i

HOLY CHILD COLLEGE OF DAVAO

Opus Deo Dignum
Cabantian, Buhangin, Davao City

VOCABULARY SIZE, READING STRATEGIES AND COMPREHENSION

SKILLS OF STUDENTS

Researchers
Grade 12- Sycamore

Obstaculo, Oshin B.
Lequido, Leslie P.
Padasas, Cherry May A.
Palanas, Honey Len L.

Presented to:

Jasmin P. Ogdoc, LPT

Practical Research 2 Teacher

September 2019
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Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the relationship

among the vocabulary size, reading strategies, and reading
comprehension skills in skimming, scanning, guessing and inferring of
the Grade 9 and Grade 10 students in one of the Junior High Schools
in Davao City. The descriptive-correlation method was employed in
this study. The 175 respondents were selected through purposive
sampling. Moreover, the survey questionnaire, vocabulary skills and
reading comprehension test were used to assess the reading
strategies, vocabulary size and reading comprehension skills of the
students respectively. The data gathered were treated using mean
and standard deviation, Pearson product moment correlation and
analysis of variance. Results revealed that the age of the respondents
substantially affects their comprehension skills in terms of guessing.
The respondents are likely into scanning and drawing conclusions
when reading. Moreover, the age has only affected the students’
skimming and inferring ability. Likewise, gender appeared to have no
significant relationship with the reading comprehension skills of the
students. We have recognized that the year level of the students
mattered in their scanning and inferring skill but showed no significant
relationship in skimming and inferring, hence, it has no significant
difference. However, vocabulary has a significant difference as it
greatly affects the reading comprehension of the students.
Furthermore, majority of the students only utilizes the global and
problem-solving in their reading strategies. Future researchers should
conduct more quantitative studies at examining the vocabulary size of
the learners at the different stages to provide objective assessments.

An abstract summarizes, usually in one paragraph of 300 words or less,

the major aspects of the entire paper in a prescribed sequence that
includes: 1) the overall purpose of the study and the research problem(s)
you investigated; 2) the basic design of the study; 3) major findings or
trends found as a result of your analysis; and, 4) a brief summary of your
interpretations and conclusions.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page..........................................................................................................1

Approval Sheet...................................................................................................

Abstract...............................................................................................................

Table of Contents................................................................................................

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………..

Background of the Study…....................................................................

Statement of the Problem......................................................................

Research Questions..............................................................................

Significance of the Study......................................................................

Definition of Terms..................................................................................

2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE…………………………………………

Conceptual Framework..........................................................................

3 METHODOLOGIES………………………………………………………………..

Research Design....................................................................................

Ethical Consideration..............................................................................

Setting.....................................................................................................

Respondents...........................................................................................

Research Instruments…………………….................................................

Data Gathering.......................................................................................

Data Analysis………………………………………………………………….

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……………………………………………………

Summary of Findings..............................................................................
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Conclusion...........................................................................................

Recommendations for Future Research..............................................

References…………………………………………………………………..

Curriculum Vitae...................................................................................
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Below are examples of content that can give you an idea of your research.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study – Look for the background of your study

Statement of the Problem

What are the problems found in your research topic?

Research Questions

This study aimed to find out whether students’ vocabulary size, reading

strategies, and demographic characteristics have significant relationship with

their reading comprehension skills. Specifically, this study aimed to:

1) What is the profile of the vocabulary size of the students in terms of– (a)

2000, (b) 3000, and (c) academic level?

2) What is the profile of the reading strategies of the students in terms of– (a)

global, (b) problem-solving, and (c) support?

3) What is the profile of the students’ demographic characteristics in terms of–

(a) age, (b) sex, and (c) year level?

4) What is the profile of the students reading comprehension skills in terms

of– (a) skimming, (b) scanning, (c) guessing meaning from context, and (d)

inferencing?

5) Are there significant relationships among students’ vocabulary size, reading

strategies, demographic characteristics and comprehension skills?

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Significance of the Study (Importance)

Definition of Terms (Define the difficult terms found in your research)

Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The educational advancement has brought changes in student’s way

of learning specifically in high school students as there were modifications

and additions to the curriculum which affects their vocabulary size,

comprehension skills and reading strategies. As students go up the

educational ladder, more reading is usually required as subjects become

dense and challenging (Philippine Star, 2010). Reading is also a skill to

understand the meaning to formulate thoughts and learn what is being read

(Hall and Stahl, 1992. In relation to reading, Smith, C. B. (1997) claimed that

students learn vocabulary more effectively when they are directly involved in

constructing meaning rather than memorizing. He emphasizes that teaching

vocabulary is an instructional intervention that should be considered when

readers lack the prior or background knowledge to read in a content area.

The current issues in reading are on the development of literacy for all

students. As students move through the grades, the demands of

comprehending increasingly become complex and some students start to

struggle (M.D. Coyne E.J. Kami'enui D.W. Carnine, 2010). Vocabulary is the

foundation of English sentences. Many high school students make lots of

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mistakes in English reading comprehension. Most of their problems lie in too

much vocabulary, complicated sentence structures, or long texts which may

cause the difficulty of reading comprehension. Much of the research over the

past several years has focused on the teaching of specific comprehension

strategies that reflect those used by good readers (Pressley, 2000) and this

continues to be an important focus for researchers. In South Africa, the need

for a reading strategy instruction should be seen against the poor reading

performance in high school level (Cekiso, 2012).

In the Philippines, Most of the teachers observe in their classes that

whenever the lesson is on reading, some of the students could hardly answer

simple questions (Suarez, 2015). According to Juan Miguel Cruz (2007),

despite our supposedly high literacy rate, many Filipinos can barely read and

write. Reading comprehension is a skill that can be strengthened and

improved through more reading practice. Pressley (2003), as cited by Pardo

(2004), stated that increasing vocabulary, extensive reading and critical

reading are some of the practices that can be used to strengthen and refine

the person’s ability to comprehend any text.

One of the public high schools here in Davao City, have difficulties in

reading comprehension which resulted to low performance in English

subjects. In relation to this, the researchers would like to further study about

the vocabulary size, reading skills and strategies of high school students in

Davao City, Philippines.

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Conceptual Framework

Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of the study. The

independent variable is the vocabulary size and the reading strategies; while

the dependent variable is the reading comprehension skills of the students.

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Vocabulary size
 2000
 3000
 Academic

Reading comprehension skills

Reading Strategies  Skimming
 Global  Scanning
 Problem-solving  Guessing
 Support  Inferencing

Demographic characteristics
 Age
 Sex
 Year level

Figure 1. Conceptual Paradigm of the study.

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Chapter 3

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

*Elaborate about Qualitative Research and the reason for integrating it in your
research.

The study made use of descriptive-correlation research design.

Descriptive research is used to describe, explain and interpret conditions of

the present. Its purpose is to examine a phenomenon that is occurring at a

specific place(s) and time. It is concerned with conditions, practices,

structures, differences or relationships that exist, opinions held processes that

are going on or trends that are evident. While correlational research describes

what exists at the moment (conditions, practices, processes, structures, etc.).

It aimed to determine the nature, degree and direction of relationships

between variables or using these relationships to make predictions. (Creswell,

2007).

The study describes the reading comprehension of the students. These

attributes are the following: (a) skimming, (b) scanning, (c) guessing, (d) and

inference. Likewise, it describes the students’ vocabulary size and their

reading strategies. In addition, an investigationensued whether the

relationships existed among the students’ reading strategies, size of

vocabulary knowledge and the reading comprehension. Finally, it delve into

the relationship of the students’ vocabulary size and reading strategies

according to their reading comprehension.

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Ethical Consideration

There were five (5) letters of permission were written; first letter was

addressed to the Dean of the College of Education ensuing an endorsement

letter for the School’s Division Superintendent (SDS) of DepEd Davao City.

Second letter was given to the SDS with a request for an endorsement letter

to the school principal. Third letter was directed to the school principal with

succeeding request for an endorsement letter addressed to the teacher

advisers. Fourth letter was addressed to the teacher advisers with further

request for endorsement letter addressed to the respondents’ parents. Fifth

letter was addressed to the parents to allow their children to participate to the

study.

Setting -----

Respondents

The respondents of the study were the secondary students in one of

the public schools in Davao city.

There were 181 students who have completed all the 3 questionnaires

and have informed consents from their parents as well as their own assents.

GRADE LEVEL MALE FEMALE TOTAL

Grade 9- Hamiguitan 23 23 46

Grade 9-Biliran 8 27 35

Grade 9-Tirad 24 21 45
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Grade 10-Sapphire 15 34 49

OVERALL 175

Research Instruments

Three sets of instruments were used in the study. The first instrument

is survey sheet. It asked the following information: (a) etc. (b) etc. (c) and etc.

Survey Sheet. The first tool is used to etc.

1 I never do this

2 I rarely do this

3 I sometimes do this

4 I often to this

5 I usually to this

6 I always do this

Data Gathering

Planning of the schedule. The group decided to maximize the time of

their Field Study 6 in accordance to the restriction of the SDS that no

interruptions of classes should be allowed throughout the study. The

schedules were finalized allotting 2 successive English sessions (3:35 pm to

4:25 pm)
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Administration of the questionnaires. The recommendation letter was

given to the adviser with the parent’s consent to permit the respondents to

take the tests. Only those who have approval from their parents shall be

considered as respondents of the study. They were informed of the time and

room schedule of the test.

On the first day, the survey test for reading strategies and vocabulary

size test were admnistered, it took the students 45 minutes to finish the test.

And on the second and final day, the same procedure was followed, light

snacks were given after the administration of the reading comprehension test.

The test was done in 35 minutes.

Checking, tallying, collating and recording of the data. The reading

strategies, vocabulary skills reading comprehension tests were checked and

scored. Data were encoded in excel for easy encoding. The recording

observed discrepancies of the respondents scores in the vocabulary size and

reading comprehension tests. Likewise, it strictly observed that the reading

strategies of the students perfectly matched with the students’ scores in the

two other questionnaires.

Data Analysis –Explain here the major point of gathering the data.
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Chapter 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

*Discuss here the results of your research. You can specify terms, use tables
etc. that will explain the results.

Summary of Findings ------

Conclusion

After the study was conducted, we have concluded that majority of the

respondents have high vocabulary size in terms of academic level. On the

other hand, their global, problem-solving and support reading strategies are

highly used. Their reading comprehension skills are low except in Inferring

which is in medium level.

The age of the respondents substantially affects their comprehension

skills in terms of guessing. However the result shows that the other three

which are the skimming, scanning and inferring ability has no significant

relationship with their age. Likewise, gender appeared to have no significant

relationship with the reading comprehension skills of the students. On the

other hand, we recognized that the year level of the students mattered in their

scanning and inferring skill but showed no significant relationship in skimming

and inferring. Furthermore, majority of the students only utilizes the global and

problem-solving in their reading strategies. To add up all, vocabulary is

essential in reading.
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The Grade 9 and Grade 10 students in Daniel R. Aguinaldo High

School are likely to scanning and draw conclusions when reading. Moreover,

the age has only affected the students’ skimming and inferring ability. This

means that year level and age of the respondents has no significant

difference as it has no effect in students’ reading comprehension. Also,

gender does not affect the reading comprehension of the student, thus, it has

no significant difference. However, vocabulary has a significant difference as

it greatly affects the reading comprehension of the students.

Recommendations for future Research

The following recommendations were offered:

1. Students should take more active role in improving their reading

comprehension skills rather than relying solely on the teachers. They

should start by reading short stories, novels, poems, sonnets or any

reading materials at home.

2. Teachers should provide classroom activities that would help develop

students’ reading comprehension skills.

3. More quantitative studies should also aim at examining the vocabulary

size of the learners at the different stages in the educational system.

Such investigation will provide objective assessments of the outcome

of the different programs for the learners.

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References

Afflerbach, P., Pearson, P. D., & Paris, S. G. (2008). Clarifying differences

between reading skills and reading strategies. The Reading Teacher,
61, 364-373.
Akindele, B.P. (2003). The development of an item bank for selection tests
into Nigerian Universities: An exploratory study (Unpublished doctoral
thesis) University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Albrecht, S. & Carbon, C (2012). Bartlett's Schema Theory: The Unreplicated
"Portrait D'homme" Series from 1932. US National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health. DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2012.696121
Anderson, J.C. (2000). Assessing Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Arellano, C. (2013). Gender differences in reading comprehension
achievement in English as a foreign language in compulsory secondary
Education, Universidad de Granada. Tejuelo, n 17 (2013), pp. 67-84.
Bach, S., Bradeis, D., Hofstetter, C., Martin, E., Richardson, U.,
& Brem, S. (2010). Early emergence of deviant frontal fMRI activity, for
phonological processes in poor beginning readers. NeuroImage,
53, 365–800.
Badian, N. (1999). Reading Disability Defined As A Discrepancy Between
Listening And Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Study Of
Stability, Gender Differences, And Prevalence. Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 32, 138–148.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002221949903200204
Bamford and Day (1997). Differences of Extensive and Intensive Reading.
Retrieved from: D:\kkN\materi kkn\extensive reading\ESL EFL Articles -
Extensive Reading What is it and why should we be doing it - ESL
Articles EFL Articles TEFL Articles TESOL articles English Teaching
Information.htm
Barbosa, P., Guthrie, J., Humenick, N., Perencevich, K., Taboada, A.,
Wigfield, A. (2006). Influences of Stimulating Tasks on Reading
Motivation and Comprehension. Retrieved on 01 December 2017 from
https://goo.gl/1NxjCe
Beaulieu, C., Plewes, C., Paulson, L., Roy, D., Snook, L., Concha, L.,
& Phillips, L. (2005). Imaging brain connectivity in children with diverse
reading ability. NeuroImage, 25, 1266–1271.
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CURRICULUM VITAE

Obstaculo, Oshin B.
Block 42 Lot 12 Kabayan Relocation Tibungco, Davao City
Contact #: +6393031717
E-mail address: obstculoshin@yahoo.com

PERSONAL DESCRIPTION
*Describe yourself, Ambitions, your contributions as a researcher and your
views about your experiences in conducting the research.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Age:
Date of Birth:
Citizenship:
Mother's Name:
Father's Name:
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Elementary Education:

Junior High School:

Senior High School: