Integrative and Innovation intervention in Vocabulary Building for Grade 7 Learners at Mabini National High School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Vocabulary development is the key to success in acquiring comprehension skills. But knowing a word involves more than knowing a word's definition (Johnson& Pearson, 1984; Nagy & Scott, 2000). Word knowledge is multifaceted and can be characterized in many ways. Sadly, a sizable percentage of students who graduated in elementary are handicapped in obtaining the needed skills in this area. A teacher in high school faces a great challenge to help these "at risk" learners resolve this dilemma as early as possible to establish firm ground for higher challenges in the succeeding school years in high school. Specifically, at Mabini National High School, based on the conduct of an assessment utilizing the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS), there were identified 52 Grade Seven students who were struggling in vocabulary words recognition.

METHODS

The researchers utilized purposive sampling and the research focused mainly on identifying the common difficulties encountered by the respondents in vocabulary building and thus, propose an innovative and integrative vocabulary intervention in the aim of helping these struggling students develop their vocabulary skills to augment their comprehension power, thus improving their performance in all subject areas. To precisely identify students' vocabulary level and track their vocabulary growth across the curriculum the researchers administered the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS)assessment.

RESULTS

Based on the results of the assessment tool, the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) is validated to be highly beneficial to the whole population of Grade 7 in MNHS.

DISCUSSIONS

The utilization of VKS as an assessment tool to identify the vocabulary level of 52 Grade 7 students in National High School had been a success. When the respondents accomplished the VKS, the assessment sheets were collected and scored. The results revealed the respondents' low vocabulary level because of almost all the words presented to them, they identified themselves to belong to the categories where they had not seen those words or either had seen them but had no knowledge of their meanings.