The Use of Phonics in Developing the English Reading and writing skills in the Unit of Learning “Let’s Learn English” For Grade 6 Students

Abstract

The objective of this research was to develop English reading and writing skills for Grade 6 students by using phonics techniques in order to reach the criteria of ≥ 60 % of students’ learning achievement and score ≥ 75 % of the test result. The target group was six students at Togpan School in Mueang KhonKaen District, KhonKaen Province under KhonKaen Primary Education Service Area 1, during the first semester of the academic year 2018. This paper was an action research with three cycles. (cycle one was lesson plan 1 and 2, cycle two was lesson plan 3 and 4 and cycle three was lesson plan 5 and 6). The instruments consisted of  1)  six lesson plans, 2)  tools reflecting the result of worksheets such as quizzes at the end of each cycle, exercises, teaching  observation form, students learning observation form,  and teaching records, and 3) a learning achievement test which consisted of two parts: part 1 comprised 30 items with four multiple choices with the difficulty level ranged from 0.43 – 0.85, the discrimination level ranged from 0.01 – 0.71 and reliability of 0.70; and part 2 comprised 10 items of subjective questions. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed by using basic statistics: mean, percentage, and standard deviation. The conclusion was presented in the form of description.

          The research finding was that in terms of reading and writing, the students passed the criterion of 72.78 % and for the learning achievement, the students passed the criterion of 75.00 % out of 83.33 %. It is important to note that when the teacher encouraged the students to realize phonemic sounds (the ability to hear and pronounce sounds), it helped them to relate the sounds heard and how to put them into words.