Explicit Teaching: Its Implications to the Reading Level of Emergent Readers

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Grade 1 pupils are considered as early readers who are expected to read a large amount of text with fluency and less reliance on images. First grade is an important juncture of a child's academic career and this establishes the foundation necessary for reading development. Simultaneous with this reality, the researcher is also a beginner in teaching primary grade pupils and a neophyte in handling struggling readers. This classroom scenario becomes a daily challenge in her teaching profession which made her contemplate about what intervention she could use to support the needs of these emergent readers.

METHODS

This descriptive research was conducted among 32 Grade 1 pupils (16 boys, 16 girls) from June 2016 to January 2017 to assess them in terms of their readiness to read. The SREA showed that majority of the pupils were not ready to read. Furthermore, the Phil-IRI was also used to classify pupils according to their reading level. Reading level was classified into Frustration,

Instructional, Independent, and Non-reader.

RESULTS

Reading level of pupils was determined by using the Phil-IRI assessment tool. During the pretest which was conducted in June 2016, there were 5 boys classified under Frustration, 2 boys under Instructional, and 9 under Non-reader. This data indicates that during the pretest, more than half (9 out of 16) of the boys could not read.

DISCUSSIONS

Among the girls, it was found that during the pre-test, there were 4 girls under the Frustration level, 5 girls under Instruction level, and 7 girls were Non-readers. Overall, half of the Grade 1 Camia pupils cannot read while there was a total of 9 pupils under Frustration and 7 pupils classified under Instructional. From the pretest results, it can be seen that, at the start of the school year, no pupil was classified under independent. This suggests the need for these pupils support from the teachers in order to read.