3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 11/2023

Exploring The Fluency In Reading

Among Primary School Students In
Rural Pahang And Parents’ Role

Muhammad Syakiriin bin Mohd Izan

University College of Yayasan Pahang
 3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Abstract
Reading is one of the foremost components in English education that determines the general level of English
mastery as well as literacy level in the respective language. However, there is a gap between the fluency of
reading between the rural readers who reside in the countryside areas compared to that of their urban
counterparts. The main focus of this research is to explore the fluency of reading English text among the students
of rural primary school in Pahang, as well as the role played and influence of the parents in this matter. The
results of the data conveyed that the fluency of reading among rural primary school students in rural Pahang are
below satisfactory level in terms of the speed of reading, word recognition and rhythm. As for the roles of the
parents, they could not influence their children to be fluent readers due to the lack of proficiency, inability to be
present for reading activities and the constriction of financial aspects. The findings suggest the awareness and
importance of the roles of parents in enhancing the fluency in reading at a young age, hence further promoting
literacy.

Keywords: Fluency of reading, rural readers, reading activities, word recognition, speed of reading, rhythm
3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Introduction
• Reading is broadly defined as the interaction between a reader and symbols that involves
interpretation of meaning to build up comprehension (process of viewing at a series of symbols
and deriving meaning from them)

• Reading fluency is also portrayed via the combination between the accuracy of pronunciation and
the degree of rate per word, which is the number of precise words pronounced per minute (Zaidah,
2012).

• Socioeconomic status can affect physical and mental aspects among students in which language
development among marginalized learners is likely to be obstructed by the aforementioned
financial setbacks (Perkins, Finegood, & Swain, 2013).

• The development of their literacy components such as phonemic awareness, fluency, and
vocabulary will not be fully developed

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 Stages of Reading Development
1. Emergent Pre-reader
Learns from a full range of multiple sounds,
words, concepts, images, stories,
Exposure to print, literacy materials

5. The Expert Reader 2. The Novice Reader

Reads widely from a broad range Learns the relationships between
of complex materials, both letters and sounds and between
expository and narrative, with a printed and spoken words
variety of viewpoints Reading
Development
3. The Decoding Reader
Reading simple, familiar phrases and
selections with increasing fluency
(simple materials)
4. The Fluent, Comprehending Reader
reading simple, familiar phrases and
selections with increasing fluency
(simple materials)

(JS Chall, 1983)

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3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Problem Statement
• The aspects of literacy of reading is found unsatisfactory among students reared by poverty such
as in most rural areas in Malaysia (Laila & Firdaus, 2016).

• The performance among primary school students has shown a consistent gap which was widening
between urban and rural schools performance (Hazita, 2016)

• Socioeconomic factors play a major role in shaping the proficiency level of reading among young
readers, where parental factors are some of the prominent determinants.

• Lack of general support, according to Normazidah, Koo and Hazita (2012), students would not
possess the adequate level of reading proficiency and most likely struggle to critically respond to
academic texts by reading in English

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 Impediment Of Reading Development
Socioeconomic factor
The lack of reading materials,
reading aids etc. (Laila & Firdaus,
2016)
Emergent Reader
The early development of
reading proficiency at a young
age Parental support
The lack of parental presence
in guiding the early reading
process
3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023
Inadequate ‘requirement’
01
The proficiency needed to develop into the
next stage is not adequate
Reading skills
02 the mastery of reading skills in the early years of
schooling won’t be achieved
Fluency and speed
03
Struggling learners could neither read
fluently with acceptable rapidity (Khor, Low,
& Lee, 2014).
04 Decoding
Decoding (pronouncing the word) and
comprehending practices would not
combine into one linear and instantaneous
process (Khor, Low, & Lee, 2014)
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3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Literature Review
• English is thought to have ‘a higher social value’ than that of the supposedly inferior counterparts (Hazita,
2009)

• This is due to the abundant of English speakers in urban areas, whereas only a handful of Malays that
belonged to the royals and elites benefited from this (Ramiza & Peter, 2013).

• Due to the geographical and economic disparity among the inhabitants, English was not equally dispersed all
across the nation.

• The disparity remains in terms of determining job opportunities and accessibilities (Foo & Richards, 2004)

• The dichotomy of English reception among citizens still remains, where the locals in the suburban parts of
Malaysia still has a strong influence of Bahasa Malaysia, the lingering monolingual aspects of life among
rural citizens could be handed in a long continuity, where the notion passes on for generations (Hazita, 2009)

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3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Research Objectives / Questions

• This study aimed to explore the reading fluency and parental factors in terms of
reading among primary school learners in a rural Pahang district, which is one of
the remote living areas in the region.

Research Objectives Research Questions

To investigate the parental roles in reading fluency

How involved are the parents in their children’s
1 development among primary school learners in rural
Pahang English reading fluency development at home?

To explore the fluency of reading in English among How fluent are the primary school learners in rural
2 primary school learners in rural Pahang. Pahang in reading in English?

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3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Methodology / Framework
Parental Involvement Automated fluency in
Research Design
(Epstein, 2009) reading (Samuels, 2006)

Qualitative Evidence collection & data analysis

Comprehensive discussion on the topic

A person's ability to recognize and
of research interest where the data is
Parenting involves the provision of process information
collected via interview and discussions
things such as health, housing, home with fewer efforts. This theory has been
with 10 families in Kg. Bukit Rok, a
environment to support their studies, used in reading fluency to determine
rural village in Bera and Kg. Tebing
parental skills in parent-child the ability of a student to look at words
Tembah, Maran, Pahang. The learners
associations and read them without thinking (fluent
are in Standard 5 (Darjah 5) at a local
readers).
school. The parents work as farmers,
rubber tappers, mechanics and small
shopkeepers

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 Findings & Discussions
• This framework is used in this research to determine the extent of the following
aspects of parental involvement in developing fluency in reading among their
children:

Parental Involvement
(Eipstein, 2009) 1 AVAILABILITY AT HOME

Parenting involves the provision of things 2 SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS

such as health, housing, home environment
to support their studies, parental skills in
parent-child associations

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Findings & Discussion

NO. ASPECTS FINDINGS

The parents spent 6-8 hours a day with their family, the activities
involved:
• Resting
• Watching television
• Helping with homework (Bahasa Melayu & Mathematics)

Based on the findings, no English-related materials / activities were

Availability at home
1
(activities at home)
involved (reading activities, helping with homework et cetera) among
all parents.

This is due to the:

• Low English proficiency among parents
• Work demands
• Letting their children learn how to read autonomously & heavy
reliance on teachers
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Findings & Discussion

NO. ASPECTS FINDINGS

The socioeconomic factors determine whether their children have the

accessibility in terms of reading materials. The findings are as such:
• The children do not attend extra classes (tuition)
• The reading materials were limited
• Some of their children do not go to school

2 Socioeconomic factors
Based on the findings, many are still not financially prepared to
commit. The factors that contributed to the abovementioned are:
• No extra money due to their limited & inconsistent income
(RM1800 monthly, 7 kids) (RM850, 5 kids)
• Rising cost of living, expensive reading materials (books)
• Livelihood first, education later
3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Findings & Discussion

• The researcher has discovered that the interviewees that comprised of young readers in rural district of
Pahang are lacking the speed, word-recognition, pronunciation accuracy in order to form textual
comprehension

• The 3 sentences below are some of the excerpts from a respective book employed to test out the
aforementioned fluency aspects:

i. “I said we didn’t actually have any equipment but that my Gramma keeps her side door unlocked and I
might be able to sneak in and borrow her mower for a few hours.”

ii. “I guess Mrs., Canfield must have been pretty desperate to get her lawn mowed, because she went along
with my plan.”

iii. “That’s when me and Rowley realized neither one of us had ever actually operated a lawn mower before.
So, the two of us poked around for a while and tried to figure out how to get the thing started.”

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 Findings & Discussions
The first aspect to be examined is the speed of the reading process.

i. “I said we [00.05] didn’t actually have any [00.07] equipment but that my Gramma keeps her
side door [00.07] unlocked and I might be able to [00.03] sneak in and [00.03] borrow her
[00.05] mower for a [00.05] few hours.”
The numbers
(seconds) in the ii. “I guess [00.05] Mrs., Canfield must [00.04] have been pretty [00.05] desperate to get her
bracket show the [00.05] lawn mowed, because she [00.04] went along [00.05] with my plan.”
time taken
between pauses iii. “That’s when me and [00.06] Rowley [00.06] realized [00.04] neither one of us had ever [00.04]
actually [00.07] operated a [00.04] lawn mower before. So, the two [00.03] of us [00.03] poked
around [00.03] for a [00.03] while and tried to [00.07] figure out how to get [00.04] the thing
started.”

There are significant pauses in between words in the phrases above. This is justified by the time taken by the reader to figure out
on how to pronounce, the meaning of the word as well as combining the words to form a sentence. Overall, the speed of
reading is slow.

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 Findings & Discussions
The second aspect to be examined is word recognition.

i. The participants were also observed to have possessed a really basic level of recognized words
in which comprised of few frequently observed words, such as ‘easy’, ‘house’, ‘operated’ among
The readers’ others
familiarity with the
words to aid them ii. However, the more advance words such as proper nouns (names) would be harder for the readers
in forming to identify based on their familiarity with English names as illustrated in the passages
comprehension and
fluency iii. The participants took their time and halted their continuous reading flow to process on how to
pronounce the proper noun ‘Mrs. Canfield’ for a few seconds

The longer passage above illustrated that the participants needed more time to recognize the words, decide on how to
pronounce it and combine the sentence in the effort of creating a comprehension

3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

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 Findings & Discussions
The third aspect to be examined is intonation accuracy.

i. “I said WE didn’t have ANY equipment but that my Gramma KEEPS her side DOOR unlocked
and I might BE able to sneak IN and borrow HER mower for A few hours.”
The ability to use
the correct stress, ii. “Luckily, Gramma wasn’t HOME, so IT was easy to get THE mower out OF her house. We
rhythm, and rolled it OVER to MRS. CANFIELD yard, and then we WERE ready to get to work”
intonation of a
spoken English iii. “That’s when me AND Rowley realized neither one OF us had ever actually operated A lawn
mower before. So, the two OF us poked AROUND for a while and tried TO figure OUT how to
get THE thing started.”

The participants stressed the incorrect word and impede the supposed rhythm of the passages and the ‘mood’ of the passages is
altered to some extent. As discussed, the probability of this to occur could be caused by the difficulty for the readers to combine
the sentence together and create one linear flow

3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

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3rd International Conference on Education (ICEd) 2023

Conclusion
• The present study has concluded that the fluency of reading English texts and passages are still
average, if not below average, for young learners in the rural Pahang

• Based on the findings, the fluency in reading aspects such as the speed of reading is rather below
the expected outcome, where the participants were stuttering for considerable amount of times

• The environment of their home and residence played a major influence in dictating the
interference for participants to seek scaffolding and help. The lack of motivation festered among
participants even at home because of factors at home.

• For the future researchers, it is very recommended that gaining access to data and variations of
information such as the school facilities and accessibilities at home in regards to those who live in
rural areas to be included

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