The Pupils Interest in Reading Activities

Time Available For Pupils to Learn At Home

Do your parents allow you to learn at home after school?

From the table above, 70% of parents against 30% do not allow their wards to learn at home after school. This shows that parents are not interested in their wards schooling. They did not put them under a serious supervision to learn after school.

The above results all reveal that, the pupil’s inability to read or pronounce words correctly is due to the teacher’s poor lesson delivery. It can also be attributed to the parents and pupils.

PARENTS RESPONSES TO THE INTERVIEW

Table 6:           The Relationship between Parents and Their Wards’ Teachers

Do you often contact your child’s teacher to have report on his or her performances?

This clearly indicates that 90% of parents at Apeyime do not contact their wards teachers to get information on their ward’s performance. This clearly attests to the fact that there is lack of good school – community relationship.

When there is a good school – community relationship, parents will freely contact teachers in order to be abreast with their wards performances at school. This shows that parents are less concerned about their wards education.

They devoted much of their times to their works than the pupils education. This attitude needed to be change for the better.

Table 7:           The Pupils Interest in Reading Activities

Does your child take delight in reading activities?

The above table confirms that, 50% of parents did not know their children’s capabilities. 20% of them indicate that their wards take delight in reading while 30% confirmed that their wards do not take delight in reading.

This confirms the fact that some parents monitor their ward’s activities at home. If this is so, how will they guide their wards to learn? This shows that parents are equally contributing to their ward’s poor performance in the school.

Table 8:           Parents’ Interest in Providing Their Wards with Reading Materials

Have you supplied your wards with reading materials?

The above results indicate that 70% of parents do not provide reading materials to their wards. Other materials necessary for the child’s educational development are also not supplied to the pupils.

How can the pupils learn if these materials are not provided for them? It will therefore be necessary for parents to show much concern about their wards education.

Table 9:           The Work Pupils Do At Home after School

What work does your wards do in the house after school?

The above figures reveal that almost all pupils do some kinds of work in the house after school. This occupies the pupils to the extent that they could not learn after school. Parents are therefore expected to give enough time to their wards to learn in the house.

This implies that, after schools studies have enough impact on the child’s educational development.

Table 10:         The Parent’s Ability to Supervise Their Wards to Learn At Home

Do you always remind your wards to learn at home after school?

The result above indicates that parents do not supervise their wards to learn in the house at all. This allows children to roam around without learning. Therefore parents should make it a habit to constantly remind their wards to learn after school.

The Class Teacher’s Responses to the Questionnaire

The class teacher was asked whether he uses teaching and learning materials during his reading lessons. The teacher affirmed that he did not use them regularly. He added that the models were difficult to prepare and as such the textbooks were enough for the lesson. He categorically stated that the money involved in the purchase and TLMs preparations is so high that he could not afford it. It is an undeniable fact that a lot of money is needed for TLMs preparation.

But still, it is the duty of the teacher to improvise for things he feels would be expensive to acquire. Since the future of the children remains in our top most priorities, all attempts must be made to improvise for the TLMs Ghana Education Service (GES) should also make it easy for the teachers by providing TLMs to them. The absence of the TLMs in the delivery is affecting the pupils a lot.

In response to whether the pupils could read after his lesson, he said he had also identified their poor performances and strongly attributed it to the pupils’ own laziness.

It was very sad to realize that the teacher did not realize the cause as his inability to follow the appropriate steps for teaching reading aloud lessons. If the teacher were to use TLMs and follow the steps of teaching reading aloud, the problem will not have been as serious as it is now.

In reaction to the question as to whether the pupils take delight in reading lessons he admitted the fact that pupils do not take delight in reading lessons. The class teacher attributed this to the fact that, the pupils were too lazy and as such absent themselves frequently from reading lessons.

The researcher realized that, because the teacher failed to use TLMs, the lesson appeared to be boring to the class. His frequent use of the cane to drill the pupils to read has also created the anxiety in the pupils. The teacher must make the lessons lively by using demonstrations, pictures and also motivate pupil.

When the class teacher was asked what he taught was the cause of the pupils problem, he said the pupils were lazy and could not even do assignment they were given.

He added that they failed to learn in the house as he placed them in groups. He said the group’s members were comprised of pupils from the same house or nearby