Preparation and validation of reading materials for grade four

Abstract

This project consists of the preparation and validation of six selections intended as supplementary materials to develop comprehension skills of pupils in Grade Four. Being part of the team project of the MECS-RO CPU Reading Grantees Batch Four, this study focused only on the development of pupils' skills in making generalizations and drawing conclusions. All the other comprehension skills were taken cared of by the six other members. Before the selections were written, each member of the team conducted an interest inventory in her own respective district. The kinds of stories prepared were within the ten top choices of pupils. To make sure that Grade Four pupils would find these materials readable, the researcher controlled the sentence lengths and the number of syllables. She later applied the Fry Readability Test and she supplemented this application by using the SMOG Readability Formula. The vocabulary used in the selections was limited to words lists in the Notre Dame Word List for Grades I - IV and in the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary. The selections were made into Cloze tests to determine their readability. A modified Cloze test was conducted in which the ninth word was deleted and this test was administered to a sample of pupils in Grade Four, Results of the Cloze test showed that 65 per cent of the pupils were on the independent level, 20 per cent were on the instructional level and 15 per cent were on the frustration level in the selection, “The Legend of Linso." In "Bobb," 60 per cent were on the independent level, 32 per cent were on the instructional level and 8 per cent were on the frustration level. In "The Decimal," 45 per cent were on the independent level, 40 per dent on the instructional level, and 15 per cent on the frustration level. In "Who Is Who," 77 per cent were on the independent level, 16 per cent on the instructional level, and 6 per cent on the frustration level. In per cent were on the independent level, 17 per cent on the instructional level and 9 per cent on the frustration level. In the last selection, "Cometa" 39 per cent were on the independent level, 45 per cent on the instructional level, and 15 per cent on the frustration level. Generally, only a small percentage of pupils were reading on the frustration level in all the six selections. Test exercises of fifteen items which accompanied each selection were tested and validated. One hundred ten pupils randomly chosen from three barrio schools and from one central in the district of Hinigaran I were utilized for the try-out. Items wore then analyzed for index of difficulty and for discriminative power. Poor items were rejected such that an average of only thirteen items in all the six selections were accepted. Results also showed that items were highly as revealed by the results of the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 application.