ABSTRACT
The primary purpose of reading is to comprehend the meaning of what is read. Reading requires a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. The K–12 Basic Education Program in the Philippines aims to equip learners with 21st-century skills. Its primary objective in teaching reading comprehension is to activate students' prior knowledge and build a reading purpose. However, as evidenced by the fact that Filipino students received poorer reading comprehension ratings. This study utilized the descriptive method to determine the responses of respondents in relation to semantic understanding and reading comprehension, a learning activity. The respondents of the study were forty-eight (48) senior high school students. The following are the results of the study: the majority of the respondents were under the under the age of 17, with 15 respondents, or 31.2 percent, and most of the respondents were female, with 26 respondents, or 54.3 percent. The respondents often have a semantic understanding of reading comprehension in terms of phonemic awareness, vocabulary knowledge, prior knowledge, reading interest, and time allotment provided for reading. There was no significant difference in the semantic understanding and level of reading comprehension of the respondents when the profile was considered. The learning activity sheets are designed by the researcher based on the results of the study.
Keywords: phonemic awareness, vocabulary knowledge, prior knowledge, reading interest and linguistic processes