Correlates Mathematical Problem Solving Skills and Reading Comprehension of Grade 6 Pupils of Pallocan East Elementary School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Problem-solving in Mathematics and reading comprehension go hand in hand. Solving Math problems entails or requires the students to do or apply two skills at the same time-reading and computing. It is a two-edged sword which the student should conquer. The purpose of this study is to correlate Mathematics problem-solving skills and reading comprehension of Grade 6 pupils of Pallocan East Elementary School SY 2016-2017.

METHODS

The study was descriptive and used both quantitative and qualitative methods. In gathering data for reading comprehension, the researcher utilized the result of PHIL-IRI. Furthermore, the researchers also used a research-made mathematics problem-solving skills test to determine the performance of the pupils in Mathematics problem-solving skills. The test will consist of twenty (20) items involving four fundamental operations in which every operation will consist of five (5) items. Each item will be given a weight of one (1) point.

RESULTS

Based on the PHIL-IRI result, the majority of the pupils fall under the frustration level. It was found out that 74.19% of the pupils are below in a satisfactory level of performance in solving mathematics problem in which 45.16% belongs to very poor performance and 29.03% described as poor. On the other hand,12.90% of the pupils have very satisfactory performance in solving mathematics problems. In general, 25.80% of the pupils meet the satisfying score in solving mathematics problems.

DISCUSSIONS

In light of the above findings, it was concluded that reading comprehension is important in solving mathematics problems. Mathematics,in general, is an important subject because of its practical role to a person and society as a whole. However, before a student can successfully solve a problem, he has to possess good reading comprehension, analytic and computational skills. Thus, problem-solving is a reading activity and it is very clear that reading skills are apparent in solving word problems and nobody can solve it unless he knows and understands what he reads.