Grade 11 practical Research Module 1-4

Introduction Grade 12 Research

Introduction:

The ability to read and understand the contents of what a person reads is very important to this time.

Many schools and the Department of Education give emphasis to the importance of reading, through reading programs. But what is the reason why these programs appear?

Is the teaching of the schools were not enough for the children to learn how to read and comprehend what they are reading? We can find the answer in the development history of reading comprehension. According to K12academics.com,

"In colonial times, reading instruction was simple and straightforward: teach children the code and then let them read. At that time, reading material was not specially written for children but consisted primarily of the Bible and some patriotic essays; the most influential early textbook was The New England

Primer, published late 1680s. There was little consideration for how best to teach children to read or how to assess reading comprehension.

Not until the mid-19th century did this approach change significantly. Educators, in particular Horace Mann, began to advocate changes in reading instructional Methods. He observed that children were bored and "death-like" at school, and that instruction needed to engage children's interest in the reading material by teaching them to read whole words. The McGuffey Readers (1836) were the most popular of these more engaging graded readers. In the mid-19th century,

Rebecca Smith Pollard developed a sequential reading program of intensive synthetic phonics, complete with a separate teacher's manual and spelling and Reading books.

From the 1890s to at least 1910, A. L. Burt of New York and other publishing companies published series of books aimed at young readers, using simple language.

To retell longer classics. Mrs J. C. Gorham produced three such works, Gulliver's Travels in words of one syllable (1896), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Retold in words of one syllable (1905), and Black Beauty retold in words of one syllable (1905). In the UK, Routledge published a similar series between 1900 and 1910.

The meaning-based curriculum did not dominate reading instruction until the second quarter of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, reading Programs became very focused on comprehension and taught children to read whole words by sight. Phonics was not to be taught except sparingly and as a Tool to be used as a last resort.

In the 1950s Rudolf Flesch wrote a book called Why Johnny Can't Read, a passionate argument in favor of teaching children to read using phonics. Addressed to the mothers and fathers of America, he also hurled severe criticism at publishers' decisions that he claimed were motivated by profit, and he questioned

The honesty and intelligence of experts, schools, and teachers. The book was on the bestseller list for 30 weeks and spurred a hue and cry in general population. It also polarized the reading debate among educators, researchers, and parents.

This polarization continues to the present time. In the 1970s an instructional philosophy called whole language (which explicitly de-emphasizes teaching Phonics) was introduced, and it became the primary method of reading instruction in the 1980s and 1990s. During this time, researchers (such as the National Institute of Health) conducted studies showing that early reading acquisition depends on the understanding of the connection between sounds and letters."

We can see in this article, that as the time goes by, the development of reading comprehension goes on the higher level step by step. From simple and direct teaching of the codes to read, going to complex. In the Philippines, there were also stages the reading comprehension pass through.