WELCOME TO KENTERPRO:
EFFECT OF TOP-DOWN APPROACH ON THE READING PERFORMANCE OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN PANKSHIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background to the Study

Reading is a difficult activity that should be pursued throughout one’s life. Constructing meaning from information that is presented in a visually encoded form is the purpose of reading. It includes the processes of sensing, communicating, expressing oneself linguistically, and interacting with others (Olaofe & Masembe, 2006). Those who enjoy reading do so because it gives them pleasure and a sense of accomplishment. According to Adigun and Oyelude (2003), the ability to read will not only help students organise their thoughts and jot down important facts while they are reading, but it will also equip them to comprehend the entire text. Reading is not only a source of information and a pleasurable activity, but it is also a means of consolidating and expanding one’s knowledge of the language. According to Rivers (2017), who asserts that reading is the most important activity in any language class. Rivers argues that reading is the most important activity in any language class. Reading is a skill that provides learners with numerous additional opportunities to practice the language, which is one of the primary reasons why Strevens (2017) emphasises its importance in the learning process. Secondly, it provides a window to the conventional means of the learners’ furthering their individual education by improving their reading ability. The students will be able to develop a sufficient language base through reading skills, which will enable them to produce the spoken or written messages that they are eager to communicate to others. This will allow them to communicate more effectively.

Comprehending what you read, whether it is a book, an article, a textbook, or anything else, is what we call reading comprehension. According to Oyetunde (2009), it is impossible to provide a single definition of reading comprehension. Readers, in his view, must actively construct a model of the author’s intended meaning by drawing on contextual clues and their own prior knowledge. Here, comprehension refers specifically to the ability to grasp the meaning of a written text. Correctly answering questions posed by the text demonstrates comprehension. It is impossible to separate reading from understanding. Ngwoke (2006) agrees that reading and comprehension are inseparable twins connected by a single chain. Obviously, no student can understand what they have not read, and no one enjoys reading something they do not fully grasp.

Reading comprehension includes the abilities of decoding, fluency, vocabulary, sentence construction and cohesion, reasoning and background knowledge, working memory, and attention. The process of decoding is an essential one in learning to read. Students rely on this ability to read words they know but have never seen written down. It is a crucial reading skill that lays the groundwork for everything else. Good reading comprehension relies heavily on proficient reading skills. Children’s vocabulary growth is directly proportional to the number of words they hear and read.

Learners have challenges with reading inspite of the central place it has in learning. Typical reading difficulties of adolescents include problems with vocabulary, word recognition, reading comprehension and reading rate. Mercer (2007) denotes several types of reading problems that are typically found among students such as reading habits, word recognition errors, comprehension errors and miscellaneous symptoms. Smith et al., (2005) also lists several common problems experienced by some students who suffer from reading difficulties. These include: omitting letters, syllables or words; inserting extra letters, words or sound; substituting words that look or sound similar; mispronouncing words; repeating words and using improper inflection during oral reading. Reading difficulty is a problem for many children, adolescents and adults in Nigerian secondary schools today. Educators, parents, physicians, as well as society in general share a common concern about individuals who have reading challenges inspite of the central place it has in learning. All teachers have the responsibility of understanding and helping their failing and frustrated students. Reading difficulties affect a significant number of children, adolescents, and adults in Nigerian secondary schools in today’s society, and the issue needs to be addressed. People who do not learn to read are a source of concern for many people in society, including teachers, parents, and medical professionals, as well as society as a whole (Richet, List & Lerner, 2009). For effective teaching, the teacher must adopt diverse approaches in order to teach reading comprehension.

An approach refers to theories behind the nature and concept of language teaching and learning. According to Olaofe (2013), an approach means a commitment to a particular point of view or an ideology. It is a set of assumptions about the nature of language teaching and language learning. Its orientation is based on relevant linguistic, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, pedagogical theories on which language teaching and learning is based. It is premised on the models learning a language, that is, the thinking behind certain methodological choices, views on learning and the role of a teacher. Thus, it is possible to have the teacher-centred approach or learner/learning centred approach. The latter is also referred to as the activity based language learning which stresses participatory, cooperative, collaborative and interactive learning strategies. Each approach has a number of strategies attached to it. A teaching approach is the collection of guiding principles and practical approaches utilised by educators to facilitate student learning. The nature of the learner and the content that is going to be taught each play a part in determining which of these approaches will be utilised. For a teaching approach to be considered appropriate and effective, the learner’s characteristics and the type of learning that it is intended to produce must be in relationship with one another.

When it comes to instruction, reading comprehension can be taught using a variety of instructional approaches. These approaches to education can be broken down into three categories: constructivism, practical or activity-oriented learning, and expository instruction (Okoye & Okechukwu, 2006). According to Nwokenna (2010), expository methods include the lecture method, the demonstration method, the project method, the top-down approach, and the field trip method. While the instructor focuses on presenting ideas, facts, and fundamentals, the students are asked to do nothing more than listen and take notes. The poor reading habits of the students could be linked to the poor teaching of the teachers. There are many approaches that writers have suggested that could be used to teach reading. One of which is the top-down approach.

The top-down approach emphasises readers bringing meaning to the text based on their valuable experience and background and interpreting the text based on their prior knowledge (whole language). Top-down reading models teach students to read by introducing them to literature as a whole. Instead of teaching students to read by sounding out each word in a sentence, teachers read whole passages of a text. Students begin to use context clues to translate unfamiliar words. They help students concentrate on the whole meaning of a passage. The theory also works with those just learning to read, as readers rely on their previous knowledge to translate text or unfamiliar words. According to Smith (2011), top-down model of reading focuses on what the readers bring to the process. The readers sample the text for information and contrast it with their world knowledge, helping to make sense of what is written. The focus here is on the readers as they interact with the text. This model starts with the hypotheses and predictions then attempts to verify them by working down to the printed stimuli. This view of reading was called the psycholinguistic guessing game. Pearson (2020) states that the top-down approach encourages students to focus more on understanding the main ideas of a passage than understanding every word. Even if students do not understand each word, they are likely to grasp the meaning of a text as a whole. She continues that this model encourages students to rely on their own knowledge and use context clues to understand new concepts or words.

It is with the above discussion in mind that this study seeks to examine the effects of top-down approach on the reading performance of senior secondary school students in Pankshin Local government Area of Plateau State.

• Statement of the Problem

It would appear that a deficiency in reading comprehension would affect one’s performance in all other academic subjects. Some students who have reading disabilities may have difficulties such as the following: omitting letters, syllables, or words; inserting extra letters, words, or sounds; substituting words that look or sound similar; pronouncing words incorrectly; repeating words; and using improper inflection while reading aloud. Teachers of English in secondary schools need to know how to teach students to understand what they are reading.

It should come as no surprise that students in Nigerian senior secondary schools benefit from taking a top-down approach to reading comprehension passages. The effects of a top-down approach on the reading comprehension achievement of senior secondary school II students in Pankshin Local Government Area is the issue that is being investigated as part of this study. Even though there is time set aside for reading comprehension, the researcher is curious as to whether or not a top-down approach is utilised in the teaching of reading for comprehension. It appears that there is no time set aside for this approach.

Again, interaction with some English language teachers in some secondary schools in Pankshin reveals that they hardly ever use a top-down approach when teaching their classes. According to Adeniji (2010), this is the reasoning behind his statement that some English teachers are falling behind in their approach to teaching reading comprehension, which ultimately results in poor performance among students. The purpose of this research is to shed light on the most important goals of using a top-down approach to teach reading comprehension.

In addition, the majority of students are inexperienced when it comes to knowing the most effective reading strategies that improve their capacity to comprehend a text in an adequate manner. There is also a lack of consensus among researchers regarding the grade level or subject area in which educators should use a top-down instructional approach. Studies on top-down approach have failed to reach a conclusion because of the ongoing debate on the most effective method for improving reading comprehension. This suggests that it is necessary to conduct this study in order to demonstrate, using empirical evidence, whether or not a top-down approach improves the performance of students in reading comprehension. Therefore, this study seeks to provide solutions to these controversies in the hope that it will bring about a balance in the approaches to employ when teaching reading comprehension using a conventional approach and a top-down approach. Specifically, the conventional approach and the top-down approach.

• Purpose of the Study

The aim of the study is to examine the effects of top-down approach on the reading performance of Senior Secondary School II students in Pankshin Local Government Area of Plateau State. Other main objectives of the study are:

1. To determine effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of literal message in reading comprehension.
2. To discover the effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of relationship of thought in reading comprehension.

• Find out the effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of critical and referential thoughts in reading comprehension.

1. To determine if there is any difference between the scores of the pretest of the control and experimental groups.
2. To measure the difference between the scores of the posttest of the control and experimental groups.
3. To discuss the differences between the pre-test and posttest scores of the control group.

• To find out the differences between the pre-test and posttest scores of the experimental group.
  • Research Questions

            The following questions have been raised to guide the study:

1. Are there effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of literal message in reading comprehension?
2. Are there effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of relationship of thought in reading comprehension?

• Is there any effect of top-down approach on students’ learning of critical and referential thoughts in reading comprehension?

1. Is there any difference between the scores of the pretest of the control and experimental groups?
2. What is the difference between the scores of the posttest of the control and experimental groups?
3. Is there any differences between the pre-test and posttest scores of the control group?

• Is there any differences between the pre-test and posttest scores of the experimental group?
  • Research Hypotheses

            The following null hypotheses were postulated:

1. There is no effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of literal message in reading comprehension.
2. There is no effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of relationship of thought in reading comprehension.
3. There is no effects of top-down approach on students’ learning of critical and referential thoughts in reading comprehension.
4. There is no significant difference between the scores of the pretest of the control and experimental groups.
5. There is no significant difference between the scores of the posttest of the control and experimental groups.
6. There is no significant differences between the pre-test and posttest scores of the control group.
7. There is no significant differences between the pre-test and posttest scores of the experimental group.
   • Significance of the Study

The benefits of this study cannot be overemphasised especially now that reading comprehension is more relevant than it used to be in the past as a result of the wake of technology and social media. Therefore, this study shall be beneficial to teachers, students, curriculum planners and future researchers.

This study is significant because teachers of English language at the senior secondary level seem to be confused concerning the best strategy for teaching reading comprehension in Secondary Schools in Pankshin. During an interactive session between the researcher and some teachers, the researcher understood that some of them see top-down approach as a better reading comprehension approach than conventional approach. This brought about the need for this study to find out which strategy is the best for teaching reading comprehension. As such, the findings of this work could bring a better understanding of the strategy for teaching reading comprehension in Senior Secondary Schools.

Again, students’ ability in reading with understanding would be enhanced in English, together with other subjects, when they are taught using the right strategy. It would help students whose comprehension capacity is low, average or high because some useful reading strategies that would boost their comprehension abilities have been explained in details in the course of the lesson. This is true because by the time students are exposed on how to draw inferences, predict or guess, generate questions from text; comprehension of a text would be achieved. Hand in hand with that, if the students are able to comprehend texts, they could interpret questions of tests and bring out meanings beyond the literal level. This would go a long way in helping them to come out with flying colours in the termly and the senior school certificate examinations.

Furthermore, the study would help examination bodies and curriculum planners, to design the curriculum that will reflect the objective and purpose of teaching reading comprehension with top-down approach. This could bring about uniformity in the procedures of teaching reading comprehension passages using the curriculum of the senior secondary schools in Pankshin Local Government Area and the nation at large. Some areas in English language reading comprehension passages like vocabulary building, word matching or activating prior knowledge, to mention but a few, would immensely help the curriculum planners and examination bodies when setting examinations for the students if found to be effective.

The findings and discussions of the theoretical and practical implications from this study would contribute to researchers in second language learning as it relates to reading comprehension strategies.

• Scope of the Study

            This study covers effects of top-down approach on SS II students’ learning of reading comprehension. This study shall be restricted to two(2) selected senior secondary schools in Pankshin Central. Only 100 SS II students will be used for the study. The aspects of reading comprehension that will be used are literal message in reading comprehension, relationship of thought in reading comprehension and critical and referential thoughts in reading comprehension. The study is restricted to selected secondary schools in Pankshin Local Government area of Plateau State.

• Operational Definition of Terms

Top-Down Approach: this is an approach of teaching reading comprehension which puts the learners background knowledge into consideration. The reading passage used in this approach reflects the background of the learners.

Effects: This is a positive result of something.

Reading Comprehension: Reading comprehension is an intentional, active, interactive process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of writing. It refers to constructing the meaning of the oral or written messages.

Inferential: Something that is inferred especially: a conclusion or opinion that is formed because of known facts or evidence from reading comprehension.

Critical: Taking a detailed examination of reading comprehension passage.

Literal: This is the surface meaning of the massage the writer wants to pass across in a reading comprehension.

Thought: This is the idea or the theme of the comprehension passage.