PHONICS METHOD AND WHOLE-WORD APPROACH IN FOSTERING READING ABILITY BEHAVIOUR AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS IN SAKI, OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

 This study investigated the reading ability of primary school pupils in primary five and six in three public primary schools in Saki township using phonics method and whole-word approach in Fostering the reading ability among primary school pupils in Saki. To ascertain the degree of its effectiveness, a randomized sample of 75 primary school pupils with 25 participants in each from three different primary schools in three different locations in Saki were chosen for the purpose. The quasi-experimental study employed a randomized sample that undertook training in phonics method and whole-word approach and with a control group were used. The instruments used for data collection are prepared from recommended textbooks for primary five and six respectively using Cloze Test method. The test prepared from book 5 was used as the screening tool, while the Cloze test prepared from book six was used to measure the dependent variable (Reading Ability) and the third instrument known as Parental Involvement in fostering Reading Ability of the Pupils Questionnaire (PIFRAQ) was used to measure parental involvement in assisting their children in fostering reading ability and gender of the participants was derived from the demographic information of the Cloze test. A pair of pre-test and post-test data was obtained from each participant who formed the basis of the findings using ANCOVA for data analyses. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at α = 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that there were significant differences in the treatment with whole-word approach being more significant in fostering reading ability among primary five and six pupils. It was therefore concluded that phonics method and whole-word approach can be used to enhance reading ability of pupils in primary 5 and 6 classes and recommendations are also offered.