Schools Division of Sipalay City

RESEARCH
COLLOQUIUM '22
December 12, 2022
PICTURE READING STRATEGIC INSTRUCTION TO ENHANCE
THE READING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 7 STUDENTS
OF MARICALUM FARM SCHOOL

VINCENT J. CASTRO, MaEd

Teacher III, 2021 BERF Grantee
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

The Department of Education strongly upholds to its commitment in providing

the students with quality, accessible and relevant education.

In fact, despite the health and safety threats of pandemic, through its provision
of Adoption of the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan for School Year
2021 – 2022 in Light of COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (DO 12, s. 2020).

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

It has then been able to continuously seek for ways in order for the continuity
of learning to happen by the school’s preferred distance learning delivery
modality.
Through the provision of the said order, Maricalum Farm School has also been
able to address issues and concerns pertaining to the “new normal” in the
educational system, hereby, providing its students with opportunities to still
learn without teacher’s direct guidance.

However, prior the pandemic, there were various studies which have proven
that students demonstrated low level of literacy.

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

In fact, Novita and Kristiawan (2017) revealed that the students were not
able to understand the generic structure of analytical exposition as they
have difficulties in understanding about main idea and some argument of
the text, and they find reading as a boring activity as they encounter
difficulties in comprehending, not mentioning that they are not exposed
well to media as supplement to the teacher while during reading activity.

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

More so, Chavarro and Luis (2017) claimed that the students were struggling
in comprehending the reading selections as they indeed lack interests by
doing other activities and showing no meaningful motivation towards it.

Further, Ancheta (2018) proved that students were not able to evaluate their
understanding towards the texts due to inappropriate employment of
strategies.

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

True to the aforementioned pressing conditions of students, the researcher

believed that the Grade 7 students under his English subject load possessed
similar characteristics.

As a matter of fact, the school held initiative in evaluating students’

numeracy and literacy skills through a diagnostic test using the printed
modular approach.

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

The test results in literacy implicated that the students have less mastered
their skills in comprehending the reading selections, and have demonstrated
critical and other higher-order thinking skills necessary for their learning
development.

Granted that those who read and understand more words can process
various reading texts and are competent to engage in active conversation
with others (Sidek & Rahim, 2015), and was therefore necessary for the
students to manifest.

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

It was in this premise that the researcher explored the benefits of picture
reading strategic instruction that may improve the reading comprehension of
the students in a public secondary farm school.

This was a two-month intervention program on once every week, which

made use of reading selections and reading comprehension questions.

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

On the reading selections, significant words or group of words were replaced

by pictures/images for the purpose of incorporating the visual imagery system
to the verbal system of the students.

On each of the sentences enabled the students to “read” the picture as

substitute to the word being omitted and replaced with.

The picture was presented in basic manner which was not complicated and
hence enabled the students to easily drive out the word that referred to it.

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

Along students’ practice in this manner of reading the selections may have
improved their reading comprehension.

As such, using pictures and illustrations can benefit the literacy skills of
students, promote reading and encourage their creativity (Weeks, 2013).

BERF 2021
 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

The results of this research served as bases of the researcher to craft an

action plan highlighting relevant activities that would strengthen the
teaching-learning English as Foreign Language (EFL) instruction despite that
there were no face-to-face classes yet.

BERF 2021
 ACTION RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study was initiated in order to determine the effectiveness of picture

reading strategic instruction as an intervention program to the reading
comprehension of 87 Grade 7 students of Maricalum Farm School in the District
of Sipalay I of the City Division of Sipalay for the school year 2021 – 2022, in
light of COVID-19 pandemic.

BERF 2021
 ACTION RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions:

Q1
What is the level of reading comprehension of the students before and
after the intervention program?

Q2
Is there a significant difference on the reading comprehension of the
students before and after the intervention program?

Q3
How effective is the intervention program based on the lived
experiences of students?
 ACTION RESEARCH METHODS
This study was grounded by a single-subject pre-test and post-test experimental
research design. This experimental research design was intended to determine the
effectiveness of a treatment to a single group through a pre- and post-assessment
scheme.

The picture reading strategic instruction was a treatment or the intervention

program which was intended for a single group of 87 Grade 7 students of the
participating school. Pre- and post-assessments evaluated the reading
comprehension levels of these participants through a standardized research
instrument.

BERF 2021
INNOVATION, INTERVENTION
AND STRATEGY
The Picture Reading Strategic Instruction is grounded on the
principles that encompass the Dual Coding Theory which is
proposed by Paivio (1986). This theory posits that learning from a
combination of both printed-based texts and pictures comes from a
person’s verbal and visual imagery system. Basically, verbal and
visual imagery systems are not interrelated but can be combined.
The words (texts) and images (pictures) may have different
cognitive representations but when combined will build an
interconnected knowledge system which is essential for learning
development.

BERF 2021
When both systems come together, learning will be easier to
be retrieved and retained as there is availability of two mental
representations instead of one; such that verbal system deals
on linguistic codes in forms of words or speech while visual
imagery system deals on visual codes like images and
pictures, which when combined will enable the individuals to
understand and comprehend more.

BERF 2021
This strategic instruction was implemented through printed
modular distance learning delivery modality during the first
two months of the school year on a weekly basis. Specifically,
this instruction was in a form of learning worksheets which
were distributed to the participants once in every week.

BERF 2021
RESEARCH
FINDINGS
 On the level of reading comprehension of the participants before and
after the intervention program was determined through frequency count
and percentage distribution. The mean percentage with the
corresponding level is adopted from the Philippine Informal Reading
Inventory Manual (First Ed., 2018).

BERF 2021
 On how effective the intervention program based on the lived
experiences of students, frequency count and percentage distribution were
used.

BERF 2021
Prior the implementation of the said intervention program,
there were 76 students at frustration level, 10 at
instructional level while only 1 at independent level.

BERF 2021
On the other hand, after the implementation, there were 37
students left at frustration level; there was an increase in
number of students at instructional level with 30 of them;
and there was also an increase at independent level with 20
students.

BERF 2021
BERF 2021
When taken as a whole, the reading comprehension level of
students before the implementation of Picture Reading
Strategic Instruction was at frustration level, while it reached
the instructional level after its implementation.

BERF 2021
 There was a significant difference on the reading
comprehension levels of the students before and after the
implementation of the intervention program.

BERF 2021
Most of the students felt happy and excited while using the
learning worksheets.

The stories and pictures used in the learning worksheets were

considered the salient characteristics which were liked by
students the most.

BERF 2021
However, they have been most challenged by how they understand
difficult words being utilized in the reading selections.

Based on the number of students who responded, all of them

believed that the Picture Reading Strategic Instruction was effective in
improving the reading comprehension of students, and that all of them
recommended it for other students to benefit from.

BERF 2021
 CONLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
In light of the results of the study, the following conclusions were made.

Prior the implementation of Picture Reading Strategic Instruction using the learning
worksheets, most of the students were not able to demonstrate clear understanding on
the reading selections which were incorporated in the learning worksheets.

Based on standard assessment through the pre-test research instrument, they were
evaluated to have a frustration level of reading comprehension, which concludes that
they needed intervention programs which may improve their reading comprehension.

Perhaps, these students were not able to be intervened with programs which are more
contingent to their respective interests and motivations, especially that they have been
exposed to distance learning where teachers’ feedback of instruction was not real-time.
 On a general sense, they fell short of what were expected by DepEd from them to
demonstrate in terms of reading comprehension level they obtained.

On the other hand, after the implementation of the said intervention program, these
students were now able to construct meaning based from their understanding on the
reading selections. The level of reading comprehension after the implementation was of
consensus with the standards prescribed by DepEd.

It can be notably remarked that the Picture Reading Strategic Instruction, considering
that other factors were controlled, has increased the reading comprehension level of
students.
 Statistically proven, the said instruction has significantly improved the
reading comprehension level of students from frustration to
instructional, on an average basis. As such, it is considered effective in
improving the reading comprehension skills of students.

BERF 2021
Based on qualitative responses, this program through the learning
worksheet is effective in motivating the students as most of them felt
happy and excited in the accomplishment of the weekly tasks.

The stories, which were incorporated in the learning worksheets, were

also corresponding to the level of understanding of the students as
they were prescribed in the MELCs.

BERF 2021
What kept the students become more excited and happy was due to the
pictures that were incorporated as replacement for the words in the reading
selections.

How the students identify each picture, describe it in one word, correspond
to the number of letters of that word to the number of boxes given, may have
highly challenged and posed students with excitement to accomplish the
tasks, and subsequently, understand the reading selection and answer the
reading comprehension questions correctly.

BERF 2021
In light of the conclusions, the following recommendations were made.

The researcher, with the approval of the school head, may propose for a
school-wide implementation of Picture Reading Strategic Instruction on a
larger scale. He may propose an Action Plan intended for Information
Dissemination and Utilization of Picture Reading Strategic Instruction to
School Administrator, EFL Teachers and Other Researchers.
The school head is encouraged to allocate funds for the procurements of
supplies and materials, from the school’s Maintenance and Other Operating
Expenses (MOOE) and/or local funds, to be utilized by the EFL teachers and
students during the course of school-wide implementation.
The EFL teachers may strengthen the implementation of the intervention
program by addressing the gaps that have occurred during the process
especially by supplementing the prescribed tasks on the learning worksheets
with vocabulary enhancement activities to ensure that every student knows
every word he/she encounters in the reading selections. Moreover, they are
recommended to incorporate visuals in their daily lessons to strengthen the
interests and excitement of these students.
The future researchers may conduct relevant studies on a wider and deeper
scale by employing comparative analysis between control group and
experimental group in consideration with students’ demographic profiles as
maybe deemed factors that are contributory to their reading comprehension
levels and differences.
REFERENCES
Ancheta, R. F. (2018). Reading ability of EFL learners: The case of level 3 students of
Gulf College, Oman. European Journal of English Language Teaching, Vol. 3, Issue 3. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1156442.
Available at www.oapub.org/edu

Boerma, I.E., Mol, S.E. & Jolles, J. (2016). Reading pictures for story comprehension
requires mental imagery skills. Front. Psychol. 7:1630.
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01630

Boshrabadi, A.M. and Biria, R. (2014). The efficacy of multimodal vs. print-based texts
for teaching reading comprehension skills to Iranian high school third graders. International Journal of Language Learning and
Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW). Researchgate. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net / publication/259849650.

Novita, Y. and Kristiawan, M. (2017). The effect of picture series on students’ reading
comprehension of analytical exposition text. Researchgate.
Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 324162221.

Pan, Y.C. and Pan, Y.C. (2009). The effects of pictures on the reading comprehension
of low-proficiency Taiwanese English foreign language college students: An action research study. VNU Journal of Science, Foreign
Languages 25 (2009) 186-198.
THANK YOU!