Improving Elementary Learners’ Reading Skills through Teacher Capacitation: An Evaluative Study

Abstract

Elementary learners’ reading skills need to be improved in all subject areas, as reading is said to be the avenue of all learning. Since every teacher is a reading teacher, teacher capacitation is generally viewed as vital in equipping and empowering teachers to contribute to the learners’ reading ability. This study investigated the impact of capacitating teachers in teaching reading and reading skills and its effects on the improvement of learners’ reading proficiency as shown by Phil-IRI post-test results and in their academic performance.  The study “Improving Elementary Learners’ Reading Skills through Teacher Capacitation: An Evaluative Study” implemented in Luinab Elementary School, Philippines, is an offshoot of the extension project. Findings revealed that before the teacher capacitation activities, the majority of the learners belonged to the frustration level. After a series of seminar workshops, webinar-virtual-workshop, instructional materials design, outputs presentation, and classroom visitation-observation, PHIL-IRI results showed that the majority of learners from frustration level were elevated to instructional and independent levels which implies improved reading performance in their reading proficiency. Moreover, a slight increase in learners’ academic performance can be due to learners’ better reading abilities as a result of teachers’ capacitation intervention programs.