Preparation of speed-and-comprehension reading materials for grade six

Abstract

This study seeks to prepare speed-and-comprehension materials to he used by the grade six pupils to reduce the many handicapped readers in the field. A random sample of 230 pupils were drawn from the central school and three barrio schools. One hundred twenty pupils took the speed-and-comprehension tests, and only one hundred ten took the cloze tests. The whole set of reading materials is intended for one school year. It is divided into nine smaller units, one set for each researcher. Each set consists of two lessons, and each lesson is composed of three selections, each with a fifteen item exercises. For each lesson, two selections were prepared which are meant to be parallel, each grantee therefore, pre pared a total of twelve reading materials. This study is only a part of a longer project designed to prepare reading materials for testing the grade six pupils' comprehension skills. The readability of the reading materials was determined with the use of the cloze technique and the results of the silent reading test. The reliability of the test exercises, on the other hand, was ascertained with the use of coefficient of correlation between two forms and the internal consistency for each set of test exercises. The reading materials-- both selections and test exercises--are valid in content since they were evaluated by experts in their respective areas and they were also within the reading interests of the pupils. The result of the computation of index of difficulty and discriminative power show that, on the whole, the test items were valid. Items with low Dp and Di were improved and revised. The pairs of materials that are meant to be parallel seems not equivalent in difficulty, therefore, they could not be used interchangeably. All the distractors in the test exercises could be considered functional since they were actually chosen by the pupils. The researcher proposed to retain the reading materials in spite of the low result of the cloze tests for the guide lines for insuring the readability, appropriateness and usability of the materials were strictly followed. After revisions have been made as suggested by the results of the item analysis, the materials are recommended for further try-out, regionwide if possible. They are also recommended to be re-examined to find out if they already meet the desired criteria.