Project REAL: A Reading Intervention in Developing the Foundational Reading Skills of Struggling Readers of the Grade Two Pupils ofSouthville Elementary School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The Phil-IRI Pre-test result in English for this school year 2017-2018 revealed that seventy-five (75) out of 303 Grade Two Pupils of Southville Elementary School of Trece Martires are non-readers. Thus, Southville Elementary School, the partner school of Osorio Elementary School in the School to School Partnership (SSP) was challenged to adopt the Reading program of OES, the Project REAL -Retool Every Activity Logistically utilizing different types of strategies that suit the needs of the pupils in developing the fundamental reading skills to help solve the reading problem in English of 75 non-readers.

METHODS

The study made use of the quantitative-descriptive method to primarily measure the improvements in reading skills of the participants upon the implementation of project REAL and to somehow describe the level of satisfaction of the respondents and stakeholders on the effectiveness of the project REAL as a reading intervention that can address the reading problem of the participants. Questionnaires were used in the gathering of data.

RESULTS

The salient findings of the study were the significant difference between the results of thepre-test and post-test having the t-value of -10.19 for set A, -12.69 for set B, and -9.04 for set C and the positive assessment result of the implementation of Project REAL which got the computed mean of 2.76 from the parents and 2.90 from the SSP respectively showed a Very Satisfactory rating. In cognizant to the findings of the t-test, it implied that Project REAL is an effective intervention on developing the reading proficiency of the participants, wherein in Set A, 9 out of 17 non-readers became slowreaders; in Set B, 19 out of 27 became readers but 5 of them remained slow readers; and in Set C where all the 31 slow readers became fast readers. Pupils, parents and project team gave a very satisfactory rating on its effectiveness as an intervention inreading.

DISCUSSIONS

Thus, the implementation of project REAL succeeded in developing the foundational reading skills of the participants of the study specifically in improving the phonological awareness, word recognition, vocabulary and basic reading comprehension skills. The proponents recommend that the teachers should always start where the pupils are. The teaching of reading becomes more effective if the pupils having similar needs are grouped into smaller sizes. Likewise, the parental guidance playsa bigger role on the reading development of the pupils.