Literary Comprehension through Mother Tongue and the Achievement of Grade 3 Pupils in One District Public Schools

Abstract

The development of the learner’s academic performance begins with the clear understanding and comprehension of underlying concepts and ideas. Learners who find difficulty in reading comprehension tend to manifest poor academic performance. In addition, the language used in the materials or articles influences the learner’s level of comprehension. Hence, this study investigated the literary comprehension through Mother Tongue and the achievement of Grade 3 pupils in the North District, Division of Lipa City. The respondents were 287 Grade 3 pupils in the selected schools in the North District particularly from Senator Maria Kalaw Katigbak Memorial School, Teodoro M. Kalaw Elementary School, Abundio Torre Elementary School, Dagatan Elementary School, and Inosluban-Marawoy Elementary School. Using quantitative correlational design as a descriptive research, the literary comprehension through Mother Tongue such as poems, short stories, riddles, parables, fables, and legends and the pupils’ achievement in the following assessment tools; PHIL-IRI, Quarterly Assessment, and grades in the Report Cards were explored in the study and investigated to find the relationships. Findings revealed that the level of comprehension of the learners when the material is expressed in Mother Tongue is significantly related to the academic performance in terms of the PHIL-IRI, Quarterly assessment score, and the grades in the Report Cards. The Grade 3 pupils comprehend in a very satisfactory level in the literary genres because they are written and presented in their mother tongue. The pupils’ gained very satisfactory level of achievement in terms of poems, short stories, riddles, parables, legends and satisfactory level of comprehension in fables.