The Effect of Phonemic Awareness on Improving

Reading Skills in Grade 5 Pupils at

Bolocboloc Elementary School
 Chapter 1

Introduction

Introduction

Reading is an essential skill for acquiring knowledge and enhancing one's

quality of life. Successful readers acquire a deeper understanding of their environment

and are better able to adapt to its challenges. When students assimilate the material

they read, they are better able to recognize and classify it, construct, and organize it,

synthesize it, and make sound decisions. It serves as a gateway for every student to

learn about the other subject areas because if a student struggles with reading, it is

likely that they will also struggle with the other subjects. The definition of reading is

the interpretation of written symbols. Phonemic awareness is an essential component

of early literacy and a method for ensuring that children acquire the necessary literacy

and reading abilities. It is a crucial aspect of a child's literacy development and should

be incorporated into early literacy instruction.

As an outcome of the pandemic, students' literacy skills have suffered

significant setbacks. Due to school closings and other factors, the education of a large

number of children was disrupted. Numerous students have been affected, which has

resulted in greater disruptions, and difficulties with the remote study. The pandemic

has had the most significant effect on younger pupils who are still in the process of

learning to read.

The Philippines scored the lowest, out of 79 countries in the 2018 Program for

International Student Assessment. (PISA). The PISA also showed that only one out of

every five 15-year-old Filipino students met the minimum level of competence in

Overall Reading Literacy. Thus, according to the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary
Learning Metrics, only 10% of the country's Grade 5 students met the minimum

competency level at the end of primary education. As of June, the World Bank said

that 90.9% of people in the Philippines were living in poverty. Learning poverty is the

number of 10-year-old kids who can't read or understand a simple story (Philippine

news agency, 2022).

The level of education received by the students is mainly dependent on their

ability to read and analyze printed texts well; without these skills, they are precluded

from learning effectively and meaningfully about other subjects. Phonemic

Awareness is important because it helps people understand how letters and sounds

work together. It gets them ready to read print, shows them how to sound out new

words, and helps them understand how the alphabet works (Kame'enui, et. al., 1997).

This action research investigated selected grade five pupils. Additionally, it

discusses the importance of phonemic awareness in a fifth-grade classroom and oral

fluency to determine their level of reading proficiency, they underwent an oral

fluency assessment test that counts how many words each student successfully reads

in one minute.

This action research discusses the causes and reasons of reading difficulties of

non-readers and frustration-level readers. It also presents phonemic awareness is the

key that has proved to be successful in a fifth-grade classroom, as well as oral fluency

assessment used and found to be successful by other teachers and researchers. As

new best practices in improving reading skills are developed and researched, teaching

strategies need to evolve as well.

This action research proposal aims to improve the reading skills of Grade 5 pupils

through Phonemic awareness at Bolocboloc Elementary School for the school year

2023–2024.
Statement of the Problem

The goal of the study was to compare oral reading fluency scores to the

intervention of phonemic awareness education. For many of the pupils, the reading

curriculum that the school has acquired runs at a rate that is too fast. The curriculum

does provide plenty of opportunities for pupils to learn to read, however due to their

language competence or phonemic awareness abilities, many pupils have trouble

doing simple tasks on their own. Lower-achieving kids need more time to reflect and

add pictures before they can respond appropriately, but this method works well for

medium to above-average pupils. Giving them the chance to learn and participate in

developing their phonemic awareness increases their motivation to learn because it is

something they can do.

This study aims to make an action plan for the poor reading skills of

grade five pupils in Bolocboloc Elementary School.

Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of reading skills of grade five pupils?

2. Why pupils in grade five were at the non-reader and frustration level?

3. How pupils in grade five will be helped by the phonemic awareness

intervention to address the difficulty in learning to read?

4. How do pupils in grade five improve their reading skills?

Definition of Variables

The following are the variables of the study:

Variable A: The progress pupils are making during the phonemic awareness

intervention will be my dependent variable. Phonological skills that are acquired in

any language will help in the development of phonological awareness. Many students

in our area come from low socioeconomic families that do not have access to many

books and quality daycare. The phonological development of students in the

researcher's classroom could vary depending on if that child attended preschool or

went to a high-quality daycare.

Variable B: Phonemic awareness interventions will be the independent variable.

Phonemic awareness intervention has helped to improve normally developing readers,

students who have been identified for being at risk for reading problems, and students

with reading disabilities. Oral fluency assessment test, a tool for phonemic awareness

will be used to provide pupils with extra opportunities to practice sound manipulation

that certainly measures the number of words pupil correctly read in one minute or

word count per minute (WCPM). These pupils are slower to answer but are intensely

thinking of the new word. Giving them the opportunity to receive on phonemic

awareness intervention will allow them more time to think of in reading of words

before someone who is more fluent in reading skills.

Significance of the Study

As a result, this action research will be beneficial primarily to the grade five

pupils for they will learn how to address their difficulty in reading and will help them

develop their reading skills. 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 skills, they will also easily learn lessons under the

curriculum and will definitely improve their academic performance.

Additionally, the teachers will also benefit from this action research for they

will learn how to address the difficulty of grade five pupils to learn how to read. They

will also learn that phonemic awareness in the reading skills 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 in any field.

Notably, this action research will also benefit the school because pupils and

teacher performance are a good indicator of how the institution as a whole is doing.

Students will perform better academically if they develop their reading abilities.

Action Hypothesis

Hypothesis 1 - If phonemic awareness is being used as the intervention of grade 5

pupils in BBES then there will be great progress in their oral reading skills.

Hypothesis 2 - If phonemic awareness intervention has helped grade 5 pupils in

BBES to improve normally developing readers, students who have been identified as

being at risk for reading problems, and students with reading disabilities then, they

will be in oral reading skills.

 Chapter 2

Literature Review

Introduction

It has always been crucial to teach young children to read. Numerous methods

and resources have been implemented by educators in the past to assist in the reading

development of different learners. Given the age at when pupils are expected to

acquire specific reading skills and the growing body of knowledge regarding brain

development, it is important to keep in mind that reading instruction is a sequential

process that requires material that is appropriate for the learner's developmental stage.

The skill of reading is complex and difficult for many elementary-aged children. It is

estimated around 10 million students struggle with reading (Sohn, 2020).

Phonemic awareness has become a forefront in literacy instruction. Educators

have been made aware of the importance of sound awareness and language

proficiency and how that may affect reading development. Once students have an

understanding of phonemic awareness, their decoding and oral reading fluency will

increase so that students are able to reach the ultimate goal of reading, which is to

comprehend and read to learn.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness "refers to the specific ability to focus on and manipulate

individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken word" (Reading Rockets, 2020, p. 1). It is a

crucial aspect of a child's literacy development and should be incorporated into early

literacy instruction. Strong phonemic awareness skills provide a solid foundation for
reading instruction, and this will influence future student success (Phonological and

Phonemic Awareness, 2023). There have been many discoveries about cognitive

development and what linguistic skills children need to become successful readers. In

the mid to late 1900's phonemic awareness was popular in some programs. In order

to perceive and produce speech sounds of language, the brain's phonological system

must be activated and informed so that an individual can read and write (Moats &

Tolman, 2019). The positive relationship between phonemic awareness and reading

skills will be explored. The review will reinforce the need for phonemic awareness in

reading instruction and provide evidence to incorporate phonemic awareness for

struggling readers. Research will highlight the positive effects of phonemic awareness

interventions in the primary grades to ensure growth is made for students struggling in

a tier one instructional setting. Lastly, phonemic awareness instruction will be

encouraged through speech language pathologists in collaboration with general

education teachers.

Reading Success Through Phonemes

Phonemic awareness doesn’t always develop naturally in the same manner as

speech and oral language, and often needs to be taught. Learners will struggle to

master phonics if they have weak phonemic awareness skills and poor phonemic

awareness is a common contributor to specific reading disability or dyslexia (Furnes

et al., 2019). M. Vetorico (2022) shows that the level of the learners, phonemic and

phonological awareness is quite poor and there is a need to do something to improve

their awareness on phonemes and phonology aspects. The phonemic awareness skills

of segmenting and blending are the most critical. It is important to note that phonemic

awareness has the strongest effect on word reading skills when combined with
teaching children about the letters which represent phonemes, therefore it’s important

to provide opportunities for children to use their new found letter knowledge and

phoneme blending and segmenting skills in the context of reading and writing

activities (Brady, 2020).

Theoretical Framework

A key component of learning to read is brain development. To support various

aspects of reading, the brain develops in four different areas at different times. It is

crucial for educators to take this into consideration when analyzing why certain

students experience early reading and phonemic awareness difficulties.

Jeanne Chall, a researcher on the development of reading stages, describes a

learner from preschool to college with her reading stages from pre reading to

construction and reconstruction (Moats & Tolman, 2009). Based on what typical

children learn to read, the stages was developed. The stages are very linear and do not

indicate that a pupil might go back and relearn. Chall's stages shows how a student's

knowledge is based on their prior mastery.

Another researcher in reading development is Scarborough. Scarborough's

"rope" model could provide teachers with the most thorough theory of reading

development, using a picture to demonstrate how word recognition and language

comprehension blend together to create a proficient reader. It is believed that mastery

of decoding, fluency, and comprehension requires a number of subskills. Phonemic

awareness is a thread in the rope that includes word recognition. A pupil might never

be able to read at a proficient level where they are fluent and comprehending without

that thread (Moats & Tolman, 2009).

 Chapter 3

Methods

Introduction

This study was conducted to examine the impacts of providing students with

small group phonemic awareness instruction upon their oral reading fluency scores.

Studies have shown that “phonemic awareness plays an essential role in the storage of

written words and is very critical and has not been an important part of teaching

reading” (Kilpatrick, 2013, p. 6). Phonemic awareness is one part of phonological

awareness that helps a child develop sound awareness. An important part of this

research was meeting the students where they are developmentally in a small group to

help their comprehension of sounds. Providing students with the opportunity to learn

phonemic awareness skills has been found to be a “building block for decoding and

word recognition” and overall reading achievement (Baker, 2007). The researcher was

curious to see if small group phonemic awareness instruction correlated with growth

for a student(s) oral reading fluency.

The researcher assessed students in both phonemic awareness and oral reading

fluency at the beginning of research and continued to progress monitor students on a

weekly basis throughout the research. Documenting any correlation between

phonemic awareness and oral reading fluency can provide insight to methods in which

to assist struggling readers achieve success.

Procedure

Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize, consider, and manipulate the

individual sounds (phonemes) of spoken syllables. Words can be manipulated by

blending, stretching, or otherwise altering their tones. Phonemic awareness activities

in English serve as the intervention strategy that will be used to address the problem.

In order to assess the effects of the interventions, pupils will be given a pre and post-

test to evaluate growth in phonemic awareness categories such as phoneme deletion,

word-to-word matching, blending, sound isolation, phoneme segmentation and sound-

to-word matching. This is performed daily after lunch for thirty minutes (1:00-1:30

PM) before the beginning of afternoon classes and their vacant time.

Grade Level Time Schedule How long will be the Subject Area
data gathering
time schedule?
5 1 hour English

Data Collection Method

The following action plan in the data collecting method is formulated to

enhance the reading skills of students in fifth grade at Bolocboloc Elementary School

in light of the problems mentioned above. Using the phonics approach and phonemic

awareness to correct and enhance the student’s reading skills, these are enhancing the

design of the remedial reading program. Researcher is going to target slow readers

who make frequent errors while reading for intensive remedial instruction. After each

component of the reading program, an oral reading test is administered, and the

results are evaluated as a guide for implementing the necessary remedial measures to

enhance reading skills. The researcher will use multimedia to enhance phonics and
phonemic awareness instructions. Lastly, the researcher will ask parents to monitor

their children's homework assignments.

Data Analysis

For measuring students' oral reading speed and accuracy, researcher have

used a simple and very brief procedure that employs standard classroom texts to

determine how many words students can read correctly in one minute. The oral

fluency assessment is quick and easy to administer and evaluate. Each student is

conducted individually, which takes a few minutes. The unit of measure is correct

syllables per minute (CPM). For slow readers, reading lists of single words is the best

way to see how fast they can read. Once a good wcpm score has been reached in

single word reading, passage reading tests should be used to measure speed.

Consistently, a strong correlation between Oral Reading Fluency and reading

comprehension has been discovered. It is a valid, dependable, and objective metric

that can be used to identify pupils with reading difficulties and to track their progress.

ORF is a more precise indicator than teacher judgment (Five from Five, 2023).
References

Brady, S. (2020). A 2020 perspective on research findings on alphabetics (phoneme

awareness and phonics): Implications for instruction. The Reading League

Journal

Five from Five. (2023, March 2). Assessing fluency - Five from Five. Five From Five.

https://fivefromfive.com.au/fluency/assessingfluency/#:~:text=Oral%20readin

g%20fluency%20(ORF)&text=ORF%20assessments%20measure%20reading

%20rate,high%20correlation%20with%20reading%20comprehension.

Furnes, B., Elwér, Å., Samuelsson, S., Olson, R. K., & Byrne, B. (2019).m

Investigating the double-deficit hypothesis in more and less transparent

orthographies: A longitudinal study from preschool to grade 2.Scientific

Studies of Reading

Kame'enui, E. J., Simmons, et al., (1997). Effective strategies for teaching beginning

reading. In E. J. Kame'enui, & D. W. Carnine (Eds.), Effective Teaching

Strategies That Accommodate Diverse Learners. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

Marivic Vetorico (2022). Kindergarten Phonological and Phonemic Awareness:

Inputs for Kindergarten Instructions

Moats, L. C. (2009). Getting up to speed: Developing fluency. Sopris West

Educational Services.

Moats, L. C. (2009). The speech sounds of English: phonetics, phonology, and

phoneme awareness. Sopris West Educational Services

Moats, L. C., & Tolman, C. (2009). The challenge of learning to read. Sopris West

Educational Services.

Philippine news agency. (2022, November). Pandemic, school disruption stunt

learners’ reading skills. Philippine News Agency.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1189522

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. (2023, January 17). Reading Rockets.

https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonemic

Reading Rockets. (2020, October 16). Phonological and phonemic awareness.

https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonemic.

Sohn, E. (2020). At war over reading. Science News, 1, 22-26.