THE LEVEL OF READING COMPREHENSION AND WRITING ABILITY OF THE

GRADE VI PUPILS OF BUMAGCAT ELEMENTRY SCHOOL

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A Proposal

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Presented to
The Faculty of the College of Graduate Schools
Abra State Institute of Sciences and Technology
Bangued Campus, Bangued,Abra

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In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the degree
Master of Arts in Education
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Jomelyn Marie D. Pemado

June 2022
 ABSTRACT

This study will determine the level of reading comprehension and writing ability of the

Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School during the School Year 2021-2022.

Specifically, it will answer the following questions: (1) What is the level of reading

comprehension of the Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School? (2) What is the level of

writing ability of the Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School? (3) Is there exist a

significant relationship between the level of reading comprehension and writing ability of the

respondents?

The respondents of this study will be the forty-two (42) Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat

Elementary School, 19 males and 23 females. In the conduct of this study, the descriptive-

correlation method of research will be utilized. The researcher will conduct reliability test to

determine the effectiveness of the tools and to measure whether the tools will be reliable and

accepted in data gathering. The data gathered in this study will be analyzed using the weighted

mean and bivariate analysis to which the level of significant was set at 0.05 level probability.
 Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM

Background of the Study

Education is widely recognized as the foundation of a progressive society. In a time, a

societal change puts increasing demands on individuals’ competence in using written language.

It is important that schools are able to teach on how to read and write to all children. A child’s

literacy development is dependent on this inter-connection between reading and writing. At the

same time, practice in writing helps children build their reading skills.

Thus, language is the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and

feelings to each other. It is a chief means by which the human personality is express and fulfil its

basic needs for social interaction with other people. One way to communicate is through writing.

Writing is a medium of human communication that represents language and emotions with signs

and symbols. As a person learns to write, knowing how to think of new idea and writing is a

process of putting ideas down into paper to transfer thoughts into words. The ability to write

clear is one of the most important skills one must acquire. (Sewjee&Al-Khateeb

http://www.local.Isu.edu.ph)

J. Walker BA (2016), “Reading affects writing and writing affects reading”. Reading

comprehension is most effective when intertwined with writing ability and vice versa. Reading

extensively develops a good writing. Reading a variety of genres helps individual learn text

structures and language that will be transferred into writing. In addition, reading provides prior

knowledge that can be used in creating stories. One of the primary reasons in reading is to learn.

Especially in school, a major portion of knowing comes from the texts through reading. Since
writing is the act of transmitting knowledge in print, therefore, reading plays a major role in

writing.

Indeed, reading comprehension is very vital for the learning process as it provides

students with the ability to understand, to criticize and to interact with the text; it expands

students’ trends and experiences; it deepens their thinking and assists them to orientate and

monitor themselves while reading; it helps students comprehend a text self dependently and the

teachers develop clear successive instructional procedures and it breaks the students’ inaction by

encouraging them to get involved in the educational process more actively and effectively.

There are traits that determine how successfully an individual will comprehend text,

including prior knowledge about the subject, well develop language, and the ability to make

inferences. Having the skill to monitor comprehension is a factor. Reading comprehension

involves two levels of processing, shallow (low-level) processing and deep processing. Deep

processing involves semantic process, which happens when encodes the meaning of a word and

relate it to similar words. Shallow processing involves structural and phonemic recognition, the

processing of sentence and word structure and their associated sounds. This theory was first

identified by Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart (2007).

Writing skill is the most difficult and complicated language skill to be learned almost by

all the students in every level of education. It is probably because the process of writing usually

takes more time to think and needs a lot of ideas.

According to the Institute of Education Sciences (2017) that writing is an essential skill

that benefits students for the rest of their lives. Introducing and practicing writing with engaging

activities in elementary school, can foster confidence and a lifelong love of writing. Immediately,

writing skills are important for elementary students' continued learning in all academic areas,
communication and self-expression, according to the Institute of Education Sciences (2017).

Writing allows students to communicate ideas, opinions, and factual information to a wide range

of individuals. Writing serves as a major means of communication in which personal thoughts

are conveyed to others. Writing can be used to explore and shape one’s opinions. Example,

students can be asked to think and write about a topic, sharing their completed compositions with

each other. Finally, writing provides a forum for self-expression. To illustrate, students can write

fictional stories or poems that are shared with peers or even a larger audience by their reading

comprehension.

Students learn and practice beginning reading skills, building their knowledge about

language and letter-sound relationships to develop fluency in reading, for the children must begin

to use these developing reading skills to learn- to make meaning, solve problems, and

understanding something new. Children need to comprehend what they read. Writing is often

used as means of evaluating students’ understanding of a certain topic, but it is also a powerful

tool for engaging students in the act of learning. Writing allows students to organize their

thoughts and provides a means by which students can form and extend their thinking, thus

deepening understand. Like reading to learn, writing can be a meaning-making process. Children

will engage in become more effective in writing.

Reading comprehension involves various factors such as background knowledge,

vocabulary and fluency, active reading skills and critical thinking that must work together.

Background knowledge plays an essential role in reading comprehension. Drawing parallels

between background knowledge and texts helps students become active readers, improving their

reading comprehension. Vocabulary skills affect their reading comprehension. Students must be

able to comprehend a familiar word and its relationship with other words within a text. Mastering
vocabulary includes recognizing a word’s part of speech, definition, useful context clues, and

how it functions in a sentence. These vocabulary strategies can help improve comprehension.

Reading with fluency allows students to retain information with accuracy, expression and

increased speed. The ability to read fluently develops through reading practice. As students

become fluent readers, they will spend less time trying to decipher the meaning of words and

more time considering the overall meaning of the sentences. Over time, fluent readers will

develop the ability to insightfully respond to a text. Active reading defines beginning readers

often rely on skilled readers to guide them through a text. However, as readers develop, they will

be able to monitor their own reading comprehension. Students can actively guide their own

reading by targeting comprehension problems as they occur. Students can troubleshoot

comprehension problems by recalling what they read, asking themselves questions or evaluating

the text. Critical thinking defines students who can actively respond to a text more efficiently

when they possess this skill. As students read, they can determine the main idea and supporting

details, the sequence of events and the overall structure of the text. Students will also be able to

identify literary devices and their effect on the text. Having critical thinking skills helps to

deepen a student’s comprehension of a text, resulting in a positive reading experience (Lucy

Hart, 2007).

Learning to read comprehensively and to write is a basic skill that unfortunately not all

children in the world learn sufficiently. Lack of teachers and time in the school are some of the

reasons rise in information activities due to the internet and other information technology that

enable opportunities has made literacy skill increasingly more important. More people need to

enhance literacy skills to able to find, select, interpret, analyze and produce information. (Annika

Angelli genlott, Ake Gronlund, Sept. 2013)

 To Waldie et al., (2013), children’s ability to read and write words is interwoven with

their ability to write letters and words. Reading and writing are similar but not identical cognitive

process. The reading process starts with the writing. In order to develop good reading and

writing skills.

An individual requires both orthographic knowledge and phonological awareness. To the

pupils – respondents learning how to understand, read and write in English at a young age will

help the pupils to be more fluent in English language so that they will be enabled to keep the

pace with all the modern technologies and scientific studies.

This study will help to determine the relationship between reading comprehension and

writing ability of the pupils in Bumagcat Elementary School. The purpose of this study is to

determine the level of reading comprehension and writing ability of the learners. The study also

aims on improving the learners’ ability to comprehend what they read and their ability to write. It

will also help the teachers to become more effective teachers in the future. Parents, on the other

hand, should be familiar with the level of reading comprehension and writing ability of their

child. In addition, they can use this information to help them determine if their children are

struggling and if they should be candidates to more individualized reading and writing

instruction. This study is important to the administrators to plan for a curriculum that will

motivate the pupils in their reading comprehension and writing ability.

Theoretical Framework
The researcher will read materials which are connected to the study. These materials will

serve as the bases in pursuing this research. This will also serve as a guide to the researcher that

will lead the path on how to make this study and show the ways to finish it.
 Reading comprehension is a skill that is critical in the educational success of all

individuals. Without adequate reading comprehension skills, students can struggle in many

subject areas as cited by Perfetti and colleagues’ model. Reading comprehension involves to

interacting system. It is an important skill needed for all areas of school. (Best, Rowe, Ozura and

McNamara 2005). As aforementioned by Gear (2006), developing positive reading

comprehension skills at an early age can greatly impact a student’s ability to approach new and

complex in many different subject areas.

Reading comprehension is defined as the level of writing. Proficient reading depends on

the ability to recognize works quickly and effortless. If word recognition is difficult, students use

too much of their processing capacity to read individual words, which interferes with their ability

to comprehend what is read as stated by Galletes (2013).

Al-Khateeb (2010) said that, “reading comprehension is considered the real core for the

reading process; and a big process around which all the other processes are centered.

Comprehension is the peak of the reading skills and the basis for all reading process. It is viewed

by some researchers as the ultimate objective of the reading process, since he who does not

comprehend what he reads is considered as if he has not read”.

Du Boulay (1999) assures that weakness in the reading ability constitutes one of the

biggest problems that students encounter at all educational levels. Thus, teaching reading is

viewed as a teaching objective at the different educational stages and the key to success in other

subjects of study.

Sewjee (2008) writes that may be reading has more important part to play than speaking

and listening for a learner as without reading he cannot achieve his goals. While reading a book,
he can travel to all around the world while sitting in his place and can make contact with all

kinds of people and comes across all sorts of dialects. He learns to distinguish between good and

bad and acquires all kinds of information, which helps to be a better speaker and a better writer.

Goodman (1988) views reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game. Meaning does not

come from the printed letters alone. It involves an interaction between thought and language.

Readers, while reading, hypothesize ideas, guess and predict what will come next, then they test

and check those predictions. Smith (1973) holds a similar view. Smith claims that reading is not

the passive reception of meaning from the text. It is an active process; it makes use of the

interaction between the reader's knowledge and the text. This knowledge includes grammar,

syntax, semantics and the world in general. The prevailing view is that reading is an interactive

process involving both knowledge of the world and knowledge of the language, where they

coordinate and interact to contribute the comprehension of the text (Williams and Moran, 1989).

Thus, comprehension is affected by the reader's background, purpose and strategy, as for

example, questioning the text truthfulness.

Reading is a complicated skill that demands considerable time and practice to develop

(Lundahl 1998). The ability “to read” involves more than merely decoding a text. In addition to

the practical skill of putting letters together, turning them into words, one is also supposed to

understand what is read: one has to combine decoding the ability of putting words together, with

comprehension the result of interpreting linguistic elements.

Does student fully understand what they are reading? Are they able to express verbally or

in written communication what they have read? According to Ivan Brater and Hedge Stromso

(2007), reading is often described as an interactive process, where comprehension is a result of

joint efforts from the author and the reader. Based on schema theory, comprehending a text is an

interactive process between the reader’s background knowledge and the text. Efficient

comprehension involves one’s knowledge of the world as well.

Strong reading comprehension skill helps in all the other subjects and in the personal and

professional lives. The high stakes tests that control elementary, middle and high school and that

determine entrance to college are in large parts, a measure of reading comprehension skills.

The writing process followed a similar development to that of reading. Until the 60’s,

writing was considered “a one-way transmission from writers” minds to the working out of a

graphic display” (Shanklin, 1981 and Hansen, 1987). Writing has often been seen (for example,

by Vygotsky) as a secondary symbolic system, based on speech. Communication can be done in

two ways; in oral and written form. When someone cannot share the ideas by speaking, he or she

can use a written form to communicate with others.

Gaid (2002) states that writing is a complex process that allows writer to explore thoughts

and ideas and make them visible and concrete. Writing encourages thinking and learning. It

motivates communication and makes thought available for reflection when thought is written

down, ideas can be examined, reconsidered, added to, rearranged and change.

Nunan (2003) states that writing is the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking about

how to express them and organizing them into statements and paragraphs that will be clear to a

reader. There are many advantages of writing. It often not time- bounded in the way conversation

is. It means that students have longer time to think than in speaking activity. They can check

their grammar patterns. It also encourages students to focus on accurate language use because

they think as they write; it may provoke development well as they resolve problems with writing
puts in their mind. Writing can also, of course, be used as an integral part of larger activity where

the focus is on something else such as language practices, acting out on speaking.

One of the main problems among students is the fact that many of them cannot develop

their writing skills, mostly the ones who are making compositions in a foreign language. This has

become very difficult not only for students but also for professors, because all of them are

looking for good in every single step of the learning process.

Moreover, the theoretician Kitzhaber A.R (1963) surveyed composition courses in four

year colleges and concluded that their quality and content were exceedingly diverse. He punished

composition instructors and their approaches with phrase that ring true today: “Teaching young

people to write well has always proved so frustratingly difficult and the methods used so time-

consuming laborious for teachers and students alike”. “Each method helps some students and

fails with others. Writing needs to persist; teachers much teach composition if students want to

develop effective writing skills.

Likewise, the National Assessment of Education Progress Report by the writer Martha

Maxwell (1975) stated that “poor writers seem to be getting poorer in those skills that are

specific to written communication, but seldom called for in conversation: that are acquired

largely through broad reading and considerable rewriting; that are most seldom taught, and when

taught who have written little use for written communication.”

The relationship between reading and writing is a strong one and people who are

generally good at one will usually good at the other. (www.languagetutoring.co.uk). A strong

correlation exists between reading ability and writing. As Wallace shared, “to be a good writer,

you must do two things above all others: read a lot and read a lot.
 Reading affects writing and writing affects reading as stated by Joann Walker BA (2016).

According to recommendations from the major English/Language Arts professional

organizations, reading instruction is most affective when intertwined with writing instruction and

vice versa. Reading a variety of genres helps children learn text structures and language that they

can then transfer to their own writing. In addition, reading provides young people with prior

knowledge that they can use in their stories. One of the primary reasons that people read is to

learn. Especially while they are still in school, a major portion of what they know comes from

the texts they read. Since writing is the act of transmitting knowledge in print, we must have

information to share before we can write it. Therefore, reading plays a major role in writing.

At the same time, practice in writing helps children build their reading skills. This is

especially true for younger children who are working to develop phonemic awareness and

phonics skills.

As Anne Lamott points out, “the real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and

intimacy with the process of writing. Constant reading will pull you into a place where you can

write eagerly and without consciousness”.

Conceptual Paradigm

In this study, the researcher will be guided by the paradigm below.

Independent Variables Dependent Variables

 Level of reading
comprehension
a. Literal level
 Reading comprehension b. Interpretative level
c. Evaluative level
 Composition writing  Level of writing ability
a. Content
b. Structure/Logic/
Transition
c. Grammar
Accuracy
d. Vocabulary
e. Punctuation/
Spelling/
presentation
Figure 1. The Research Paradigm
The independent variables, which are the reading comprehension test and composition

writing affect the reading comprehension and writing ability of the Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat

Elementary School.

Statement of the Problem

This study will determine the reading comprehension and writing ability in English of the

Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School.

Specifically, it will sought answer to the following problems:

 1. What is the level of the reading comprehension of Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat

Elementary School in terms of:

a. Literal level;

b. Interpretative level; and

c. Evaluative level?

2. What is the level of writing ability of the Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat

Elementary School in terms of:

a. Content;

b. Structure/ Logic/Transition;

c. Grammar Accuracy;

d. Vocabulary; and

e. Punctuation/Spelling/Presentation?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the reading comprehension and the

writing ability of the pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School?

Hypothesis
In the conduct of this study, the hypothesis will be considered:

1. There is a significant relationship between the level of reading comprehension and the

level of writing ability of the Grade-VI pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School.

Chapter 2

DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

This section presents the research design, population and locale of the study, data

gathering tools, gathering procedures and the statistical treatment of data that were used by the

researchers in accomplishing this study.

Research Design
The researcher will use the descriptive correlational analysis method as it determined the

relationship of reading comprehension and writing ability in English of Grade-VI of Bumagcat

Elementary School.

Descriptive correlational analysis method in research is concerned with the description

of data and the characteristics about reading comprehension and the writing ability of the pupils.

The attained goal will be the acquisition of factual, accurate and systematic data that used in

averages, frequencies and similar statistical calculation. The descriptive method will be used in

describing the level of reading comprehension and writing ability of the pupils. Correlational

because it will be used to measure the relationship between the two variables. It will be used to

figure out which variables were connected.

Population and locale of the Study

The respondents of the study will be the Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School

for the School Year 2018-2019 with the total enumeration of 42 pupils, 19 males and 23 females.

Data Gathering Tool

The researcher will construct a teacher-made test based on the stories taken from an

English book of Renata Wilmot (2002) English This Way intended for Grade VI. The said

teacher-made test will be validated and reliability test will also be conducted. In their writing
ability, pupils will be given topics to develop and this will be rated through a rubric adapted and

modified from https:/.www.teachers.net.com/elementary-essay-rubric-2081367.

Data Gathering Procedures

The researcher will prepare letters signed by their adviser to seek permission from the

Teacher-in-Charge of Bumagcat Elementary School and solicit the help of the subject teacher of

the respondents. The researcher will make a questionnaire based on the selected stories to

determine the reading comprehension skills of the pupils. The said tool will be validated and the

reliability will also be tested. In the composition writing, pupils will be given topics to develop

(“My Ambition in Life” and “My Family); these will be rated using a rubric adopted and

modified from hptt:/.www.teachers.net.com/elementary-essay-rubric-2081367.

Statistical Treatment of data

Data collected will be treated statistically using the following:

1. Weighted mean will be used to determine the level of reading comprehension and the

level of writing ability of the Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat Elementary School.

2. Bivariate Analysis will be used to determine if there exist a relationship between the

reading comprehension and writing ability of the Grade VI pupils of Bumagcat

Elementary School.