Research Proponents: Rowena DC.

Soquiat

Division: Batangas Province

School: Malakimpook Elementary School

Malaking Pook, San Pascual, Batangas

I. Phonological Awareness Level of the Grade II Pupils at Malakimpook

Elementary School During the School Year 2017 – 2018

II. Context and Rationale

Reading is the key to the skillful learning and better living. The learners who

read well develop better understanding and effective adjustment towards life

situations. When the learners understand what they read could identify, classify,

build, organize, synthesize, make adjustments and arrived at proper decision.

Phonological awareness skills are important in order to develop good reading

skills. Having good phonological awareness skills means that a child is able to

manipulate sounds and words, or “play” sounds and words. For example a teacher

or speech-language pathologist might ask a child to break the word “cat” into

individual sounds: “c-a-t”.

Pupils with good understanding of phonological awareness have the

underlying framework in place for reading (decoding) and writing (encoding) when

letter-sound correspondences (phonics) are learned. Pupils who have difficulty with

phonological awareness can often learn “phonics” (knowledge of letters and

sounds), but they have difficulty using this knowledge as they read and spell.

It is alarming that 10 out of 26 Grade II pupils of Malakimpook Elementary

School has poor phonological awareness that a teacher encountered as she

teaches. They belong to the frustration level and having difficulties in sounding out
1
syllables and word recognition. These pupils are the low performing and low

achieving pupils in any of the tests given.

While such problems could be attributed to some causes such as social,

economic, environmental or psychological factors. It is then a vital task of all

concerned especially the teacher to improve the quality of instruction to help the

slow readers and readers at-risks acquire the basic knowledge and skills in reading

which could be utilized as avenues to undertake other subject areas prescribed in

the curriculum. The quality of education acquired by the pupils depend largely upon

the pupils’ know how to read and interpret printed materials adequately: and without

printed materials adequately: and without such abilities they are barred practically

from learning effectively and meaningfully to the other subjects in the curriculum.

This study is an attempt of developing the phonological awareness of the

Grade II pupils at Malakimpook Elementary School. It also aimed the pupils to

develop readiness through skillful guidance and to initiate specific teaching

strategies in the reading curriculum that would help under achieving pupils meet

second grade level reading standards by the end of the school year.

The researcher observed that there are pupils in the second grade come to

edge without any knowledge of the letters and sounds, so the purpose of this was to

investigate if phonological awareness instruction to struggling readers would

improve their reading ability. It has been through that the researchers sees the need

for explicit and systematic instruction for phonemic awareness through a variety of

activities and reading program. And we, as teachers, need to step back and look at

our pupils as individual learners. We need to decide if they have the basic skills

necessary to teach the curriculum designed for their grade.

2
III. Review of Related Literature Literature

Phonological awareness has been a highly overlooked concept when

teaching pupils how to read and write. Stanovich defines “phonological awareness”

as the ability to deal explicitly and segmentally with sound units smaller than the

syllable. He also notes that researchers “argue intensely” about the meaning of the

term and about the nature of the tasks used to measure it. (Sensenbaugh, 2005).

There are several curriculums that are used in the general education setting that do

not focus in on the area of phonological awareness when teaching a language

program. Phonological awareness has been shown to be one of the most reliable

predictors and associates of reading ability (Foy & Mann, 2003). Phonological

awareness is the ability to segment spoken words into their constituent sounds and

to manipulate these sounds. More than two decades of research have shown that in

children of a variety of ages, the ability to decode new words is closely associated

with phonological awareness (Busink, 1997).

Whitaker, Harvey, Hassell, Linder and Tutterrow (2006), have also noted a

teaching strategy called FISH that isolated the phonemic awareness skills of onsets

and rime. They found that by drawing attention to these attributes in words, which

are considered to be among the earliest skills to be developed, it helped students

recognize similar patterns in familiar and unfamiliar words.

The FISH Strategy provides a framework for students to decode new words

that are difficult for them. First, students are instructed to Find the rime in the word

(the first vowel and the rest of the word). Next, students Identify the rime or a word

they know that ends like it. Then students Say the rime. Lastly, students Hook the

new onset (beginning sound) to the rime. Whitetaker, Harvey, Hassel, Linder and

Tutterrow (2006) contend that the use of the FISH strategy equipped students with a

3
systematic approach to decoding unknown words through relating prior knowledge to

and using onsets and rimes.

Another example of a widely used literacy teaching practice is the Reading

Recovery model. Center, Freeman and Robertson (2001) indicated that Reading

Recovery has been highlighted as the main intervention program for at-risk students

in first grade among Departments of Education.

For many children, explicit phonological awareness, the ability to segment and

manipulate sounds in words, does not come naturally. Some children are unable to

develop this ability even with direct phonics instruction. Once beginning readers

have some awareness of phonemes and their corresponding graphic

representations, research has indicated that further reading instruction heightens

their awareness of language, assisting then in developing the later stages of

phonemic awareness (Sensenbaugh, 2005).

As phonological awareness further developed, children learn that words and

syllables are made up of even smaller parts-individual sounds called phonemes. The

ability to manipulate these phonemes and is the most challenging and developing

phonological skills.

IV. Research Questions

The researcher conducted this research which was focused on the

phonological awareness level of the Grade II pupils. The researcher aims to identify

the phonological awareness level of pupils which is unsuitable in their age. A

descriptive research design contains interview was utilize to answer the following

questions:

1. What is the reading level of the Grade II pupils in Filipino?

2. What are the common phonological errors made by the pupils?

4
 3. What are the activities that the teacher need to provide in improving the

phonological awareness of the pupils?

V. Scope and Limitation

This study is limited to 26 Grade II pupils who were enrolled this School Year

2016 – 2017 at Malakimpook Elementary School composed of 13 boys and 13 girls.

Their phonological awareness were identified.

Evaluating their academic performance is a limitation of the study.

VI. Methodology and Research Design

This study made use of descriptive method, describing the phonological errors

of the respondents.

The respondents of the study were the Grade II pupils of Malakimpook

Elementary School during the School Year 2016 – 2017.

The researchers made use of word drill with a checklist to assess

respondent’s ability to recognize syllables and words on the given list and the result

of Oral Reading Pre-Assessment administered by the School Heads of San Pascual

District last August 1, 2016.

In gathering the data, the researchers made use of the following steps: a) The

copies with list of words and syllables were given to each respondent to read while

the researchers were handling the checklist to assess respondents’ performance; b)

The checklist contained the syllables and words to read with the assessment

description of “read” and “not read”. Researchers checked the box that corresponds

to the descriptions according to the respondents’ ability to read or recognize

syllables and words; c) After assessing the respondents, the gathered data were

tabulated; d) Researchers will identify the commonly committed phonological errors

by frequency count; e) the first five syllables and words that have high number of

mistakes were to be considered as commonly committed phonological errors by the

5
respondents; f) The results were discussed and analyzed pertaining to the

phonological errors of the respondents; g) Researchers provided the programs of

activities that can be planned and implemented for remediation.

VII. Work Plan

Activity Duration
From To
Gathering literature July 01 July 05
Formulating objectives July 06 July 08
Analyzing and drafting literature July 09 July 11
Drafting the context and rationale July 12 July 13
Identifying research design and methodology July 14 July 15
Drafting and peer validation of questionnaire July 16 July 17
Distribution and retrieval of questionnaire July 18 July 21
Tallying and interpretation of responses July 22 July 26
Drafting results and discussion July 27 July 31
Drawing conclusions and writing the August 01 August 03
recommendation
Finalizing the introduction, review of related August 04 August 06
literature, results and discussion, bibliography
Drafting the research output August 07 August 17
Encoding and polishing the entire paper and August 18 August 20, 2016
peer validation of the research output
Submission of the action research to the August 22 August 26
division office and presentation to peers

TARGET DATES
End of Project First Draft Final Report
August 22 August 17 August 19

Table1. Timetable for the preparation of action research

VIII. Cost Estimates

Budget Item Budget Requirement

2 reams of Bond Paper Php600.00
Printing – Php2.00/per page Php400.00
Folders and Fasteners Php168.00
Total Php1,168.00

Table 2. Cost Estimates

6
IX. Action Plan

Research Output Scheme of Dissemination Resources Needed

Proposed activities in School In-service training Reading materials
Phonological Awareness Internet Connectivity
Food

Table 3. Action Plan

X. Results and Discussion

The following presentations are the results of the study conducted on the

phonological awareness level among the Grade II pupils of the Malakimpook

Elementary School.

Level Male Female Total Weighted

Mean
Fast 0 2 2 8%
Average 5 9 14 53%
Slow 5 0 5 19%
Struggling 1 1 2 8%
Non-Reader 2 1 3 12%

Table 4. Results of Oral reading Test in Filipino

Table 4 shows the phonological awareness of the Grade II pupils. It can be

gleaned that the average level has the highest weighted mean which is 53%. While

the fast and struggling level have the least percentage result.

Phonological Errors Rank

1. Letter – sound identification 4
2. Cluster reduction 1
3. Final consonant deletion 3
4. Letter-name identification 6
5. Consonant-vowel-consonant words 2
6. Syllables 5

Table 5. Phonological errors made by the pupils

7
 Table 2 shows the phonological errors made by the pupils in Grade II. It can

be garnered that cluster reduction ranked 1. While the Letter – name identification

ranked 6th among common phonological errors made by the Grade II pupils.

Proposed activities in Phonological Awareness

a. Using phonics/phonemic awareness instruction
b. Reading in leveled decodable books during remedial class
c. Learning the Dolch Basic Sight Words
d. Use YouTube articulation videos

Table 6. Proposed activities in Phonological Awareness

Table 6 shows that using the proposed activities can help the teacher in

the developing the phonological awareness of the Grade II pupils.

XI. Conclusions and Recommendations

If pupils are to be successful readers, they must have a foundational

understanding of phonemic awareness because poorly developed phonemic

awareness is the core difficulty for a large population of children who are having

difficulty learning to read.

Overall, the researchers believe this data presentation here helps to confirm

the research that phonological awareness is a significant contributor to the reading

and writing development of pupils. It is imperative that we should not overlook

phonological and the power it has in teaching beginning readers. If pupils receive

instruction and have consistent practice in these areas, the reading skills will

progress significantly.

It is recommended that specific phonological awareness skills should be

taught to all struggling and at-risk of reading failure in Grade II pupils. A daily

practice on a daily systematic phonics instruction should be given by the teacher.

Supplemental early reading curriculum or activities designed to promote

phonological awareness of words’ sound structure should be used. Involvement of

8
parents in their child’s reading development is likewise suggested. Encourage them

to work at home with their child by helping them to learn the high frequency words

and listening to them to read. If through this action research project, the teacher can

improve the pupil’s reading success and help them avoid the eventual hardships that

may ensue with poor reading skills, then the researchers will feel that they are

fulfilling her responsibilities as a teacher and a member of a society.

XII. References

Busink, R. (1997). Reading and phonological awareness: What we have learned and

how we can use it. Reading Research and Instruction, pp. 199-215.

Sensenbaugh, R. (2000). Phonemic Awareness: An important early step in learning

to read. Retrieved May 24, 2005 from

www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/phonemic.p.k12.4.html