UIC Research Journal Print ISSN 1656-0604AND

ACCOUNTANCY • Online ISSN

BUSINESS 2244-6532
ADMINISTRATION
Vol. 20 No. 2 October 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.17158/498
International Peer Reviewed Faculty Research Journal Available online at http://research.uic.edu.ph/ojs/

READING PROFICIENCY: ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE WRITING

SKILLS OF THE SENIOR COLLEGE STUDENTS IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Nestle Joy R. Arguilla

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4902-4850
nestlejoyarguilla@gmail.com
University of the Immaculate Conception

Joanna Mae E. Parba

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3442-9326
joannamaeparba@gmail.com
University of the Immaculate Conception

Maureen D. Aguisando
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0517-8073
maureenaguisando@gmail.com
University of the Immaculate Conception

ABSTRACT

Students upon entering tertiary education are expected to have gained

proficiency in language especially in writing and reading. This research aimed
to know the level of reading and writing proficiencies of Fourth year Education
and Liberal Arts students since they are expected to be outstanding in these
skills as a requirement in their profession in the future. This study made use
of test questionnaires for its data gathering purposes. The research instruments
measured the reading and writing proficiencies of the respondents. These research
instruments were adapted from SAT (Critical Reading Workbook) and TOEEFL
iBT both standardized tests for English language. On this study, it revealed that
there is no significant relationship between reading proficiency and writing
proficiency of the 4th year Education and Liberal Arts students of the University
of Immaculate Conception.

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KEYWORDS

Reading proficiency, writing proficiency, college students, University of the

Immaculate Conception, Davao City, Philippines

INTRODUCTION

Writing and reading have long been considered to be interrelated activities

(Petty, 1983). Constructivist theory as well as researchers asserts that writing and
reading are both meaning-making activities (Anderson, Spiro and Montague, 1977;
Gregg and Steinberg, 1980). When people write and read, meaning is continually
in a state of becoming. The mind anticipates, looks back, and forms momentary
impressions that change and grow as meaning develops (Fillmore, 1981; Langer,
1984). Language, syntax, and structure are all at play as texts-in-the-head and
texts-on-paper develop. Because writing and reading involve the development
of meaning, both were conceptualized as composing activities in the sense that
both involve planning, generating and revising meaning – which occur recursively
throughout the meaning-builder, the reader takes in and learns from the author’s
style, use of conventions and the like. In addition, the reader, when reading, uses
the author’s text as a model for texts that the writer will eventually write.
The role of reading and writing relationships has been a topic of increasing
interest to both reading and writing according to specialist Grabe (1981).
Researchers from a variety of fields (e.g., education, composition, reading, and
applied linguistics) have become interested in the ways of reading and writing that
might accelerate in the learning of content, the development of literacy skills and
acquisition of language abilities. For many years, writing partly comes from reading
and reading partly comes from writing where it shows that it has a correlation
relationship. Because of this relationship, many people believe, especially scholars,
that “good readers are good writers” and “good writers are good readers” Hirvela
(2001). On the other hand, it may impute that “bad writers may be bad readers”
where it shows the effects of reading proficiency to writing proficiency.
Students upon entering tertiary education are expected to have gained
proficiency in language especially in writing and reading. Through this research,
the researchers aim to contribute to the university by knowing the level of reading
and writing proficiency of Fourth year Education and Liberal Arts students since
they are expected to be outstanding in these skills as a requirement in their
profession the future.

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Reading Proficiency: Its Relationship to the Writing Skills of the
ACCOUNTANCY AND BUSINESSArguilla, Parba
ADMINISTRATION
Senior College Students in the University of the Immaculate Conception & Aguisando

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This research aimed to know the reading proficiency and the relationship
of the writing proficiency of the Fourth year Education and Liberal Arts students
of the University of the Immaculate Conception. This study aimed to give the
level of reading proficiency of the 4th year Education and Liberal Arts students
in terms of getting the main idea, contextual reference and vocabulary and the
level of writing proficiency of the 4th year Education and Liberal Arts students
in terms of content, organization of ideas, sentence structure and word choice.
Further, this study was conducted to reveal whether there is an evidence of
relationship between reading proficiency and writing proficiency of the 4th year
Education and Liberal arts students in UIC.

FRAMEWORK

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Reading proficiency Writing Proficiency

Getting the main idea Organization
Contextual References Development
Vocabulary Sentence Structure
Word Choice

Figure 1. Conceptual paradigm of the study

In this study, the independent variable is the reading proficiency. The

indicators include getting the main idea, contextual references and vocabulary.
The dependent variable of this study is the writing proficiency. The indicators
under this are organization, development, sentence structure, word choice. The
moderator variable in this study is the course in which respondents belong.

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ACCOUNTANCY AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
& Aguisando Education and Social Science

METHOD

This study was conducted in the University of the Immaculate Conception,

a Catholic university in Davao City. Particularly, this was conducted among
the Education and Liberal Arts Program which are housed in the Bonifacio
Campus.
The respondents of this study were the 120 regular students enrolled at the
University of the Immaculate Conception during the Academic Year 2013-2014
and belonged to the Education and Liberal Arts program of the university.
This study made use of test questionnaires for its data gathering purposes.
The research instruments measured the reading and writing proficiency of
the respondents. These research instruments were adapted from SAT (Critical
Reading Workbook) and TOEEFL iBT both offered standardized test for English
language.
The sampling technique used this study was purposive or criterion-based
non-random sampling. The respondents are chosen based on their courses.
In determining the answers of the education and liberal arts students in
terms of their reading proficiency the scores were transmuted to percent correct
using the formula raw score divided by the total number of items which is 50,
times 100.

Matrix 1. Rating scale for reading proficiency

Percentage Descriptive Interpretation

81%-100% Very High

61%-80% High
41%-60% Average
21%-40% Low
0%-20% Very Low

In rating the writing proficiency of the education and liberal arts students
of the University of Immaculate Conception the independent writing scoring
rubric from TOEFL iBT was adapted.
The statistical tools used in interpreting and analyzing the data gathered
were the Mean, which was used to determine the level reading proficiency
and writing proficiency of the 4th year Education and Liberal Arts students of

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Reading Proficiency: Its Relationship to the Writing Skills of the
ACCOUNTANCY AND BUSINESSArguilla, Parba
ADMINISTRATION
Senior College Students in the University of the Immaculate Conception & Aguisando

the University of Immaculate Conception and the Pearson Product Moment

Correlation (Pearson r) was used to determine the significance of the relationship
between reading proficiency and writing proficiency of the 4th year Education
and Liberal Arts students of the University of Immaculate Conception.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The reading proficiency of the Liberal Arts and Education Students are as
follows: Main idea, M = 56; Context Clues, M = 33; and Vocabulary, M = 39.
With the given value for mean, all indicators were described as Low (Table 1).

Table 1. Level of reading proficiency of Liberal Arts

and Education students

Reading Proficiency Mean (% Correct) Adjectival Description

Main Idea 56 Average

Context Clues 33 Low
Vocabulary 39 Low
Overall Mean 43 Low

In detail, students’ writing proficiency in terms of Organization, M = 1.50;

Development, M = 1.51; Sentence structure, M = 1.50, and Word Choice, M =
1.51 were all described as Low (Table 2).

Table 2. Level of writing proficiency of Liberal Arts

and Education students

Reading Proficiency Mean (% Correct) Adjectival Description

Organization 1.50 Low

Development 1.51 Low
Sentence Structure 1.50 Low
Word Choice 1.51 Low
Overall Mean 1.51 Low

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ACCOUNTANCY AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
& Aguisando Education and Social Science

Table 3. Test for the significant relationship between reading

proficiency and writing proficiency

Independent and Dependent Variables

Reading Writing r-values p-value Decision on
Proficiency (x) Proficiency (y) Ho @ α=0.05

Main Idea Organization 0.108 0.244 Accepted

Development 0.118 0.200 Accepted
Sentence Structure 0.057 0.535 Accepted
Word Choice 0.076 0.412 Accepted
Organization 0.011 0.903 Accepted
Context Clues Development 0.029 0.756 Accepted
Sentence Structure 0.047 0.611 Accepted
Word Choice 0.056 0.549 Accepted
Organization 0.006 0.952 Accepted
Vocabulary Development 0.037 0.687 Accepted
Sentence Structure 0.050 0.588 Accepted
Word Choice 0.051 0.585 Accepted
Organization 0.049 0.598 Accepted
Development 0.026 0.779 Accepted
Sentence Structure 0.050 0.588 Accepted
Word Choice 0.006 0.949 Accepted
Overall Mean
Overall Mean 0.016 0.859 Accepted

The overall mean revealed that there is no significant relationship between

reading proficiency and writing proficiency of the 4th year Education and Liberal
Arts students of UIC. This supports the results of the study of Carson, et al.,
(1990) that the transfer of reading skills into writing abilities may not necessarily
be automatic and it is highly possible that it depends on instruction to proceed.
Grabe in 2003 also mentioned that especially for second or foreign language
acquisition, proficiency in the target language plays a determinant role in how
this transfer from reading into writing may occur. Furthermore, the three main
statements have been made from research findings (Grabe, 2003 and Carson, et
al., 1990): better readers are better writers, better writers read more than poorer
writers, learners exposed to more models of print text tend to produce better
texts in syntactic and rhetoric terms. These theories of the development of the
literacy skills are designed based on first language data, and they assume a fully
developed oral and general language system (Carson, et al., 1990). However, this
is not the case for foreign language learners and differences in reading-writing

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Reading Proficiency: Its Relationship to the Writing Skills of the
ACCOUNTANCY AND BUSINESSArguilla, Parba
ADMINISTRATION
Senior College Students in the University of the Immaculate Conception & Aguisando

relationships in the foreign language are to be expected. Finally, the result of this
study also supports to the result of the study of Llach in 2010 that low proficient
learners the relationship was not strong enough to be significant, whereas for
the mid proficient learners there is a significant correlation between reading and
writing. This finding highlights the importance of second language proficiency
in establishing the nature and magnitude of the relationship between reading and
writing (Table 3).

LITERATURE CITED

Andersson, R., Spiro, R.J., & Andersson, M.C.

1977 Schemata as scaffolding for the represetation of information in
connected discourse. University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign.

Carson, J.E., et al.

1990 Reading-writing relationships in first and second language. TESOL
Quarterly. 24:245-266.

Fillmore, C.J.
1981 The case for case: Universals in Linguistic Theory. NY: Rinehart &
Winston.

Flahive, D. & Bailey, N.

1993 Exploring reading/writing relationships in adult second language
learners. In Carson, Joan and Leki, Ilona (eds.) Reading in the
Composition Classroom: Second Language Perspective. Boston,
MA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers. 128-140.

Grabe, W.
2003 Reading and writing relations: Second language perspective on
research and practice. In Kroll, Barbara (ed.). Exploring the
Dynamics of Second Language Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 242-262.

Gregg, L.N., & Steinberg, E.R.

1980 Cognitive processes in writing. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.

UICUIC
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ACCOUNTANCY AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
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Hirvela, A.
2001 Incorporating reading into EAP writing courses. In J. Flowerdeu
(Ed.) Research perspectives on English for Academic Purposes. New
York: Cambridge University Press.

Langer, J.A.
1984 Levels of questioning: An alternative view. In R. Freedle (Ed.)
Cognitive and linguistic analyses of standardized test performance.
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Petty, W.T.
1983 A history of the national conference on research in English. Urbana,
IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

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