Improving Phonemic Awareness of Kindergarten -Anastasia through ICT

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Pupils today are living in a world dominated by screens keeping them stimulated in their everyday lives. In a 21st century classroom, there is an increased focus on student engagement. Knowing this, teachers need to transfer the skills that students have at home with computer usage in their classroom. By understanding this need, educators must find a way to appropriately incorporate technology in an effective manner in order to engage students in their own learning and continue to expose them to the concepts they are learning in the classroom. The use of technology in the classroom can be a powerful tool in transforming learning. Watching students become excited in using ICT has shown that they are becoming more involved in their own learning. Research findings emphasize that in order for students to become motivated in their learning, they must be engaged. This action research study, in which pupils in kindergarten-Anastasia at Bagumbayan Elementary School will be participated in small group instruction through ICT specifically, video viewing that promotes phonemic awareness development. Phonemic awareness is the ability or skill of pupils to identify the sound of spoken language that is associated with a specific letter in the alphabet. When children are able to correlate the sounds with the correct letters, they can sound out words when reading to decode as well as to develop their writing and spelling skills. Phonemicawareness uses people audio processing to hear the individual sounds in words to increase and support language acquisition. The study was to examine the impact of selected videos that address phonemic awareness in Kindergarten. This study measured the growth of student abilities in reference to their phonemic awareness with the use of technology. This research aims to determine if there is a positive or significant effect on the integration of ICT to improve the phonemic awareness of Kindergarten pupils.

METHODS

The twenty-eight pupils from Kindergarten-Anastasia was the subject of this study. This study was conducted during the second quarter of School Year 2018-2019. Students were assessed (pre-assessment) on their letter sound recognition skills using ICT, then the researcher conducted multimedia activities related to phonemes. Students were reassessed (post-assessment) on the same standards. Scores were compared and pupils' progress was analyzed to monitor their improvement.

RESULTS

The researcher examined the phonemic awareness growth of Kindergarten-Anastasia has a low level. There was a lack of necessary materials and activities that can enhance their phonemic skills. Throughout the study, the targeted twenty-eight kindergarten pupils have increased their phonological awareness with the use of ICT. The pupils were able to recognize rhyming words and identify the number of syllables in spoken words containing one, two, or three syllables with mastery. This proves that using technology can enhance thepupils' phonemic awareness.

DISCUSSIONS

Early childhood learning programs comprise the use of phonemic awareness in the development of reading and emphasize the importance of these skills in order for pupils to become fluent readers. Through this study, the findings concluded that based on the amount of exposure the pupils had using technology, their phonemic awareness understandings have increased. The greatest area of improvement for pupils' progress was in letter sound identification of both consonants and vowels. The study found that pupils using ICT that focused on phonemic awareness were engaged. The positive interpretation means the successful achievement of Kindergarten pupils in improving their phonemic awareness using technology.