A COMPRATIVE STUDY OF SKILL-BASED AND WHOLE-LANGUAGE READING INSTRUCTION ON SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING COMPREHENSION IN KONTAGORA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NIGER STATE

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to compare the skill-based reading instruction with the whole language reading instruction in reading comprehension achievement of senior secondary students in Kontagora Local Government Area of Niger State. A sample of 100 SS2 students of two public schools from the population of 480used for the study using a Quasi experimental design. The groups were made up of two experimental and two control groups. The instrument for data collection is test, titled Reading Comprehension Achievement Test (RCAT), modified by the researchers and adapted from WAEC comprehension examination. The data analyses are calculated using Means and Variance, and Analysis of Variance t- Test at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the choice of reading instruction affects achievement in reading comprehension of students as the students in the experimental groups had higher scores in post-test than those in the control groups. It also shows that explicit treading comprehension instructions should be used in the teaching of reading comprehension in senior secondary schools. In view of the foregoing it is recommended that teachers of English should teach reading comprehension explicitly using appropriate methods, provision should be made for the teaching of reading comprehension on schools' timetables and students' reading culture should be developed and encouraged for desired learning outcomes. It also recommends that this instruction should be employed against other language teaching strategies in order to facilitate the learning of other courses, since reading skill will help the is a repertoire of skills that will help the students to navigate through the other courses with minimal difficulty. It should therefore be given prominence in the school curriculum