PARES: An Effective Reading Intervention in Raising the Literacy among Grade Two Pupils of Alfonso Central School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

To uphold literacy skills, early recognition of reading difficulties and effective intervention are imperative to prevent life-long educational and social struggles. In this study, the researchers examined the effectiveness of the school's reading program, project PARES. Specifically, the study describes the reading level of the pupils before and after the implementation of the program.

METHODS

Phil-IRI results in Filipino for School Year 2015-2016 showed that out of 184 enrolments in Grade Two, 103 were Frustration readers, 46 were Instructional, 10 were Independent and 25 were Non-Readers. Descriptive design and purposive sampling were used since only the 25 pupils (14%) out of 184 Grade II pupils who were classified as Non-Readers in Filipino based on the Phil-IRI results in Filipino School Year 2015-2016 were considered. After the four-month implementation of the program, a post-test was conducted by the CIP team. Results were presented to the parents who served as teachers of the participants, the teachers, and the stakeholders who supported the program.

RESULTS

The computed t-value is 7.30 with the p-value of 0.01 at 0.05 level of significance. This means that there is enough evidence to claim that there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test reading performance of Grade 2 pupils. This also suggests that project PARES, the reading intervention used by the pupils, is effective. While reading is a necessity for learning, not all pupils can easily develop proficient reading skills because of the different factors. Hence, there is a great clamor for a reading program that would provide intensive and focused practice that could help the struggling/ non-readers to become average readers. Alfonso Central School has launched Project PARES (Parent-Peer Assisted Reading Enrichment Scheme), a program that used the most effective reading techniques to address the main issue in reading.

DISCUSSIONS

The findings of this study have important implications for future practice. This information can be used to develop the standardization of the project to boost the achievement of quality education in the school. As Torgesen and Crawford (2002) state, children with reading difficulties need more intense instruction in reading, that is, further learning opportunities as compared with peers with average reading skills.