The Practice of Teaching Reading Comprehension in Primary Schools: The Case of Five Selected Woredas of Wolaita Zone Grade Five Are in Focus

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to examine teachers’ current practice of teaching reading lesson in grade 5 from selected schools of Wolaita zone. For this study, descriptive survey design and data analysis approach was employed. One hundred grade five English teachers who are currently teaching in target schools in 2012 E.C academic year were selected using simple random sampling techniques. Besides, class room observation, teachers’ questionnaire, teachers’ interview and document analyses were tools of data collection. Descriptive analyses of percentages and thematic narration of qualitative data was employed. The result from data analyzed shows that there is serious miss match between methods and procedures suggested to implement reading lesson in text books and teachers way of implementing the lesson in the schools. It shows as teaches were not following strategies and procedure suggested in the new text book. They were observed while teaching reading not following teachers procedure suggested guide, they only follow students text book. The result also revealed that most of the teachers were non graduates of English and they were assigned by the school to solve teachers’ scarcity. The data also informed that there is text book scarcity in the schools. Teachers were implementing the lesson reading using very small number of texts in class for students. Thus, it is possible to recommend that untrained and non graduates of English teachers who were teaching reading in English need to be replaced by English teachers. In addition to these, CTES should train sufficient number of teachers to teach in primary grades. Furthermore, teachers need to get refreshment training on methods and procurers of teaching reading as they were suggested in TG and SB. Finally, MoE needs to re distribute TG and SB in the number of students.

Keywords: Comprehension, strategies, phases of reading, medium of instruction

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/87-01

Publication date: April 30^th 2022