3’S APPROACH AND LETTER SOUND RECOGNITION SKILLS OF KINDERGARTEN PUPILS

 

ROXANNE A. SARMIENTO
Teacher I
F. Bustamante Central Elementary School

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effect of Listen to the Sound, Letter Call Out and Picture Sound Match on the letter sound recognition skills of Kindergarten Rosal, Lily and Sampaguita pupils. The researcher made use of the mixed-method research design specifically the explanatory research design. The respondents of the study were the 45 pupils of Kindergarten of F. Bustamante Central Elementary School which were selected through probability random sampling technique. The research instrument used was the 15 items teacher made questionnaire. Mean, standard deviation, one way ANOVA, eta squared were the tools used in the analysis. Results revealed that after engaging the techniques, their letter sound recognition has improved.

Introduction
Letter sound recognition is one of the most important skills for children to develop in the kindergarten year. There are plenty of activities to help children recognize letter sounds. The children need to understand that letters used to represent the sounds. Letters go together to make words and changing letters changes the sounds and words. Reading to children is often the best way to reinforce letter sounds connections. According to Neuman (2012), there must be interesting activities around the classroom to reinforce the connection between letters and sounds. There are so many strategies to teach the children in order for them to recognize the letter sounds.

As cited by Orillosa (2014) in her explanatory study on readings for letters and sound states that parents teaching practices greatly affects the children’s learning experiences. Furthermore, knowledge of letter sound and phonological awareness skills are the basic building blocks of literacy learning. These are the basic skills of how the children learn to read.

In F. Bustamante Central Elementary School, particularly in Mother Tongue, most of the pupils are having difficulty in recognizing letter sounds. In view of this, the researcher determined effective strategies that would help the children in their needs.

This study sought to find out the answers to the following questions:
1. What is the mean score of the three groups when exposed to 3’S strategy- Listen to the Sound, Letter Call Out and Picture Sound Match?
2. What is the level of performance of pupils in recognizing letter sounds?
3. Is there a significant difference in the performance of pupils in recognizing letter sounds when exposed to 3’S strategy?
4. Is there a significant difference in the three methods, namely, Listen to the Sound, Letter Call Out and Picture Sound Match associated with the difference in performance of pupils in recognizing letter sounds?
5. What is the effect size of 3’S strategy to the performance of pupils in recognizing letter sounds?

Operational Definition
Sound, Song and Sign Strategy (3’S) refers to the three teaching strategies used by the researcher which are, Listen to the Sound, Letter Call Out, and Picture Sound Match the following were operationally defined below:
Listen to the Sound refers to the first teaching strategy, wherein the pupils are going to listen to the letter sound given.
Letter Call Out refers to the second teaching strategy, wherein the pupils are going to say the correct sound of the given letter.
Picture Sound Match refers to the third teaching strategy, wherein the pupils were given picture to the match the sound of the given word.

Method
This study made use of Descriptive-Comparative Research Design. The respondents of this study were the three sections consisting of 45 kindergarten pupils of F. Bustamante Central Elementary School. The researcher made use of probability sampling technique in selecting the respondents. Primary and secondary data were used in the study specifically posttest scores. The researcher made use of the probability sampling using simple random technique and utilized secondary data specifically the scores of students from pre-test and post-test. The researcher made use of Mean and Standard Deviation and One-Way ANOVA as statistical tool used in the study, interpreted with the aid of Microsoft Excel software and of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
Data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted to determine the most effective strategy of this approach.

Conclusion 

Based on the results of the study, the following are the conclusions:

1. The mean score of the three groups when exposed to 3’S Strategy through Listen to the Sound, Letter Call out and Picture Sound Match did not meet the expectation.
2. The level of performance of pupils in recognizing letter sound is excellent.
3. There is a significant difference in the performance of pupils in recognizing letter sound when exposed to 3’S Strategy.
4. There is a significant difference in the three strategies in 3’S Strategy associated with the difference in performance of pupils in recognizing letter sound
5. 3’S Strategy has a large effect size to the performance of the Kindergarten pupils in Recognizing Letter Sound.

Recommendation

            Based on the above results, 3’S Strategy is recommended to be adopted by the teachers of F. Bustamante Central Elementary School, particularly in teaching Kindergarten pupils.