ABSTRACT
This study aimed to determine the learning styles and reading proficiency of Grade 4 pupils of Bugo Central School, Bugo, Cagayan de Oro City.
There were 80 Grade 4 pupils of Bugo Central School participated in this study. A descriptive research method was used in the study. Research questionnaires and interview were used to determine the learning styles of the research participants. The statistical treatment used were mean value and standard deviation, frequency counts and percentages, and Spearman-rho to determine the learning styles, reading proficiency level and the significant relationship between pupils’ reading proficiency and learning styles.
The findings revealed that pupils who were auditory with an instructional reading level. These findings indicate that pupils can read but they still need teacher’s coaching and supervision. Statistical results showed that learning styles have no linear relationship to pupils’ reading proficiency. Hence, the computed value of the three learning styles is less than the tabular value of .05 level of significance. This means that learning styles of pupils do not affect their reading proficiency.
It was recommended that teachers should enhance pupils’ reading proficiency through the development of indigenized or localized and differentiated learning materials which are learner-centered to intensify pupils’ learning engagements.
KEY WORDS: Learning styles, auditory, Kinesthetic, visual, reading proficiency, Independent, frustration, instructional readers
INTRODUCTION
Reading proficiency is influenced by pupils’ learning styles. This is anchored on the tenets “Every Child is a reader” (ECARP), through a DepEd Memorandum No. 402, s. 2004 and Administrative Order No. 324, which goal is to enable every Filipino child to communicate both in English and Filipino.
Learning styles are the individual processes used for understanding and retaining information, thereby gaining knowledge or skills. While some evidence has indicated that learning styles differ between pupils although different teaching methods were employed in various stages of the curriculum
The framework of the is bounded on the context of legal and philosophical underpinnings pursuant to a national program entitled “Every Child- A- Reader Program” (ECARP) which was launched in 2001. Every Child A Reader Program (ECARP) is a national program that addresses the thrust of DepEd to make every Filipino child a reader at his/her own level. It is designed to equip elementary learners with strategic reading and writing skills to make them independent young readers and writers.
The Program aims to develop in Filipino children the literacy and numeracy skills, and attitudes, which will contribute to lifelong learning. With this, it is the goal of the Department to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of learners from Kindergarten to Grade 3 following the K to 12 Basic Education Curriculum by establishing a sustainable and cost-effective professional development system for teachers.
Studies revealed that at birth, everyone learns in different ways at different rates and for different reasons. Pupils learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. The broad spectrum of learners – and perhaps the society as whole –would be better served if disciplines could be presented in number of ways and learning could be assessed through a variety of means (Chung, 2010).
Reading activities that address all reading skills help learners develop a well-rounded approach to literacy. Administrators, teachers, and parents manifest great concern on the observations that learners today are very weak in reading skills, and that they cannot convey their thoughts and feelings effectively. Many of them have not developed their reading habits as evidenced by their poorly contracted sentences in oral and written communicative exercises.
Reading skills is very important and indeed becomes obvious when one considers what happens to a learner who fails to acquire and develop it and the fact that some of them still cannot read after graduating from the elementary. As the learner grow older, he is increasingly handicapped by the difficulty in reading and this affects his scholastic activities. He will find difficulty in mingling with people and even be kept out from social and educational activities. But on the other hand, if reading skills are properly developed, his school life becomes more interesting.
Kroon (2013) presented that the reading teacher has to examine not only the physical, intellectual, and emotional processes that enable learners to understand what they see in print. There is also a need to look into the socio-cultural environment in that school if he cannot read. It moulds a learner’s desire to read and his or her ability to understand what he or she reads. An individual who really wants to satisfy his social and personal desires must know how to read with excellent comprehension. Reading is also a social tool because through it one can have personal enrichment that could enable him to adjust to social condition. Moreover, a learner cannot do any activities in class if he cannot read.
Learning styles play an important part of achieving one’s success or failure in his reading performance. Teachers often use their preferred learning style as their main mode of teaching and if the learners do not share those same preferences then learning can be very difficult and frustrating. Every person in the world recognize their preferred learning styles and techniques and some of them has mixed learning style.
As Dunn (1979) puts it, learning style is the way in which each individual learner begins to concentrate on, process, absorb and retain new and difficult learning materials. Learning styles, according to Gardner, are the ways in which an individual approach a range of tasks which help pupils learn and develop word recognition through visual and auditory senses.
Further, it was emphasized that grade school pupils are visuals, auditory, and tactile in which they can learn better when they are given visual images, sounds to hear, and materials to touch. This means that reading proficiency can be facilitated when reading teachers provide them with pictures and images, listening activity, and when they are directly involved in reading and production activities.
However, despite of teachers’ awareness on the positive effect of utilizing sensory-based learning and it’s the utilization of the different learning styles to enhance reading proficiency among grade school pupils, the decline reading performance is still prevalent and observed in the public school.
It is based on the earlier-stated circumstance that, the researcher is motivated to conduct the study to ascertain whether pupils’ learning styles influence their reading proficiency in Bugo Central School.
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