Abstract:
The study was to investigate the factors leading to the poor reading skills of form one
students in St Basilide’s Vocational Technical School. A population of three hundred
(300) form one students was considered for the study. A sample of thirty (30) students
was chosen for the study from the population. The students were both males and
females to ensure gender equity. Interview and observation methods were used to
collect data. The selected thirty students forming a representative sample of form one
were interviewed. The research focused on reading practices common in senior high
schools in Ghana, the challenges affecting the reading culture in schools and the
strategies that should be adopted to improve the reading of students in form one. The
objective of the study is to identify the reasons behind students’ poor reading habits
and particularly to improve the reading skills of St Basilide’s Vocational Technical
school form one students and also to develop the use of oral activities to improve
English reading. The research findings depicted the situation of poor reading skills of
SHS one students, and were enhanced by illustrations in the form of tables and graphs
where necessary. Finally, the research recommended that Ministry of Education
should introduce educative and interesting non-textbook materials (NTBRMS),
readers’ clubs, encourage storytelling, make reading materials locally, timetable
reading and library lessons, encourage early reading lessons, talking offices and
compounds.
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Applied Linguistics,
Faculty of Foreign Languages Education, submitted to
the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Education
(Teaching English as a Second Language)
in the University of Education, Winneba
APRIL, 2022
