Improving Differentiated Learning Among Primary School Teachers Enhancing the Acquisition of Phonological and Reading Comprehension Skills The Case of Buea Sub Division Cameroon Awah
Majority of Cameroon primary school pupils face the problem of acquiring reading skills to the extent that they actually go through primary school and complete without learning how to read fluently and accurately with understanding this is a very serious problem which begins at the pre reading level and kindergartens and even continue to the higher level of education in such a scenario pupils with reading problems are identified as being unable to make a difference between letters d and b, p and d etc. A quasi experimental research design was used for this study. Both purposive and random sampling techniques were used for the study. Only pupils who fulfilled particular conditions peculiar for the study were allowed to participate. a pre designed EpiData Version 3.1 (EpiData Association, Odense Denmark, 2008) database which had in built consistency and validation checks was used to enter the data. Results indicates that, the average score in phonology in the experimental group at pre test was 2.889 with median at 3.000, and increased to 3.556 at post test and this improvement was significant (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test: P=0.043) In the control group, at pre test, the average score was 2.667 and increased to 3.000 at post test though this was not significant (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test: P=0.180) The average score in vocabulary in the experimental group at pre test was 2.556 with median at 3.000, and increased to 3.444 at post test and this improvement was significant (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test: P=0.007) In the control group, at pre test, the average score was 1.667 and increased to 2.556 at post test and this was significant (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test: P=0.020) therefore implying that the change in the experimental group was more obvious than in the control group; the null hypothesis is then rejected. This problem gets worse as the children progress if not identified and remedied at the initial stage. This has been one of the main leading cause of school dropout and fallen standards of education as well poor performance in public examinations. However with the prevalent problem, teachers educational authorities and school administrators are searching for learning and teach techniques that could help attend to the individual needs of children with reading problems .differentiated instruction has been considered one of such methods according to research.