Unpacking the Phenomenon of Teachers' Diagnostic Practices in the Philippine informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI)

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Informal diagnosis has a long history and a prominent place in the field of reading education in the country for reading plays a vital role in the literacy of the individuals. In the Philippines, the education system demands more testing and assessment of students for the purpose of monitoring the achievement rate and the learners' weaknesses. This assessment is done in the public school through the informal reading inventory. The Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) is an initiative of theDepartment of Education that directly addresses its thrust to make every Filipino child a reader. In this study, the researcher investigated the phenomenon of diagnostic practices of the teachers in the administration of the informal reading inventory to the students in the public secondary school.

METHODS

This research used a descriptive qualitative research design. Interview, document text analysis, and class observation among the teachers who administered the Phil-IRI were done to gather data. This study was set in the public secondary school in Southern Luzon in the Philippines. The participants were nine (9) secondary English teachers who were selected purposively.

RESULTS

This research noted that the teachers had difficulty in looking for reading texts to be used in the diagnosis, so they used selections taken from the available textbooks. Also, they made modification in the score interpretation. Most of them admitted that they only conducted silent reading for comprehension diagnosis. In addition, they failed to follow the diagnostic patterns in identifying the reading problems of the readers. Other problems such as teachers' incompetence, unavailability of the assessment tools, big number of learners, and time constraint were also noted.

DISCUSSIONS

It is evident that theory is not manifested in the practice of reading diagnosis.The generalization and changes in the actual results of diagnosis show adverse findings of the reading status of the learners using the Phil-IRI. Hence, the objective of making every learner a reader is a failure. In this juncture, the researcher considers success in reading diagnosis is influenced by teachers' competence in doing the task, the time allotment, the availability of assessment tools, and making the class-size manageable for the teachers. The result of Philippine Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) is a shallow, if not superficial basis of describing the average reading ability of Filipino children.