WELCOME TO KENTERPRO:
IMPACT OF DIGITAL STORY TELLING ON PERFORMANCE OF JSS 1 STUDENTS WITH READING DIFFICULTY IN SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN PANKSHIN LGA

Chapter One

• Introduction

In achieving the objectives of Junior secondary schools, Junior secondary Education in Nigeria is given free, but, compulsory to any school-aged individual. According to the National Policy on Education (2013), teaching strategy in the Junior secondary schools should be participatory, exploratory, experimental and child-centred with a teacher-student ratio of 1:35. However, despite these policy statements, teaching in the public Junior secondary schools is anything than participatory, exploratory or child-centred. The teacher-student ratio in rural Junior secondary schools is over 100 and close to 200 students per teacher. Consequently, some students have not been able to cope with the learning situation, which leads to considerable number of students to graduate to tertiary institutions without knowing how to read. The consequences of allowing these teaming population to continue to graduate unabated, is that most of them end up performing poorly in other field of studies. The security menace of these teaming population of unable readers may not affect the child alone but may affect the community and the society in general. These, among many other reasons, justify the need to explore the influences of digital storytelling strategies on reading fluency of Junior Secondary School students with reading difficulties in Pankshin Local Government Area of Plateau State.

• Background to the Study

Digital Storytelling is the contemporary expression of the ancient art of storytelling. The strategy integrates the use of digital devices and appropriate multimedia software (Rani & Byrne, 2015). It is an emerging multimedia literacy that facilitates leaners to navigate different communication paths in classroom instruction. It also facilitates teaching in the classroom instructional purposes in the 21^st century. This was why Warchauer and Ware (2008) hinted that any student who could not access and effectively use the emerging digital literacy of the 21st century is hampered in ways like those students who could not read in analogue era. Inevitably the proliferation of emerging multimedia technology has changed the way teachers communicate; the way they create meaning from different textformats and even the way they teach (O’Rourke, 2005).

According to the Digital Storytelling Association (2002), digital storytelling is the modern version of the traditional art of storytelling which uses digital media. For it is the modern version of storytelling using digital media, the definition of traditional storytelling and digital media are needed to be addressed. Behmer (2005) explained storytelling as the sharing of our or others ideas and experiences through words and actions with the purpose of transferring meaning. Behmer emphasizes that the essential element of storytelling is the transfer of meaning. As many authors have already defined that media is a tool to store or to deliver the information, the term of digital is still a vague concept. The term means different things to different people. However, in this research the term digital refers to electronic or mechanical devices (Rouse, 2005). In other words digital media can be interpreted as an electronic or a mechanical tool that can be used to store or to deliver data and information. Taking into account that definitions, what Digital Storytelling Association means can be interpreted as the sharing of information through words and actions using electronic or mechanical tools with the purpose of transferring meaning. As its name implies, digital storytelling uses digital devices, software applications and multiple types of media such as text, image, voice (narration), music, or video. Along with the above definition, there are many other definitions of digital storytelling. Ohler (2008) describes digital storytelling as the use of personal technology in order to integrate a number of media into a coherent narrative. Oxford dictionary explains the term narrative as a representation of a particular situation or process in such a way as to reflect or conform to an overarching set of aims or values. In order to represent information and to convey the meaning, the combination of the number of digital medias is an essential element in digital storytelling. Thus, selecting the right digital media to be used, positioning them accurately, and combining them with a systematic arrangement of information are the gold standard of creating an effective digital storytelling.

The concept of Strategy as adopted from Olaofe, (2013) refers to techniques, actions, activities and tactics used during teaching. Hence, digital storytelling-strategy refers to use of sequential processes of Digital-Storytelling. This Strategy emanates in the late 1980s and early 1990s to integrate Digital-technology in teaching and learning (Suleiman, 2011). Strategies are adopted for effective teaching/learning.

In the past, reading was considered by psychologist to be a natural extension of spoken language (Adams, 2017), but it was recognised later that learning to read is a challenging task particularly to struggling readers. However, in the present technology driven society, the concept of reading as a skill to understand written discourse has changed to include Digital Multimodal discourse of digital literacy. Consequently, in this study, reading is considered as a set of skills that allow individuals to understand both digital and print based information. 

Jibir-Daura (2014) defined reading fluency as an indicator of speed, accuracy and prosody of oral reading. This definition was based, considering the components of reading fluency that include, rapid and automatic word recognition. However, some scholars, such as Osborn et al (2003); Applegate, Applegate & Modla (2009) believe there remains no single agreed-upon definition for fluency. Fluent readers read aloud effortlessly and with expression. Readers who are not yet fluent, read slowly, word by word, their reading is unnatural, but choppy and plodding. Likewise, they often have difficulty in reading comprehension (Rasinski, 2011). This study recognises reading fluency as a bridge between decoding and comprehension skills. Hence, in this study, reading fluency is defined as the ability of a student to read a connected text accurately, at an appropriate speed, necessary for comprehension.

Reading comprehension is a process of constructing meaning out of information provided by a writer of the information. This could be either in form of traditional text form or digital discourse type. Reading comprehension has widely been recognised as the essence of reading and ultimate-goal of any form of reading instruction (Jozwik, 2015). 

Students with reading difficulties may sometimes be equated with dyslexic individuals. Therefore, it is very appropriate to state here that students with reading difficulty are not purely dyslexic but probably may share certain characteristics. Dyslexic individuals have different brain connections that disrupt reading acquisition and they are noticed irrespective of the quality of reading instruction they had (Milne, 2005). In addition, Kormos, (2015) asserts that regardless of geographical or socio-economic status of the learners, there is likelihood that, dyslexia affect two learners in every class of 20 students.

• Statement of the Problem

The major problem of this study is the over-dominance of traditional method in the teaching and learning of reading comprehension which has not, in over the years, yielded encouraging results. Furthermore, traditional method makes learning uninteresting in certain situations. This implies that, continuous use of this approach in 21^st century may consequently affect the performance of students. The poor performance of students from public secondary schools in reading comprehension has become a source of concern to many education sympathizers. This has forced many parents to withdraw their children from public to private Junior Secondary Schools. This is because only very few parents can afford to sponsor their wards in private owned Junior secondary schools.  

Furthermore, students with reading difficulties seem to be under studied, despite the constitutional provision for their early identification; monitoring; and provision of equal educational opportunities to function as meaningful citizens. Consequently, based on these problems, the researcher decides to explore the influence of digital storytelling strategy on performance of students with reading difficulties in Junior Secondary Schools in Pankshin Local Government Area.

• Purpose of the Study

The aim of this study is to explore the influence of digital storytelling strategy on performance of students with reading difficulties in Junior Secondary Schools in Pankshin. Accordingly, the objectives of the study are to:

1. Determine the influence of digital storytelling on students’ ability to Identify Main Idea.
2. Determine the effects of digital storytelling on students’ ability to Sequence a Passage into an Ordinal Series.

iii. Find out the effects of digital storytelling on students’ ability to answer reading comprehension questions.

1. find out the possible ways of incorporating digital storytelling in Junior Secondary Schools.
2. To proffer possible solutions where necessary.

• Research Questions

   The following research questions are raised to guide the study:

1. What is the influence of digital storytelling on students’ ability to Identify Main Idea?
2. What is the influence of digital storytelling on students’ ability to Sequence a Passage into an Ordinal Series?

iii. What are the effects of digital storytelling on students’ ability to answer reading comprehension questions?

1. what are the possible ways of incorporating digital storytelling in Junior Secondary Schools?
2. What are the possible solutions?

• Significance of the Study

The present research could be of great benefit to students with reading difficulties, their parents, members of the community, education stakeholders as well as teachers training institutions.

1. The study will offer reading fluency and comprehension programme as an enhancement tool for students with reading difficulties. The aim of the study being to help the students with reading difficulties to read fluently with a desirable speed and accuracy as a step towards developing their reading comprehension via digital storytelling Strategy. With this intervention, it is believed the students would acquire necessary training to bridge the achievement gap between their peers. By this means this intervention may serve as a license for the students to continue with their education and living a meaningful life in the society.
2. The study also provides Junior secondary school teachers with diagnostic and screening tests and reading fluency and comprehension monitoring strategy. The study believes that, with these tools, the teachers would suitably identify and have a means of keeping the students ‘weekly or end of the term reading fluency and comprehension gains of their students. This allows the teachers to measure the effectiveness of their instructional Strategies and the level of students’ learning capacity handy.

• The study hopes to be beneficial to reading instruction teachers in the areas of planning reading fluency and comprehension intervention to accommodate students with reading difficulties via Digital Storytelling Strategy. This is believed to improve the lots of the teachers in developing the fluency and comprehension of students with reading difficulties.

1. The findings of the study could also be significant to teacher training institutions; English language curriculum planners and English language publishers in the areas of reading intervention for students with reading difficulties through workshops and conferences. Similarly, the findings of the study are expected to serve Junior secondary school teachers, as a research input, to adopt the strategy of study where necessary in teaching their students specifically, in the study area, and Nigeria, at large.
2. Finally, when this study is completed, it will serve as a reference material to future researchers who would want to research on a similar field. It will add to the already existing body of research.
   • Scope and Delimitation of the Study

The thrust of this study is to explore the influence of digital storytelling strategy on performance of students with reading difficulties in reading comprehension in Junior Secondary Schools in Pankshin Local Government Area. The variables considered are components of reading comprehension which include students’ ability to identify main ideas, students’ ability to sequence a passage into an ordinal series, students’ ability to answer reading comprehension questions and students’ ability to identify unfamiliar vocabulary and explain.  Although the study is restricted to the selected Local Government and schools, its findings can be generalised to other parts of the states and country at large.

1.8. Operational Definition

Digital Media: Electronic sources of information, including the internet, DVDs and CDs, e-books and digital television.

Digital Storytelling Strategy: It is the modern version of the traditional art of storytelling which uses digital

Fluency: Automatic decoding of a connected-text, at an appropriate rate, with proper expression necessary for comprehension.

Multimedia Digital: contents that represents more than one medium of expression including images, audio, illustration, and graphics.

Multimodal: Instructional strategy that appeals to two or more communications paths.

Students with Reading Difficulties: Group of individuals reduced to unintelligent

learners due to inappropriate instructional approaches and appropriate reading materials.

Read Aloud: An instructional strategy where teachers/students read text out loud.

Reading: A set of complex cognitive activities that allows individuals to understand both digital and print-based information.

Reading Comprehension: Reading, with active ability to construct meaning from the

text predicated by responding correctly to the oral comprehension questions.

Traditional Method: Duster-chalk-board and teacher talk method of teaching