READING COMPREHENSION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO CREATIVE

NONFICTION ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF GRADE 12 VISION STUDENTS

_______________________________

A Research Proposal

presented to the

Senior High School Department

Midsalip National High School

__________________________________

In Partial Fulfilment

of the Requirements in

Inquiry, Investigations and Immersion

_________________________________

By

Jornales, Estelamaris T.
Timbao, Julie Rose D.
Quilo, Rejane B.
Ensayao, Cherry Ann C.
Mandao, Jemaries A.
Alagon, Shaira Mae A.
Arcilla, Arnel D.
Sumolay, Johnny Boy C.

June 2023
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

The call for efficient reading comprehension is significant and is necessity in most of the

aspects in learning. During early age, students are taught at school on how to read, then later trained

to comprehend what they read. Though many students have learned to read, Rutzler (2020) showed

a disparity by stating that the act of reading and the act of comprehending what you read are two

different things.

Reading comprehension is defined by Veeravagan, et. Al., (2010) as a thinking process by

which the reader selects facts, information, or ideas from printed materials; determine the

meanings the author intended to transmit; decide how they relate to previous knowledge; and judge

their appropriateness and worth for meeting the learner’s own objectives.

The ability to read is an essential skill for students to master because information is

presented in text throughout the world. According to Widdowson (1979) reading is an interactive

process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. Reading is

therefore seen as the combination of textual information with the information the reader brings to

the text resulting to comprehension of the text. Anderson (2000) notes out that reading is a mental

process, not getting from print but engaging the reader’s mind to decode meaning. Reading

requires thinking; it is not just speaking the words and symbols but rather thinking and speaking.

It is evident that every student’s experience reading comprehension difficulties as Clarke,

Truelove, Hulme, and Snowling (2013). Wong (2011) concludt./ed that reading comprehension is
a critical learning skill to all students. Nevertheless, it is still necessary for them to learn and master

the said skill. As Ruiz (2015) stated that, students need reading comprehension skills to

successfully accomplish the education goals and expectations, which are required to the classroom

settings. In contrast, it has been argued by Hoch (2015) and Mason (2004) that not being able to

successfully comprehend can prevent students from learning, retaining information that they read,

and graduating from school, which will negatively impact different aspects of their lives later on.

Without comprehension, students gain no meaning from what they read. Comprehension

strategies are used to increase student’s understanding of the text to help them become active

readers by engaging with the text. Prior knowledge can include their experiences of knowledge of

words, places, animals, or events. Students start by making connections between texts and their

personal experiences (text-to-self). As they grow older, connections are made between different

books, texts, or ideas by identifying similarities. In other words, to increase comprehension,

students get to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections before, during, and

after they read.

Truthfully, creative nonfiction was one of the most misunderstood disciplines in 21 st

century. When people think a creative writing course, they often imagine a group of lofty, out-of-

touch people who have unproductive conversations about abstract concepts in reality, nothing

could be further from the truth: the best writing classes remain engage with the real world, and the

skills gained in a creative writing course apply to nearly every facet of daily life.

Thus, the researchers conducted this study to determine the status of the reading

comprehension of Grade 12 Vision students.

Statement of the Problem

This study aim to determine the significant relationship between reading comprehension and

creative nonfiction academic performance of Grade 12 Vision.

Thus, this research intends to answer the questions below.

1. What is the status of reading comprehension of Grade 12 Vision students; and

2. What is the status of academic performance of Grade 12 Vision students in the subject

creative nonfiction?

3. Is there a significant relationship between reading comprehension and creative nonfiction

academic performance of Grade 12 Vision students?

Conceptual Framework

This study underscored the reading comprehension which is the independent variable and

the creative nonfiction academic performance of the students which served as the dependent

variable.

Reading Creative Nonfiction Academic

Performance of Grade 12
Comprehension Vision students

Figure 1.1 Schematic Diagram of the Study

 Figure 1.1 shows the independent variable of the study, reading comprehension and

the dependent variable, creative nonfiction academic performance.

Significance of the Study

The findings, conclusions, and recommendations of this study benefit the following:

Students The outcome of this study would measure their status of reading

comprehension. It can also help them realize or think about their

opportunities for self-development and self-evaluation.

Teacher This study or research would be beneficial to the teachers for them to know the

student’s status of reading comprehension and the academic performance in creative

nonfiction.

Future Researcher It would be great help for their upcoming studies as idea or basis. If they

want to conduct similar study, they may find the references, the date, the

findings, the conclusions, and the recommendations of this study beneficial

as additional input of information and considerable reference.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

This study would focus on reading comprehension and its relationship to the creative

nonfiction academic performance of the students. This would be conducted at Midsalip National
High School., with the Grade 12 Vision students, respectively, for the School Year 2022-2023.

Further, the researchers would seek to find out what is the status of reading comprehension of the

Grade 12 Vision students and its significant relationship to their creative nonfiction academic

performance. All other factors which may affect students’ academic performance in creative

nonfiction would be excluded in this study for the purpose of delimiting the research topic.

Definition of Terms

To fully understand the key terms that are used in the study, the following terms were

conceptually and operationally defined:

Correlation It is a statistical measure that expresses the extent to which two variables are linearly

related (meaning they change together at a constant rate). It’s a common tool for describing

simple relationships without making a statement about cause and effect. This specifically refers to

the statistical tool used in this study.

Reading Comprehension Reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its

meaning and to integrate with what the reader already knows. It is the ability to determine writer’s

purpose, intent and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer. In this study, it refers to

independent variable in which the researchers were going to measure the student’s status of

reading comprehension, using survey question.

Creative Nonfiction Creative nonfiction is a genre of writing that uses. It refers to the

dependent variable of the study. The researchers were going to find out if creative nonfiction

had a significant relationship between reading comprehension.

Quantitative Research It involves the use of computational, statistical, and mathematical tools

to derive results. It is conclusive in its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and understand

how prevalent it is by looking for projectable results to a larger population.

 CHAPTER II

Review of Related Literature

This chapter presents the theories and related local and foreign studies that deals with the

researcher study. The following literature and studies support the idea of being used as background

and references of the present investigation.

Related Literature

The key to learning is better reading skills. But this reading skill needs not to be confined

to English only. The ability to read and write in any language or dialect is important. It is a common

knowledge that knowing how to read and write is an indicator that one is educated. It is also an

accepted phenomenon that reading is a very relevant part in the development of an individual’s

whole being. Reading is said to be the training of the mind and the means to attain deeper meaning

of reality. Indeed, reading highly contribute to the development of individual especially in

acquiring knowledge and learning that will help them in learning more cooperative and language

literate Bernardo, J (2020).

Reading Comprehension is defined by the K12 Reader Reading Instruction Resources

(2018) as act of understanding what is read. While the definition can be simply stated that act is

not simple to teach, learn or practice. Reading comprehension is an intentional, active, interactive

process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of writing. The act of

reading cannot be completed without reading comprehension for it is one of the pillars in reading.

In the publication of K12 Reader Reading Instruction Resources (2018), it has been said that

when a person reads a text, he engages in a complex array of cognitive processes. He is

simultaneously using his awareness and understanding of phonemes (individual sound “pieces” in
language), phonics (connection between letters and sounds and the relationship between sounds,

letters and words) and ability to comprehend or construct meaning from the text. The last

component of the act of reading is reading comprehension. It cannot occur independent of the other

two elements of the process. At the same time, it is the most difficult and most important of the

three.

Related Studies

Reading is one of four important language skills that should be mastered by students. It is one

of the ways for getting knowledge that cannot be separated from every learning process and it does

not only happen in educational field but also in our daily life. For getting knowledge and

information, people read books, magazines, newspapers, advertisements and etc. Nation states that

reading is a source of learning and enjoyment. It can help students learn a new vocabulary and

grammar. It also makes them enjoy the reading. They can learn more and more by reading.

Reading comprehension is one of the most complex behaviors in which humans engage

(Elleman, Oslund, 2013). This task is undoubtedly difficult to be effectively done without proper

knowledge on the reading context and the reading process itself. The study of Aksan et al. (2009)

provided that reading comprehension requires the effective utilization of cognitive structure and

the latter requires sentient behaviors by the individual namely, awareness of his own cognition

system. The learner’s performance to be unable to comprehend effectively could likely hamper the

students learning, retain what they read and reap its purpose – understanding, and at the same time

it could have a negative impact to the school where they graduated because of their performance

in reading at their workplace. Reading difficulties negatively impact different aspects of students,
including their educational progress, self-esteem, attitudes about reading and learning, motivation

to read, career choices, social economic status and expectation for future reading success.

In investigating the relationship between reading comprehension and academic

performance, Mac Gregor and Prince (1999) noted that vocabulary, number and symbol sense, as

well as the ability to read and comprehend word are important factors affecting achievement.

Researchers have over time conducted research on reading comprehension and academic

performance. Local studies have recognized the importance of reading in academics. However,

these have restricted themselves to children’s ability to decode. Mando (2008) indicates that

though decoding is important, the ultimate goal of all reading is comprehension. This study,

therefore, sought to establish the relationship between reading comprehension and academic

performance, and in so doing local empirical data that shows the magnitude of this relationship for

various subjects offered in the secondary school level.

Barnet (1989) concluded that reading comprehension is related to academic performance

of the subjects considered, and is therefore a factor to consider in seeking to elevate the academic

performance of the students. A student’s intelligence may be an indicator of his reading

comprehension ability.

However, data covering more detailed aspects of both reading comprehension and

intelligence should be subjected to more powerful testing to determine to what extent the student’s

intelligence can be used to predict his reading comprehension ability.

 CHAPTER III

Research Methodology

This chapter presents the research design, locale of the study, respondents of the study, sample

size, sample technique, research instrument, data gathering procedure and data gathering analysis.

Research Design

The research design of this study was quantitative research. The main purpose of this study

is to find out the status of reading comprehension and its relationship to creative nonfiction

academic performance of Grade 12 Vision students.

Quantitative Research involves the use of computational, statistical, and mathematical

tools to derive results. It is conclusive in its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and

understand how prevalent it is by looking for projectable results to a larger population.

Research Locale

This research shall be done in Midsalip National High School, formerly known as Midsalip

Barangay High School in Zamboanga del Sur. It is a secondary school in the remote town of

Midsalip, serving both junior and senior high students. It started its Senior High School in 2016

and offers a variety of academic and technical-vocational courses.

Research Respondents

The research participants of this study will be the Grade 12 Vision students from Midsalip

National High School. School Year 2022-2023. These individuals will be carefully chosen to be

the respondents of the study.

 Table 1. Criteria of Population and Sample Population

Criteria Population Sample Population

Grade 12 Vision 30 30

Total 30 30

Table 1. shows the set, number and description of the population chosen to represent as

samples to which responses shall be elicited and data will be generated.

Research Instrument

The researchers used short story with reading test in measuring the status of reading

comprehension of the respondents and the participants answered the given questions. On the other

hand, the researchers used the scores of the respondents in Creative nonfiction after they finish

answering the given questions about the short story they read to determine if there is a significant

relationship between reading comprehension and creative nonfiction academic performance of the

Grade 12 Vision students.

Scaling Procedure

Below is a table presenting the scale use in interpreting the status of reading comprehension of

Grade 12 Vision students of the Senior High School Department, Midsalip National High School.
 Interval Descriptors

10 Excellent

7-9 Good

4-6 Average

3 and below Poor

Data Gathering Procedure

The researchers requested for approval from the school principal and the Senior High

School Coordinator of Midsalip National High School to conduct the study. And the researchers

asked consent from the research participants whether they want to participate in the study. The

data and information that obtained from the correspondent are rest assured to be keep private and

confidential to avoid defamation of character and to avoid circumstances that might complicate
their participants relationship with other. As soon as the approval will be secured, the researchers

will personally conduct the reading test to the respondents. After which all the data will be

gathered, organized, analyzed and interpreted.

Treatment of Data

The frequency and percentage distribution used to determine the profile of the respondents.

The interpretation were applied for the motivation to examine the reading comprehension and its

relationship to creative nonfiction academic performance of Grade 12 Vision.

Computation of the different statistics tools employed in this paper were shown below:

To get the frequency, add as the responses in every item or questions.

8+12+10+0= 30

Computation of Percentage

Value

Percentage > ————-—

Total Value × 100