Effect of Instruction in Location of Topic Sentence on Academic Achievement of Senior Secondary School Students in Reading Comprehension

Authors: [1] Adedokun [2] Adewole Olubunmi

Pages: 17-23

Abstract:

The study was undertaken to determine the effect of instruction in Location of Topic Sentence on academic achievement of Senior Secondary School Students in reading comprehension in selected Local Government Areas in Gumel Emirate, Jigawa State, Nigeria. The population of the study comprised all the 3,315 students at senior secondary school class two level (SSS 11) in all the 12 public secondary schools in Gumel Emirate of Jigawa State in 2015/2016. The sample for the study consisted of 420 SS11 students in the 2015/2016 session in twelve (12) intact classes which were drawn from four (4) single-sex schools, using purposive sampling technique. The research design for the study was a quasi-experimental and specifically the non-randomized control group. Location of topic sentence (LOTS) reading strategy developed by the researcher was used to teach students in Experimental Group1, Experimental Group 2 and Control Group. The instrument for data collection was English Language Comprehension Passage Questions (ELCPQ). The three groups had the same pre-test passages. Also, their post-test passages were the same. The scorer reliability of the pre test and post test instruments computed using Kendall coefficient of concordance yielded the reliability index of .78 and .73 respectively. The study was guided by one research question and one hypothesis. While mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research question, the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypothesis. The finding indicated that the students exposed to topic sentence at the beginning of paragraphs achieved higher in reading comprehension than their counterparts exposed to topic sentences located at the middle and at the end of paragraphs. The finding established a significant difference in the mean achievement scores of students presented with topic sentence at the beginning, at the middle and at the end of paragraphs of a reading passage. The pairwise comparisons of the mean difference between the groups showed that the beginning topic sentence was more effective in comprehending passages followed by the middle topic sentence and the ending topic sentence respectively. Based on the findings, it was recommended that English language teachers should use Location of Topic Sentence (LOTS) reading strategy to teach reading comprehension in secondary schools in Nigeria.