Comparative Effects of Phonemic Awareness and Letter Identification on Pupils Performance in Word Recognition and Reading Comprehension in Zone B of Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated comparative effects of phonemic awareness and letter identification on pupils’
performance in word recognition and reading comprehension in zone B of Benue state. Two research
questions guided the study. Two null hypotheses were formulated and tested. A pre-test and post-test
quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 22, 172 Lower Basic
Three pupils in 809 government owned co-educational primary schools during the 2019/2020 academic
session. The sample of the study comprised 239 Lower Basic Three pupils located in nine intact classes in
nine public schools using multi-stage sampling technique. Word Recognition Performance Test (WRPT)
and Reading Comprehension Performance Test (RCPT) were used for data collection. Mean and standard
deviation were used to answer the research questions. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test
the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that there was significance difference in the
mean performance scores of pupils taught using phonemic awareness strategy and those taught using the
letter identification strategy in word recognition (p = 0.050 = 0.05). additionally, results also showed that
there was significant difference in the mean performance scores of pupils taught using phonemic
awareness strategy and those taught using the letter identification strategy in reading comprehension
(p=0.028<0.05). Based on the findings, it was recommended that teachers of English language teachers
should be trained to use phonemic awareness strategies to teach word recognition and reading
comprehension in order to alleviate most reading problems among Lower Basic Three Pupils.