Theme: Developing Reading skill

Subtheme: Modern technologies

Topic: Developing Reading skill of students through Modern technologies at Secondary level

1. Why did you select this specific sub-theme and topic? Relate it to your

experience / problem in your classroom / institution. (10 marks) (Give the

background and rationale of the study)

The researchers come to know that the modern technologies as very useful method in reading

skills improvement. As the researchers has experienced teaching practices in Govt. School

Fortabbas. The researcher has taught 8th grade at this school and observed major problems in

their studies and education. They just used to cram textbooks for better score and position but

they were weak in skills just like reading skills. As researcher has taught English as mater subject

at Govt. School Fortabbas. Students had main problems of reading skills. This problems students

were unable to read anything creativity. All the students belonged to backward area and were not

able to read anything creativity. This problem was creating difficulties for students as well as

teachers.

2. What was your discussion with your colleague / friend / senior teacher or

supervisor regarding the problem? (05th marks) (Provide your discussion

with your colleague or supervisor for better understanding of the problem and

alternate solutions)

My colleague senior teacher and my supervisor appreciated my idea about my attribution to find

out the problem faced by secondary level students about reading skills and method of

improvement of reading skills through modern technologies. Being resident of villages and
illiterate background most of the children of public schools in our premises are least attractive to

their studies and not well familiar with importance of reading. One of my senior teacher and

colleague told that although he doesn’t has documentary proof regarding the learning

improvement in students that were treated with problem solving technique, because according to

him it proves to be a brain storming technique. My supervisor also appreciated my idea for using

my class in two groups as variables.

3. What did you find about the problem in the existing literature (books /

articles / websites)? (10 marks) (Explore books and online resources to know

what and how has been already done regarding this problem)

Literature review

A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. The literature

review surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a particular area of

research.

Reading skills

Reading is an integral part of the way we learn and it is important to understand how best to

encourage children to read for enjoyment as well as when they are required to for other reasons.

The home environment is the most accurate predictor of a pupil’s achievement, and literacy is a

good opportunity where parents can make a difference, as simple actions such as being read to or

even just being exposed to books, can impact a child’s progress in learning to read (Maynard,

2010).

Modern technologies
Media’s pivotal role in our global culture is why media censorship will never work. What is

needed instead is a major rethinking of media’s role in all of our lives – a rethinking that

recognizes the paradigm shift from a print culture to an image culture that has been evolving for

the past 150 years since the invention of photography (Thoman, 2003).

Reading skills and Modern technologies

It is important to note, however, that many children themselves are aware of the benefits of

reading, yet they are not necessarily motivated to read as a result. According to the National

Literacy Trust, while self-defined ‘non-readers’ saw ‘readers’ as people who are likely to ‘do

well’ and people who are ‘intelligent’, conversely they also thought that ‘readers’ are ‘geeky’ and

‘boring’ (Maynard, 2010).

Reading as a process

The effects from phonemic blending fluency and letter sound fluency to decoding were

completely mediated by phonogram fluency, decoding fluency, single-word reading fluency, and

reading comprehension had direct effects on the text reading fluency of the second grade

students. Understanding the relationship among the many component skills of readers early in

their reading development is important because a deficiency in any of the component skills has

the potential to affect the development of other skills and, ultimately, the development of the

child as a proficient reader (Hudson & Turner, 2012)

Previous Results

We had observed the fact that many school children often spent time on using internet after

school, since many researches had pointed out that internet has significant effect on life, school

works and cognitive skills as the result of school children using internet (Wang, Chang & WU,

2010).
4. What were the major variables / construct of your project? Give

definitions / description from literature. (05th marks) (What are the key terms

in your topic or study? what do you mean of these terms? What particular

meaning you will attach to the term when used in this project?)

The secondary school level students studying English in my class constituted the population of

this study. My students of 8th class of Government girl’s elementary school 166/7.R were

selected as a sample for the study. Sample size consisted of 31 students who were equally

divided into an experimental group and a control group on the basis of pre-test. Treatment of the

planned problem-solving approach is the guideline of Perveen (2010) problem-solving approach.

I used my class in two groups as variables. One of them was treated with problem solving

method group (experimental group) while second group was not treated specially (control

group). Students of second group were allocated other place to sit and do practice their self while

first group was instructed for problem solving one.

5. What did you want to achieve in this research project? (05th marks)

(Objective / purpose of the study; what was the critical question that was tried

to be answered in this project)

The secondary school students studying and reading English constituted the population of this

study. The students of 8th class of Government girl’s elementary school 166/7.R were selected as

a sample for the study

Objectives of the research: Research focuses on the investigation of the development of problem

solving skills of secondary education majors.

• The study investigated the contribution of modern technologies to improve the quality of

reading of grade 8th students.

• The study conducted to Assess student’s problem solving skills.

• Determine goals and areas for improvement, and compare problem solving skills with other

groups.

Research questions:

 What is the contribution of modern technologies to improve the quality of reading of

grade 8th students?

 What are modern technologies?

 What is reading skills meanings?

6. Who were the participants in your project? (05th marks) (Give details of

the individuals or groups who were focused in this project e.g. the early-grade

students whose reading in English was not good or the students of class VIII

who did not have good communication skills)

As mentioned above secondary level students constituted the population of this study. The

secondary level student’s reading constituted the population of this study. The students of 8th

class of Government girl’s elementary school 166/7.R selected as a sample for the study. Sample

size consisted of 31 students who were equally divided into an experimental group and a control

group on the basis of pre-test. Treatment of the planned problem-solving one is the provided with

guideline of Perveen (2010) problem-solving approach.

7. How did you try to solve the problem? (10 marks) (Narrate the process

step-wise. Procedure of intervention and data collection)

Reference the above secondary school students constituted the population of this study. I used

my class in two groups as variables. One of them was treated with problem experimental group

while second group was control. Students of second group were allocated other place to sit and

do practice their self while first group was instructed for problem solving one.

Sample size consisted of 31 students who were equally divided into an experimental group and a

control group on the basis of pre-test. Treatment of the planned problem-solving approach is the

guideline of Perveen (2010) problem-solving approach.

Pre-test and post-test research instruments were used for this study. These instruments were used

for accessing students’ performance which would reflect their level of knowledge in mathematics

before and after the experiment. The pretest and post-test equivalent group design was

considered to be the most useful for this study. The content validity of tests was insured by

preparing chart of specification. The content validity was also checked by correlation coefficients

which were found to be 0.5.

8. What kind of instrument was used to collect the data? How was the

instrument developed? (05th marks) (For example: observation, rating scale,

interview, student work, portfolio, test, etc.)

Thirty one students in 8th grade of the Goverment girls elementry school 166/7.Rconsisted of the

sample for this study. Pre-test and post-test research instruments were used for this study. These

instruments were used for accessing students’ performance which would reflect their reading of

English before and after the experiment. The pretest and post-test equivalent group design was
considered to be the most useful for this study. The content validity of tests was insured by

preparing chart of specification. The content validity was also checked by correlation coefficients

which were found to be 0.5.

9. What were the findings and conclusion? (Provide instruments and analysis

as appendix) (10 marks)

In order to confirm whether both groups were essentially equal on previous reading skills,

students were tested in pre-test. Means of results were not significantly different in pre-test.

While this difference varied significantly after treatments that continued for 40 days. Students of

experimental group were found to be better in post-test.

Because both groups were found to be different in post-test achievement scores, the difference

being highly in favor of the experimental group. This means that the students taught by the

problem-solving approach showed much better achievement compared to the control group

which was taught by the expository strategy. T

10. Summary of the Project (05th marks) (What and how was the research

conducted – main objective, process and findings)

This study sought to determine the effect of the problem-solving approach on students reading

skills at the secondary level. The student’s English reading constituted the population of this

study. The students of 8th class of Govt. School were selected as a sample for the study. Sample

size consisted of 31 students who were equally divided into an experimental group and a control

group. Treatment of the planned problem-solving approach is the guideline of Perveen (2010)

steps of the problem-solving approach. After the treatment, post-test was used to see the effects

of the treatment. Results of post test revealed that both the experimental and control groups were
almost equal in mathematics base at the beginning of the experiment. The experimental group

outscored the control group significantly on the post-test.

11. How do you feel about this practice? What have you learnt? (self-

reflection) (10 marks)

Methods play an important role in teaching. It is a planned and systematic effort of the teacher to

establish a sequence in the various parts of teaching. Due to the importance of reading skills in

our life, as well as improving the standard of learning reading, it is necessary to develop a

program of reading skills by modern technologies. Therefore, it was necessary to conduct

modern technologies to the improvement of reading skills at the secondary level. The study was

aimed at comparing the effectiveness of the expository strategy and problem-solving approach of

reading skills at the secondary level. It was concluded that when the subjects were taught by the

problem-solving approach, their achievement in learning, as compared to the subjects who were

taught by the expository strategy.

The present study was conducted in the Govt. School. If this study were conducted in another

distinguished institution, like Lahore University of Management and Science, National

University of Science and Technology, city schools, or Beacon House School, it would be

expected that more reliable results would have been obtained.

A strong base of previous knowledge was required for the heuristic group instruction of

experimental method. Although results of the study were in favor of the modern technologies, it

is the researcher’s opinion that if one week was spent with the sample students clarifying the

importance of modern technologies in the learning of reading.

Moreover, for more authentic results of the study, the teacher of the problem-solving approach

should have been provided training for at least one month’s duration. The teaching approach used
with the experimental group was, as a matter of fact, a combination of the expository strategy

and problem-solving approach due to the reason that facts, rules, and action sequences (terms,

formulas and procedures) had to be explained.

12. What has it added to your professional skills as a teacher? (05th marks)

Here is need of improvement of modern technologies at secondary school level for the quality of

reading. We need a proper system in the support of modern technologies. English language is our

national language in this way this is ever needed for us so the proper system to the improvement

of English learning is compulsory.

In private school system, the students do not accept change well. It takes time for them to adjust

to the problem-solving method. When asked questions by the teacher, they hesitated and had no

confidence, even if they knew the correct answer.

The results indicate that the problem-solving method need not be more me consuming than the

expository method of instruction at this age level. The results of this study strongly suggest that

the modern technologies are compulsory in the case of improvement of reading.

The teaching approach used with the experimental group was, as a matter of fact, a combination

of the expository strategy and problem-solving approach due to the reason that facts, rules, and

action sequences (listening and reading) had to be explained.

13. List the works you cited in your project (follow the APA manual 6th

Edition). (05th marks) Examples of format are available on websites.

Shea, C. A. (1968). Visual discrimination of words and reading readiness. The Reading

Teacher, 21(4), 361-367.

Hudson, R. F., Pullen, P. C., Lane, H. B., & Torgesen, J. K. (2008). The complex nature of reading

fluency: A multidimensional view. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25(1), 4-32.

Wang, S. W., Chang, D. F., & Wu, B. (2010). Does technologies really help digital natives? A fuzzy

statistical analysis and evaluation of students’ learning achievement. International journal of

innovative management, information & production, 1(1), 18-30.

Hudson, R. F., Torgesen, J. K., Lane, H. B., & Turner, S. J. (2012). Relations among reading skills

and sub-skills and text-level reading proficiency in developing readers. Reading and

Writing, 25(2), 483-507.

Kim, Y. S., Wagner, R. K., & Foster, E. (2011). Relations among oral reading fluency, silent reading

fluency, and reading comprehension: A latent variable study of first-grade readers. Scientific

Studies of Reading, 15(4), 338-362.

Kim, Y. S., Wagner, R. K., & Lopez, D. (2012). Developmental relations between reading fluency and

reading comprehension: A longitudinal study from Grade 1 to Grade 2. Journal of

experimental child psychology, 113(1), 93-111.

Thoman, E. (1999). Skills and strategies for media education. Educational Leadership, 56, 50-54.

Maynard, S. (2010). The impact of e-books on young children’s reading habits. Publishing Research

Quarterly, 26(4), 236-248.