Determinants of reading comprehension performance among form three learners in Isinya Sub-County In Kajiado Kenya

Abstract

Reading comprehension activities are important techniques in enhancing reading comprehension skill among learners. Defined as deliberate conscious techniques, these activities are essential in assisting one‘s reading process giving a clear sense of direction on comprehending while reading, helping a learner overcome language deficiency, achieve better reading comprehension, prevent failure of comprehension and support interpretation of the text. Form three English language syllabus recommend the use of reading comprehension skill activities during the reading comprehension lessons. Evidence from the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) reports indicate that learners are experiencing challenges in the area of English comprehension. KNEC attributes the poor performance in reading comprehension of passages to inadequate and/or lack of the reading comprehension skill activities during the reading comprehension lessons. This study therefore, examined the extent to which reading comprehension skill activities predict and correlate with reading comprehension performance of form three learners. In addition, the study examined the meanings of erroneous answers obtained from reading comprehension assessment passages. The reading comprehension activities were: previewing, prediction, semantic mapping, inference making, note-making, paraphrasing, summary writing, question posing and group discussion. The study adopted an experimental mixed method approach by randomly selecting seventy-three form three learners from two Peri-urban girls‘ schools in Kajiado County, Kenya. Data was collected by administering of comprehension activities to the experimental group whose schemata was analyzed using the Schema theory. Quantitative data was analyzed using Pearson‘s Correlation Coefficient, t-test, ANOVA, Multiple Regression Analysis tests at p <0.05 level of significance. Results revealed significant statistical differences in mean score between the control group and experimental group post-test performance (t=11.05, df =71, p<.00). Previewing (r=.352, n=39, p=.028), prediction (r=.531, n=39, p=.001), semantic mapping (r=.330, =39 p=.40) and inference making (r=.457, n=39, p=.003) had a significant correlation with reading comprehension performance of the experimental group and not for control group. Prediction (β=.473, t=4.763, p= 000), inference making (β=.75, t=4.1, p=.00) and discussion skills (β=.41, t=3.44, p<.002) significantly predicted the reading comprehension performance of experimental group but not for control group. Learners made errors at various levels. The study concluded that lower–level reading word recognition namely, phonological awareness, orthography, morphology, collocational and semantic vocabulary knowledge; coupled with adequate activation of background knowledge for high-level knowledge comprehension processes are required in a learner for construction of coherent mental representation of a text. The study recommends that reading comprehension skill activities of inference making, prediction and group discussion integrated with continuous learning of lower-level reading knowledge processes and adequate vocabulary knowledge processes should be continually exposed to the learners.