly affect the reading ability of non-readers in Dao-an
National High School?
4. Are there significant relationships among those factors and the reading ability of the non-
readers?
Hypothesis

There is no significant relationships among physical factors, cognitive factors, family factors,
alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness and the reading ability of non-readers.
Conceptual Framework

Factors
 Physical factors
 Cognitive factors Reading Ability
 Family factors
 Alphabetic principle
 Phonemic awareness
Scope and Limitation

The study entitled “Factors Affecting Reading Ability of Non-readers in Dao-an National High
School”. The study will only circle in Dao-an National High School.

Significant of the Study

The findings of this study are significant to the following:

Students. To motivate and make the students enthusiasm in the learning process especially in
reading teaching and helpful for student will be able to create more enjoyable and meaningful
learning.

Teachers. This method makes the teachers easy in teaching reading and this expect to give useful
contribution in teaching reading and give another way for the teacher develop student’s reading.

Principal. This made the principal aware of students in this category and the need to offer them
assistance.

School. This research useful to improve the quality of education and develop English language
teaching to the school.

Researcher. The researcher will improve his/her knowledge in teaching reading method and
have experience in observation and apply with classroom action research at school.

Definitions of Terms

For a clearer and better understanding of the study, the following terms in the study are defined
conceptually and operationally.

Reading – is making meaning from print. It requires that we: identify the words in print a
process called word recognition.

Readers - someone who reads for pleasure, especially a person who reads a lot.

Non-readers – this are those who does not and cannot read.

Reading difficulty – is defined from a normative perspective, how a child performs in reading
compared with peers or educational expectation.

Reading ability - is skill of communication between the reader and the writer to get knowledge
and information

Social effective strategies – is the strategy which are non-academic in nature and involve
stimulating learning by establish a level of empathy between the lecturer and students.

Cognitive – is defined as ‘the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understand
through thought, experience, and the senses.
 CHAPTER TWO

Review and Related Literature

This chapter includes the ideas, finished thesis, published journals, generalizations or
conclusions, and other parts that may help strengthen the study. Those that were included in this
chapter will help in supporting and making a strong proof that are relevant and similar to the present
study.
Relevant literature to the study was discussed in this chapter. The review was presented
under the following sub-headings. Foreign literature, Local literature, Foreign Studies and Local
studies.

Reading

Reading is a complex process involving word recognition, comprehension, fluency, and

motivation. Reading is more than just making meaning from prints but it involves interaction
with the texts. In school, reading is one of the most important skills a learner should
develop. Reading is a life skill that will enable learners to extend their concepts and gain
information as the basis for other learning. (Jocelyn Eyorcadas, 2020).

Reading is a complex process that involves sensation, perception, comprehension,

application and integration. It is the process of making and getting meaning from printed words
and symbols. Reading as a whole, is a means of communication and of information and ideas. As
a matter of fact, Aracelo (1994) as cited by Panerio [1] 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. Moreover, reading is the
foundation of academic success and life learning. One article from Philippine Star [2] states that:
“The undeniable fact remains that majority of Filipino students do not possess the ability and
motivation to read. In 2007, the Department of Education reported that 70 percent or our learners
are incapable of reading within the expected level. This is the situation of reading achievement
intensifies in the Philippines as evaluated by Scholastic Inc., the world’s largest publisher and
distributor of children’s book”. Due to the fast-evolving world and changing technology it cannot
be denied that sometimes reading is taken for granted. Former DepEd Sec. Abad deplored the
poor performance of the pupils’ assessment test and said that, the low scores in English,
Mathematics and Science can be attributed to pupils’ lack of ability in basic reading and
comprehension. In addition, he said that one of the major problems in reading is the poor reading
comprehension, which leads to poor understanding of printed symbols. (Michael L. Estremera
and Geraldine L, Estremera , 2018).

Reading is defined as the complex cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive

meaning. It is an important skill to help people learn from human knowledge and experience. If
one does not know how to read, then he is derived from the chance to discover truths—of
discerning what is believable from not—and understanding everything around him. Through
reading, knowledge has greatly contributed to the growth of mankind. Parents have taught their
children to read in the hopes of securing them a better future. However, as our systems have been
modernized, certain issues have surfaced, which led to the reading difficulty of a large number of
students, particularly in this generation. Difficulty in reading is a deficiency in a person's fluent
use and comprehension of written language. It does not only torment children but also adults. It
is not only a problem for students but also their parents, their teachers, and the community they
belong to. Newly developed programs and advanced systems made it easier for us to detect if
one experiences reading difficulty. However, the increase in reported cases shows that the
system needs improvement. For ages, reading difficulty has always been a problem. Although
the silent minority has remained discreet, the increasing number of students who have difficulty
in reading is alarming. (John Cerbito Famela Mae Medel, Fayerose Asid, Jhon Lenard Martin,
Jemmalyn Miguel, and Milagros Edillor, 2020).

Reading has played the best role in the transformation of societies from nomadic to
agriculture; agriculture to industrial; industrial to information and knowledge-based societies. It
has played a crucial role to transform humans from wild wanderers to world leaders. However,
with the technological advances, many new hobbies have taken a greater time slice of human
lives, which ultimately affects the readin habits of people as well. Therefore, the authors have
suggested “The Five Laws of Reading” in the present study with the hope that these laws can
serve as guiding and inspiring forces to keep the habit of reading alive in all technology- driven
societies among humans in times to come. These five laws are: Reading is an intellectual diet of
the mind, Develop a habit of reading early, Fix the time slot for reading daily, Save the future of
your life, and Reading is a continuous process. Reading is the best habit without any worthy
substitute. It is of paramount importance for human society. However people have adopted
several new hobbies with the advancement of technologies and will be attracted to many new
habits in the future as well. Especially, the new generations will be more inclined towards new
technologies and reading may take a back seat. These five laws will remind the users the power
of reading and will probably guide them to keep reading habits intact till the dawn of human
civilizations. (Fayaz Ahmad Loa and Nahida Nasreen, 2021).
For the first time using a reading technique to assimilate educational material, there are
high possibilities your mind might go back to previous wordings. Although this might be enable
average reader at some level, the best advice is to make up your mind not to go back to wording
more than twice. Assimilation skills are a crucial technique you must posses as a student to
perform excellency in your studies. Although the early stage of assimilating educational material
might be challenging, you will soon become one of the best with enough commitment nd
practice. In addition, you can check out technological gadgets that prove effective while reading.
(Abass Quadri Olajide, 2022).

Non-Readers
 Non-readers cannot recognize words quickly and efficiently. They could notdemonstrate
high word recognition. They possess weak fluency skills. They read with no good expression,
intonation, pitch, and phrasing. To add, non-readers cannot recognize some letters or words like
own name, classroom labels, signs, and other environmental print (Mather & Goldstein,
2001).Thus, Saskatchewan (2013) urges that it is important for teachers to understand the critical
elements of reading instruction. Students who have a reading disability will require intensive
direct instruction. The critical elements of reading instruction include; strategies for reading
comprehension, strategies for building meaning using the cues and conventions of language
including phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development,
awareness of sentence structures, awareness of text structures
andorganizational patterns, and the pragmatics of text and reading fluency. 

In addition, Saskatchewan (2012), believed that Learning English language arts curricula
must focus on teaching students through an integrated process to help them understand
the relationship among the elements and how they relate to the ultimate goal of
reading. Expressive and receptive oral language provide the foundation for these elements. These
critical elements must be explicitly and intensively taught if students are to become proficient
readers and writers. Students who are at risk for reading failure require direct teaching through a
systematic format. Further, an extensive research has found out that each of the components is an
important element in teaching children to become proficient readers. A focus on any single
element is not sufficient to comprise an effective reading program. All elements need to bet
aught systematically and explicitly through a balanced approach. Only when all the elements are
taught in a balanced approach do students have the opportunity to become proficient readers who
can gain knowledge from print.

In the study made by Johnston (2010) emphasized that students with very weak reading
skills have serious academic problems, which can develop into social problems as they reach the
middle and high school years. Through years of failure and labeling, they often develop hard
shells of resistance to reading. They compensate with strong auditory and observational skills,
generally trying to avoid notice. Feeling helpless and hopeless, they may be vulnerable to anti-
social behavior.

Moreover, Stanovich (2014) describes the downward spiral of students who star tout
having trouble acquiring alphabetic coding skills and recognizing words. With these barriers,
they cannot read for meaning, and find reading increasingly unrewarding. They practice less and
have more negative experiences around reading. Increasingly, they avoid reading or merely
tolerate it, without really engaging in what’s being read. Emotional side effects begin to be
associated with school, and the entire school experience is impacted.
To rescue non-readers, we need programs that teach them to read well enough
to profit from their education. The research in this realm is voluminous and highly
controversial. Although most would agree that non-readers need explicit phonics instruction and
practice in the beginning phases of reading acquisition, there is serious disagreement about how,
when, and to what degree to integrate contextual reading. Researches on which types of
classroom programs have the greatest benefits for non-readers, and why specific remediation
approaches do and don’t produce results, are not generally accepted. Practitioners cannot wait
for consensus from the research front. They must develop approaches based on selected research,
balancing theories with direct experience to meet the pressing needs of their students. By
continuous monitoring and adjustment, drawing from the wide realm of commercially available
products, and tapping outside expertise as resources are available, schools can create programs
that make readers of all students. The only prerequisites are leadership, commitment, and support
(Lyons, 2012).

Factors

Researchers have proposed perceived factors affecting the reading skills of nonreaders,
including the phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, and student’s attitude towards reading,
study habits, physical factor, mental factor, socio-economic factors in the family and teacher-
student attitude. (Neljean N. Carbonel and Jonalyn S. Perfecio , 2015).

School readiness, according to maturationists, is a state at which all healthy young

children arrive when they can perform tasks such as reciting the alphabet and counting; these
tasks such as reciting the alphabet and counting; these tasks are required from learning more
complex tasks such as reading and arithmetic. Because development and school readiness occur
naturally and automatically, maturationists believe the best practices are for parents to teach
young children to recite the alphabet and count while being patient and waiting for children to
become ready for kindergarten. (Ollie Hae, 2016). Franci Bacon said, “Reading maketh a full
man”, Indeed, reading highly contribute to the development of individual especially in acquiring
knowledge and learning that will help them in learning more competitive and language literate.
The process of learning to read is a lengthy one that begins very early in life. Most children at
risk for reading difficulties enter school with little or no phonological awareness. Evidence is
accruing that indeed such training can be of particular benefit to youngsters at risk due to socio
economic disadvantage and/or weak initial preparedness in reading-related skills. Among the
reasons public attention has turned to the need for systematic prevention of reading difficulties
are the patterns of reading difficulty: failure to learn to read adequately is present among children
of low social risk who attend well-funded school and is much more likely among poor children,
among non-white children, and among non-native speakers of English.

Uniquely resource and text focuses on how teachers and school practitioners can
improve the academic skills, attitudes, and coping abilities of students with behavior and
adjustment problems. Presented are findings from the Classroom Strategy Study, which
identifies that work-and those that don’t work-for addressing a wide range of specific challenges
in the elementary middle grades. Integrating his own research with the relevant development and
educational psychology literature, Jere Brophy provides detailed guidance for meeting the needs
of individual students while maintaining an effective, supportive learning environment for the
whole class. (Gulford Press, 2015).
Family factors

A growing body of research has demonstrated that family factors play a very
important role in the development of students’ reading skills (Halle et al., 1997; Crosnoe
et al., 2010; Hongbo et al., 2016); it even suggests that family engagement is a better
predictor of student achievement compared to school engagement (Tatlisu et al., 2011),
and that schools cannot compensate for differences in reading skills because of family
differences (Banerjee and Lamb, 2016). Studies on family factors influencing students’
reading literacy center mainly on family financial situation and parents’ education level.

It has been found that students’ academic performance is significantly and positively
correlated with the family financial situation. In China, Han (2017) found that family income has
a significant influence on children’s education level, and the increasing family income can
improve their education level. Family influence on reading literacy exists from early childhood.
For instance, Crosnoe et al. (2010) claimed that children from families of high socioeconomic
status are more likely to be exposed to stimulating environment that are critical to children’s
reading, and early learning differences usually exist as the child grows, and the differences in
reading skills are more significant across financial levels in the later stages of learning (Welch,
2013; Goldfeld et al., 2021). In addition, Hongbo et al. (2016) showed that families with better
financial conditions can provide their children with access to more reading resources and
educational chance to promote reading competence, which is consistent with findings of Silin et
al. (2014), who indicated that high-ESCS families usually possess more cultural capital. For low-
ESCS families, in contrast, there are many mediating variables associated with poor reading
development such as higher rates of absenteeism and mobility, and less parental encouragement
of academic pursuits (Buckingham et al., 2013).

A short-term (31-day) reading program, designed to provide age-appropriate reading

material, to train teachers in their use, and to support teachers’ initial efforts for about a month,
improves students’ reading skills by 0.13 standard deviations. The effect is still present three
months after the program but diminishes to 0.06 standard deviations, probably due to a reduced
emphasis on reading after the program. We find that the program also encourages students to
read more on their own at home. We find no evidence that improved reading ability improves
test scores on other subjects. (Amma Abeberese, Tood J. Kumler, and Leigh L. Linden, 2017).
One of the most difficult aspects of pedagogy is teaching reading. This study looked into
the pre-, during, and post-reading strategies used by English teachers in a public secondary
school, as well as the obstacles they experienced when teaching reading. This study used a
mixed-methods approach, with a survey-questionnaire to collect quantitative data and a semi-
structured interview used to collect qualitative data. The research included eighteen (18) senior
high school English teachers. Teachers utilize pre-, during-, and post-reading methods
extensively, according to the findings. Teachers invite students to generate questions about the
topic during pre-reading exercises. Teachers use during-reading strategies such as asking
students to identify the main concept of the reading material and asking questions to evaluate
their understanding. They ask students to complete a task (as a post-reading strategy), and the
semi-structured interview reveals that the respondents' top challenges are students' vocabulary
size and teachers' lack of training. Based on the findings of this study, supplementary reading
material was developed to assist English language teachers in teaching reading in their respective
classes. (Jonalina Ligudon and Lhea Ildefonso, 2022).

Chapter 3

Methodology

This chapter presents the methods that were employed to achieve research objectives.
This methodology will present the research design, research locale, target population, research
instruments, data collection and data analysis.

Research Design

The researcher will be using a Descriptive-quantitative research design. The researcher

attempted to get the answers to the aforementioned problem and to justify and satisfy the
objectives of the study.

According to Sis International Research, quantitative research is a structured way of

collecting and analyzing data obtained from the different sources. Quantitative research involves
the use of computational, statistical, and mathematical tools to derive results. In is conclusive in
its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and understand how prevalent it is by looking for
projectable results to a larger population.

Research Locale

The research was carried out of the non-readers in Dao-an National High School located
at Purok San Francisco, Dao-an, San Miguel, Zamboanga Del Sur which caters to the different
skills, talents and learning needs of students enrolled in K to 12 Curriculum. That will be
considered in the study which is to identify the factors affecting reading ability of non-readers in
Dao-an National High School.

Map of Dao-an National High School

Photo from the google map

Target Population

The study target population involved 23 non-readers on Dao-an National High School.
The sample was drawn from this population.

Table 1: Target Population

Categories Respondents
Students 23
Total respondents 23

Table 1 showed the target population which is 23 respondents that we will be studying.

Research Respondents

Purposive sampling will be used in the selection of informants. Participants to this study
will be the 23 identified non-readers coming from Dao-an National High School of Dao-an, San
Miguel Zamboanga del sur. The names of the participants will not be obscured in as much as the
study is quite non-argumentative in nature for the participants. Participants are the identified
non-readers from grade 7 to senior high senior high.
Research Instrument

The gathering of data was administered through survey questionnaires, which consist of 5
factors.
 REFFERENCE

Ege, Egitim Dergis, 2022. An Evaluation of Factors Affecting Reading Comprehension. Review,
1307-4474.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
362359175_An_Evaluation_of_Factors_Affecting_Reading_Comprehension

https://www.researchgate.net/journal/ Ege-Egitim-Dergisi-1307-4474

 Elizabeth C. Rambuyon, Bryan L. Susada. 2022. FACTORS AFFECTING READING

COMPREHENSION IN ENGLISH OF GRADE 4 PUPILS IN OWABANGON ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL. International Journal Of Advance Research And Innovative Ideas In
Education 8(5):2022
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
362889664_Examination_of_Individual_and_Environmental_Factors_Affecting_Reading_Comp
rehension_with_Structural_Equation_Model

Grace M. Fernald & Helen Keller, 2014. The Effect of Kinaesthetic Factors in the Development
of Word Recognition in the Case of Non-Readers. The journal of Education Research. Volume 4.
University of California, Southern Branch.