Abstract
Academic performance has remained elusive as different cohorts of learners perform differently in national examinations. However, previous studies on academic performance of pupils have explored the question from an environmental perspective, where little attention has been given to the pupil’s intrinsic factors such as reading difficulties and successes of respective intervention measures. Interventions on reading difficulties being experienced by learners have been sought, however, the persistence of the problem leads to questions over the efficacy of the interventions. This study set out to find out the effects of comprehension monitoring on academic performance of primary school pupils in Nakuru West Sub-County, Kenya. It was guided by the Cognitive Model of Reading Comprehension. Both descriptive survey and experimental research designs were used. The target population comprised of 12 public primary schools in the area of study from which 342 language teachers and 1133 pupils whom were theorized to have reading difficulties were sampled. A sample size of 160 respondents was selected using both purposive and stratified random sampling for teachers and pupils respectively. Data was collected using a well-structured questionnaire, an observation schedule and through administering a reading test. Data was analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21.0. Descriptive statistics involving means, modes and standard deviations, and inferential statistical methods involving Pearson’s Product Moment correlation and ANOVA, were used to analyze data. The results from the tests and the observation schedule were analyzed using content analysis and integrated during interpretations, discussion and conclusion. The study found that comprehension monitoring had a positive and significant effects on academic performance of pupils with reading difficulties in the area. Results from the reading test experiment showed that learners with reading difficulties who had received interventions (Group B) performed significantly better than their counterparts who had not received the interventions (Group A). Hence, the study concluded that the comprehension monitoring as a reading difficulties intervention had the potential of improving academic performance of the learners if well emphasized. Therefore, the study recommended that teachers should introduce regular comprehension tests to monitor the students reading abilities.
Highlights
Basic education is both a necessity and a fundamental human right worldwide
The findings further suggest that most teachers prepared their pupils at the pre-reading phase as suggested by their agreements with the two statements; I ensure that all pupils are seated in a position where there is enough light so that they can read with minimum visual difficulty and I ensure that the pupils are well positioned so that they can be audible during reading exercises
It was evident that the pupils were not adequately prepared by their teachers during comprehension with the focus of teachers being concentrated on the reading phase
Summary
Basic education is both a necessity and a fundamental human right worldwide. Subsequently, the goal of achieving basic education for all has been on the international agenda and has been the overarching theme of global education initiatives such as World Declaration on Education for All (EFA) in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, the Millennium Declaration and the Dakar Framework for Action (Kinyanjui, 2009). Determinants of pupils’ performance have been the subject of ongoing debate among the educators, academicians and policy makers It has formed the subject of several studies worldwide over the years such as the early work of Siegfried and Fels (1979 as cited in Onkoba, 2014) among others that sought to examine this issue. Their findings point out to hard work on the pupils, previous schooling, parent’s education, family income and selfmotivation as factors that have significant effects on the pupil’s general academic performance. Second background knowledge is used to make inferences, elaborations and in text interpretation using domain- specific knowledge about texts (Kintsch & Rowson, 2005)
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