Remedial teaching in English reading comprehension the case of students of Presbyterian College of Education

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of remedial lessons in English reading comprehension on students’ reading comprehension achievement among students of Presbyterian College of Education in Ghana. The study specifically sought to examine the specific reading comprehension problems of the students, the causes of the problems and the impact remedial lessons have on the English reading comprehension achievement of the students. To achieve the objectives of the study, mixed method research approach was used. The participants of this study were students who offer the English Language Studies Course which had reading comprehension as a component and teachers who teach this course to the students. In all 441 Level 200 students, and 5 English Language teachers participated in the study. The analysis of the data was carried out using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics used for the analysis of the data include frequency and percentages, while the inferential statistics used for the analysis of the data is the Ordinary Simple Linear Regression Analysis. An alpha level of 5% was used as the threshold for statistical significance. The findings of the study revealed that students’ inadequate knowledge of grammar, students’ inadequate background knowledge, students’ ineffective reading skills, students’ inability to understand complex sentences, and students’ inadequate vocabulary knowledge are the main specific difficulties faced by the students in English reading comprehension. The results of the study also indicated that the major causes of these problems are students’ poor language processing abilities, students’ weak executive functioning skills, students’ underdeveloped word decoding skills, and students’ weak oral language skills. The results of the Ordinary Simple Linear Regression Analysis revealed that remedial lessons had a significant positive impact on the achievement of the students. The results of the coefficient of determination indicated that students’ participation in remedial lessons accounted for at least 30% of the variation in dependent variables. In conclusion, based on the study it is recommended that authorities at the Presbyterian College of Education should pay attention to the methodological and pedagogical approach in the teaching of remedial lessons in English reading comprehension at the institution.