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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. |
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