Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Background of the Study

Reading Comprehension is defined as the level of

understanding of a text or message. This understanding comes

from the interaction between the words that are written and how

they trigger knowledge outside the text or message

(Rayneret,2001).  Reading comprehension is a skill that can be

strengthened and improved through more reading practice.

In the Philippines, the Department of Education

implemented Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP)through DepEd

Memorandum No.402.s.2004 and Administrative Order No. 324. In

line with this, Philippine Informal Reading Inventory is the

assessment component of ECARP; it is the first validated

instrument that intends to measure the pupil’s reading

comprehension level.The pupil’s word recognition and

comprehension ability as well as his/her reading speed are

informally assessed quantitatively and qualitatively through

stories and passages. According to Bro. Armin A. Luistro

(2012), it is important to assess the reading capability of

students because reading is the foundation of all academic

learning. 
 Based on the result of school consolidated oral reading

profile of Claver National High School year 2017-2018 or the

Philippine Informal Reading Inventory result, it turns out that

grade 7 learners has the highest frustration level in terms of

word recognition and comprehension. Furthermore, there are five

hundred one out of five hundred twenty-six or ninety-five (95)

% of grade 7 learners are in frustration level when it comes to

comprehension.

Due to these concerns, the researchers are triggered to

study on the factors affecting the students reading

comprehension and how these factors impact the academic

performance.

Review of Literature

This section presents related literature that provides a

frame of reference to support the study.

Reading is a habit where students learn, gain knowledge

and develop new skills (Olivar,2014). Moreover, reading with

comprehension is the chief justification why we read,

understanding what the text is all about (Lastrella,2010).

For an individual to survive in today’s world, it is a

requirement for him/her to know how to read with understanding.

He/she should be capable of understanding simple text such as

transportation documents which includes travel directions and

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road instructions, bills and contracts. The effect of not being

able to comprehend could be disastrous for an instance, reading

on a bottle of medicine or chemical warnings. With the ability

to comprehend a text, people are able not to live safely and

productively, but also to continue develop socially,

emotionally and intellectually (http://www.k12reader.com/what-

is-reading-comprehension/ accessed on February 2, 2017).

Reading also has been a segment of the entrance test in

most colleges and universities. But there are cases by which

students fail during the entrance examination because of lack

of comprehension (Yale, 2011 and Lastella, 2010). Maggart and

Zint, (1970) state that comprehension is the major purpose of

reading without comprehension, reading is meaningless activity

regardless of age or ability of the reader.

Some studies have shown that the performance (reading

comprehension) of the students is affected by several factors

such as: students’ attitude towards reading, parents’

educational background and the perception of students towards

their teacher’s competency in teaching reading.

One of the factors affecting reading comprehension is

students’ attitudes towards reading. It turns out that interest

is far more significant than readability. When students have

strong interest in what they read, they can frequently

transcend their reading level (Worthy, 1996).

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 Many educators and researchers consider interest to be an

essential factor in all learning (Schiefele, 1991). Students

who do not enjoy typical school texts often fail to engage in

reading, and may develop lifelong aversion to reading. Even if

they are not initially struggling readers, “reluctant readers

tend to gradually lose some academic ground, because wide

reading is related to increase in general knowledge and reading

comprehension” (Williamson & Williamson, 1998).

Moreover, disinterest and boredom causes children not to

pay attention to what they are reading. Some bright children

find the story or material they are reading so simple that they

are bored (Dr. Linda Silbert, 2014). Also, when reading, strive

to pay attention to unfamiliar words; skipping over them and

not attempting to figure out their meaning can affect

comprehension. (https://books.google.com.ph/books / accessed on

August 4, 2018)

Lia Nurshohifah (2014) noted that interest plays an

important role in reading activity. It can be assumed that

someone who has high interest in reading any kind of text, he

will have good ability to understand it. Children who enjoy and

value reading are likely to read more frequently and read a

wider range of material than those who get little pleasure from

reading. In turn, they are enhancing both their comprehension

skills and learning experiences.

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 Another factor that affects the reading comprehension of

the students is parents’ educational background. Level of

parental education is a determining factor in children’s

reading abilities and achievement (Westerlund&Lagerberg, 2008).

Considine and Zappala (2002) confirmed the relationship between

parental education and children’s literacy outcomes. Parents

with higher schooling placed greater value on education and

thus provided more materials and school-related activities for

their children (Baker et al. 1995).

According to Musgrave (2000), a child who comes from an

educated home would follow the steps of his or her family and

by this, work actively in his or her studies. Educated parents

provide library facilities to encourage the child, to show

examples in activities of intellectual type such as reading of

newspapers, magazines and journals. They are likely to have

wider vocabulary by which their children can benefit and

develop language fluency.

Fantuzzo and Tighe (2000) who conclude that educated

parents can better communicate with their children regarding

the school work, activities and the information being taught at

school. They can better assist their children in their work and

participate at school. In addition, Kainuwa and Yusuf (2013)

support this because the parents with educational background

would be in a good position to be second teachers to the child;

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and even guide and counsel the child on the best way to perform

well in education and provide necessary materials needed by the

child.

However, Shapiro (2009) states that regardless of the

parents’ educational level, when parents are more involved with

their children, their academic performance get higher. This

helps them to get higher in schools and in life. Some studies

show that when the parent’s who have lower levels of education

are more involved, the effect is greater and more positive than

when parent’s who have higher levels of education are involved.

Parental involvement may include activities like helping

children in reading, encouraging them to do their homework

independently, monitoring their activities insidethe house and

outside the four walls of their house, and providing coaching

services for improving their learning in different subjects.

(Wakasrafiqet al., 2013).

Overall, Gratz et al., (2006) shared that parents have a

huge role on their children’s education since they are their

first teachers. Children’s brains are like sponges and absorb

in everything surrounding them in the early years of

development. So what they see, hear and feel will have a great

impact on them till the rest of their lives. Parents got to be

extra cautious while raising a young child. Research

illustrates that parents with educational background find it

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easy preparing their children for school compared to parents

lacking this background.

Last factor, is the perception of the student’s towards

their teacher’s competency in teaching reading. For more than a

decade, researchers have argued teachers knowledge about

reading and its effects on student’s reading achievement that

in order to be effective, teachers need a relatively high level

of knowledge about “the linguistic foundations” of early

reading (Moats,2009).

According to U.S Department of Education, teachers should

provide adolescents with direct and explicit instruction in

comprehension strategies to improve students’ reading

comprehension. Teachers must also have the ability to

communicate their subject-matter expertise to facilitate

classroom learning and participation. Students depend on their

teachers to provide them with instruction, guidance and

feedback throughout learning process. When teacher fails to

communicate effectively with students, their comprehension

level drops, and they eventually lose grasp of the subject

matter. (http://www.ehow.com / accessed on August 3, 2018)

Moreover, Smithers and Robinson (2005) said that subject

knowledge has a very important role to play because high-

quality teaching rests on teachers understanding the subjects

they are teaching, knowing the structure and sequencing of

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concepts, developing factual knowledge essential to each

subject and guiding their pupils into the different ways of

knowing that subjects provide.

Snow, Griffin, and Burns (2005) argued that teachers’

knowledge about language and literacy is a critical factor in

the quality of their literacy instruction, but that this

knowledge needs to be linked to their understanding of

students’ development of reading skill. In short, teachers’

knowledge about literacy might affect the quality of their

vocabulary instruction. Teachers need to scaffold student’s

learning of many unfamiliar words in the reading selections.

Without such support, the students are likely to remain behind

their peers in vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension

throughout their school years (Biemiller, 2003; Graves, 2006).

In addition, by the use of teaching aids (visual aids) it

helps learners improve reading comprehension skills,

illustrating or reinforcing a skill or concept, differentiating

instruction and relieving anxiety and boredom by presenting

information in a new and exciting way. The use of visual aids

like pictures, videos, and projectors encourage students to

read texts with interest, which make it easier for them to

understand the abstract idea in the text [5].

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 Academic performance is the outcome of education- the

extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved

their educational goals (Annie et al.,1996).

Research has been also conducted to elucidate the relation

between reading skills and school performance (Oliveira etal.

(2008); Tonelottoet al.2005). One of these studies found that

performance assessed by School Performance Test(SPT) was

associated with percentage hit and reaction time in a reading

test of words and non-words in a sample of children 8 to 11

years old.

Children who demonstrated superior performance in the

School Performance Test had a higher percentage hit and shorter

reaction time in the reading of words than non-words (Tonelotto

et al.,2005), which suggests that the orthographic strategy was

more strongly related to academic performance than the

alphabetical strategy.

A relation between reading comprehension and academic

performance, as assessed by the Portuguese language and

mathematics school marks, was found in children from 5th to 8th

grades. For the authors, this relation suggests the importance

of reading comprehension when learning different types of

school content (Oliveira et al., 2008).

In study of Menaka and Jebaraj (2017) adopted survey

method to study the reading comprehension in relation to

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academic achievement in English among students at higher

secondary levels. The study had a sample of 300 higher

secondary students from five government and private schools

which are situated in and around Coimbatore district in Tamil

Nadu were selected by the investigator using simple random

sampling technique.

The findings reveal that there is a significant

relationship between reading comprehension and academic

achievement in English among selected students at higher

secondary levels.

Researchers have over time conducted research on reading

comprehension and academic performance in Kenya and across the

world to find out the role of language in academic performance

in different subjects. Cummins (1979) in studies of language

skills of bilinguals concluded that a certain level of

linguistic proficiency seemed to be necessary for academic

achievement because language competence allows one to use it as

an organizer of knowledge and as a tool for reasoning.

In investigating the relationship between reading

comprehension and academic performance MacGregor and Price

(1999), noted that vocabulary, number and symbol sense, as well

as the ability to read and comprehend, word problems are

important factors affecting achievement in mathematics. They

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argued that the cognitive ability that drives symbol processing

is the connection between language and mathematics achievement.

The ability of symbol processing is the basis for both

language proficiency and mathematics achievement. MacGregor and

Price (1999) noted that poor language skills do correlate with

poor math skill suggesting that both require a basic level of

competency in symbol processing i.e. deriving meaning form

symbols.

Another recent study focusing on secondary students was

conducted by Cromley (2009). This study focused specifically on

reading and proficiency in science with an international

perspective and included several countries, including the

United States. Cromley found that there was a very high

correlation between reading comprehension and science

proficiency, with the mean for all of the nations being .819.

Mathematics is another subject area in which performance

can be linked to reading ability. A study conducted by

Vilenius-Tuohimaa et al., (2008) looked at the relationship

between students’ ability to solve math word problems and

students’ text comprehension skills. Their study included 225

fourth grade students and found that the better a student’s

reading comprehension skills, the better his or her performance

on mathematical word problems. The authors explain that a

reader with poor decoding skills struggles with the text itself

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and isn't able to perform the tasks requiring logical reasoning

strategies. It is a reasonable explanation that a student who

struggles to decode text is going to perform poorly in all

subject areas because there are more hindrances in

comprehending text.

Finally, if a reader can decode and comprehend the printed

word he has attained a skill in reading that will lead to

future success (Human Resource and Social Development Canada,

2003)

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Conceptual Framework

This study was anchored on the concept of Rizardo and

Tabuno (1998) which indicated that the students’ reading

comprehension is affected by several factors. These are

students’ attitudes towards reading, parents’ educational

background and perceptions of the students towards their

teachers’ competency in teaching reading.

Many educators and researchers consider interest to be an

essential factor in all learning (Schiefele, 1991). Students

who do not enjoy typical school texts often fail to engage in

reading, and may develop lifelong aversion to reading. Even if

they are not initially struggling readers, “reluctant readers

tend to gradually lose some academic ground, because wide

reading is related to increase in general knowledge and reading

comprehension” (Williamson & Williamson, 1998).

Moreover, Marquez (2008) said that educational attainment

of the parents of the respondents matters. Students whose

parents have higher educational background perform well than

those whose parents only attained elementary or high school

education. This is because parents who had higher educational

attainment are able to provide more learning experiences that

are essential to the development of the student’s reading

skills and other aspects as well.

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 According to Hatcher et al.,(2004) when teachers provide

explicit reading instruction, students progress more rapidly.

Numerous research studies have demonstrated that when students

receive explicit instruction in phonology and phonics, their

reading performance improves at a faster rate (Podhajski and

Nathan,2005).

In addition, Runo (2010) notes that improved reading

depends on teachers who employ appropriate methods in the

teacher of reading which will enhance reading comprehension.

According to the study conducted by Grimm (2008) examined

the relationship between early reading skills and growth in

math skills. His study examined third grade students and found

that students who had a higher level of reading comprehension

tended to learn problem solving and data interpretation skills

faster than those with weaker reading comprehension.

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 INDEPENDENT VARIABLE DEPENDENT VARIABLE

FACTORS AFFECTING
READING COMPREHENSION

 Students Attitude
towards reading
 Parents ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
educational IN ENGLISH
attainment
 Students’
perception towards
their teachers’
competency in
teaching reading.

Figure 1. Research Paradigm

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Statement of the problem

This study aimed to determine the factors affecting

reading comprehension and its impact on the academic

performance of the students in Claver National High School,

Claver, Surigao del Norte.

The following research questions were formulated to guide

the study.

1. What is the degree of influence on the factors

affecting reading comprehension in grade 8 learners of Claver

National High School in terms of:

1.1 Students attitude towards reading;

1.2 Parents educational attainment; and

1.3 Perception of students towards their teachers

competency in teaching reading?

2. What is the level of the academic performance of

grade 8 learners of Claver National High School in terms of

English subject?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the

factors affecting reading comprehension and academic

performance of Grade 8 learners of Claver National High School?

Hypothesis

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 This study was guided by a single null-hypothesis tested

at 0.05 level of significance.

Ho: There is a significant relationship between the

factors affecting reading comprehension and the level of

academic performance among Grade 8 learners of Claver National

High School.

Significance of the study

This section provides the importance and the possible

positive effect of the research to the following:

Teachers. This research will serve as guide for the

English teachers to provide effective ways or strategies in

helping students improve their reading comprehension.

Students. It will help them understand how reading

comprehension factors affect their studies and how they are

going to deal with the circumstances.

Parents. Parents will encourage their child to read and at

the same time they would be able to help them by teaching

reading at home before going to bed.

School Administration. The result of this study will

provide ideas on what reading interventions should be

implemented in order to lessen the number of readers who belong

to frustration level in school.

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 Future Researcher. The researchers’ only cover three

factors; the students’ attitude towards reading, parents’

educational attainment and perception of students towards their

teachers’ competency in teaching reading. Future researchers

may expand this study by adding variables such as health factor

and technological factor.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

This study was limited only to those Grade 8- learners who

belong to frustration level of reading comprehensionin Claver

National High School.

The study aimed to analyze the factors affecting reading

comprehension in correlation with its impact to the student’s

academic performance. The study only limits with the factors

that affect the reading comprehension in terms of students’

attitude towards reading, parents’ educational attainment and

perceptions of the students towards their teachers’ competency

in teaching reading and on these factors have great impact to

their children’s academic performances.

The primary sources of the data were derived from the

information given by the respondents through the research made-

questionnaire. On the other hand, secondary sources are taken

from books, journals and internet sources.

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Definition of Terms

For better clarification and understanding of the terms

related to this study, the following terms were defined

operationally.

Students Attitude towards Reading.This refers to the

students’ interest and of how they value reading.

Parents Educational Attainment.It pertains to the

education level reached by the parents.

Teachers Competency.It is understood as excellent

capability. It includes knowledge, skills, attitudes and

experiences, which has to be target category of profession of

educator.

Academic Performance.This refers to the level of schooling

you have successfully completed and the ability to

attain success in your studies.

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