Preparation and validation of reading materials for grades three and four

Abstract

Reading skills are important. They provide a foundation for independent and effective learning, especially in the content subjects. According to Lizardo, skills in reading is a "fundamental, a must, a need which enables, helps, or inspires the child to succeed in school and later on in his daily life activities” These reading skills include vocabulary, word recognition, comprehension, study skills, and oral reading skills. The acquisition of these reading skills is develop- mental in nature. Gates describes the different stages of growth in reading abilities as the child goes through the elementary school as follows: (1) pre-reading stage, (2) beginning reading stage, (3) initial independent reading stage, (4) advanced primary reading stage, (5) intermediate reading stage, and (6) nature reading stage. These stages are not specifically identified with grade level in the elementary grades. The grade levels themselves however, denote a sequence: each level is supposed to be built upon those that come before it in a sequence. On the other hand, Betts states that a class or grade level is just an abstraction. It exists in the teacher’s mind. Actually, a teacher teaching a class is teaching pupils who vary widely in capacities, achievements, needs, and interests. The aforementioned statements have implications. First, the reading teacher is faced with challenging tasks. Some of these tasks are to meet the children's daily reading needs and to help them use different reading skills, according to their individual needs, abilities, and interests. These problems are compounded by others such as the big size of classes and inadequacy of reading materials, both in quantity and in quality. The teacher should provide materials suitable to each pupil’s reading needs: stories that capture and hold pupils’ interest, stories about things with which he is familiar, and stories which have meaning for him, so that he can develop confidence in his reading ability. Some experience of success in the acquisition of reading skills will enable him to gain immediate satisfaction from reading. The pupil's success in acquiring reading skills is dependent on factors which are, at least is part, educational. Among those are the experience background of the reader and his language efficiency. Others of importance, are his purpose in reading and his interests. All these factors greatly affect the learner’s acquisition of skills in reading. These factors should be considered by the teacher in providing varied and suitable reading materials for the children. According to Strang and Bachon, materials for developing basic reading skills must be of genuine interest to the pupils. Being of immediate interest to the pupils, the content can he interpreted in the light of their previous experiences. Much of the reading materials should have the characteristics of children's classics. In order to meet individual reading needs and abilities, the teacher should provide materials that the children are prepared to read. The materials should contain concepts within their sphere of understanding and should he written in a language not too far beyond the structure and vocabulary which they will find easy and familiar. To help children acquire reading skills and to provide teachers with suitable and varied materials to facilitate pupils' acquisition of these reading skills at their own rate or capacity, this project has been undertaken. The main purpose of this project was to prepare and validate reading materials for pupils in Grades III and IV. Specifically, the project aimed to establish the validity, reliability, and usability of the prepared materials, and to prepare a manual to help teachers use these materials effectively.