Effect of graphic organizers on basic four (B4) pupils’ reading comprehension achievement in Effutu municipality

Abstract

This thesis examined the effect of graphic organizers (KWL, Story Map as well as Four-Corner Vocabulary Chart) on pupils’ reading comprehension achievement. The study followed quasi-experimental design. Simple random sampling without replacement, precisely the lottery method, was used to sample 2 schools out of 25 schools after which purposive sampling was used to select Basic Four pupils of each of the two schools. The sample size was 84 Basic Four (B4) pupils of which 40 belonged to school B and 44 belonged to School A. Data were collected using a comprehension achievement test created by the investigator. Using the KR20 reliability coefficient, it was discovered that the pretest’s consistency coefficient was 0.75 and that of the posttest was 0.74. With the help of SPSS version 26.0, data collected were analysed by the use of pairedsample t-test and independent t-test as well as Two-Way Analysis of Covariance. The finding was that guiding pupils with graphic organizers improved their comprehension achievement significantly. K-W-L Chart significantly improved the pupils’ ability to make inferences and recall issues in a given narrative text, story map significantly improved pupils’ ability to identify characters and setting in narrative text and FCVC improved pupils’ vocabularies significantly. The use of graphic organizers for comprehension did not differ significantly between males and females. It was also found that guiding pupils with graphic organizers in understanding narrative texts improved their comprehension achievement significantly as compared to convention method. It was proposed that Ghanaian educational bodies should incorporate graphic organizers into the curriculum, train facilitators on how to use organizers to help pupils read and comprehend, and encourage facilitators to use them.