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