ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this study was to investigate how technology-assisted approaches can be effectively employed to enhance reading comprehension in secondary English classrooms. In order to guide the study, four research questions were raised to guide the study.
Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study.The population of the study comprised of three hundred and thirty eight (338) teachers from 37 Public Primary schools in Egor Local Government Area of Edo State. The population of the study comprised of two hundred and seventy sixty (276) SSII students from the 13 public senior secondary schools in Egor Local Government Area of Edo State. The study employed the census sampling technique to select all the respondents. The research instrument was a questionnaire designed by the researcher. It was divided into three sections: section A-C. Section A contained five items on existing methods and approaches to early childhood vocabulary learning, Section B contained five items on factors that contribute to or hinder effective vocabulary development in relation to future reading skills, Section C contained five questions on relationship between early childhood vocabulary acquisition and future reading abilities. The responses obtained from the respondent helped to validate the research questions. The response scale was designed on a 4-point Likert type modified with nominal values. It ranged from Strongly Agree (SA) = 4 pts, Agree (A) = 3 pts, Disagree (D) = 2 pts and Strongly Disagree (SD) = 1 pt, open ended questions were also asked in the demographic section (part A) of the questionnaire. The instrument was validated by the researcher’s supervisor and two other experts from the Faculty of Education, Secondary schools of Benin, Benin City, necessary corrections was made on the questionnaire before it was administered to teachers that were selected for the study. In order to determine the reliability of the instrument, the questionnaire was administered to 20 respondents who were not part of the study and retrieved, and the data collected from the respondents were subjected to Cronbach Alpha statistics and a reliability coefficient of .720 was obtained. Data was collected using a questionnaire. In administering the questionnaire, the face-to-face method was adopted to minimize the chances of errors in the process of responding to it.
Data was analysed item by item analyses, mean and standard deviation (SD) were calculated for each of the items to find out the variations, disparity in opinion, or how homogenous or heterogeneous the opinion of the respondents was to each of the items. For decision, any item that scored a mean of 2.5 above was accepted while any item that scored below 2.5 was rejected. The study found that a number of factors impede the access to technology among teachers in the teaching of reading comprehension and these factors are poor orientation about the use of technology for teaching, lack of skills in the operation of technology limited supply of Internet-enabled devices to students and teachers for teaching reading comprehension. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended amongst others: Regular and periodic training for teachers to adequately equipped them to use learners centred approaches to arouse and solidify students interest in learning reading comprehension, Information and communication training programme should be given to all the teachers as a course of study as this will help to educate the teachers in the use of technological resources for reading comprehension amongst others.
