ASSESSING THE PRACTICE OF ACTIVATING STUDENTS’ PRIOR KNOWLEDGE IN READING COMPREHENSION: THE CASE OF THREE GRADE 9 GOVERNMENTAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN FENTALE WOREDA, EAST SHOA ZONE, AND OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to assess the practice of prior knowledge activation in reading comprehension in the context of three selected secondary schools for grade 9. In order to accomplish the research objective, a descriptive survey research design was used. Ten English teachers were chosen as study participants using purposive sampling methods. Three methods—textbook evaluation, interviews, and classroom observation—were used to get the data. The information acquired through the interview and textbook evaluation was triangulated with the classroom observation and examined qualitatively. Ten English teachers were interviewed, and classroom observations were made, to learn how the reading passages triggered the students' preexisting knowledge of the subjects. To collect further information and round out the material gathered from interviews and classroom observations, a textbook evaluation was also carried out. Structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the findings were narrated, cited, and reported. Accordingly, the study discovered that students' reading comprehension is significantly impacted by the lack of activating students' prior knowledge of the topic of teaching reading passage procedures in grade 9. The study's findings also showed that ten English teachers nearly disregarded the techniques for determining whether students already knew the material before reading classes, regardless of how familiar the text could be. The majority of the units in students' textbooks were chosen for the reading tasks; as a result, seven units (58.3%) and the reading assignments for those units were evaluated. In addition, it emerged from the study's review of the textbook that the majority of exercises and activities failed to take students' prior knowledge into account. The final recommendation was that teachers take into account the value of utilizing students' prior knowledge and that school administrators support teachers in adapting their lesson plans to the relevance of their students' context in order to start them off on their way to learning reading comprehension.