Enhancing Phonics and Phonological Metacognitive Awareness for Efficacy in Reading Comprehension Among Students with Learning Difficulties

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of a phonics and phonology-based intervention that emphasizes metacognitive awareness on reading comprehension in students with learning difficulties. By incorporating these key aspects of language learning with strategies that are designed to encourage reflecting consciously on thought processes, the intervention aims to enhance both the academic and the non-academic reading comprehension.

The participants of the study were students of Grade 3, 4 & 5, identified by the parents and teachers as facing difficulty with reading and comprehension, but without a formal diagnosis due to hesitation from parents. The intervention included a variety of activities, such as word search, word pair practice, exercises on articulation, syllabification rules, creating fun nonsense words, and tasks on segmentation. Metacognitive strategies, such as self-questioning and goal-setting, can be quite challenging for students with learning difficulties, especially in their early elementary grades. To enhance metacognitive awareness in these students, engaging activities and repetitive self-aware style sentences that promote reflection on their thinking processes were incorporated. By introducing these strategies at an early stage, students can build a stronger foundation for future learning and enhance their overall reading comprehension.

A quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-test assessments was employed to measure the reading comprehension and metacognitive awareness. The results exhibited significant improvements in both the areas among students with learning difficulties which suggests that a combined approach of focusing on phonics, phonology, and metacognitive awareness can efficiently improve reading comprehension in this population.