EFFECTS OF MULTISENSORY TEACHING ON READING COMPREHENSION AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS WITH READING DISABILITY IN PANKSHIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF PLATEAU STATE
Keywords:
Reading Comprehension, Multisensory Teaching, Reading Disability, Socioeconomic Status, Primary School PupilsAbstract
Reading comprehension remains a major difficulty for primary school pupils in Nigeria who have reading disabilities. But credible evidence of effective teaching practices to consider SE factors is lacking. The study examined the effect of the multi-sensory approach on reading comprehension of primary school students with reading disabilities in Pankshin Local Government of Plateau State. This study adopted a pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design with 40 Primary 4 students with reading difficulties. Data collection involved using the Reading Comprehension Achievement Test and a Socioeconomic Status Questionnaire. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyze data at 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed that there was a significant main effect for multisensory teaching on pupil reading comprehension [F(1, 37) = 259.59, p < .001, η² = .875] which showed that this approach had a significant effect on the pupils' reading comprehension. In addition, socioeconomic status was a significant main effect on reading comprehension, [F(1, 37) = 11.98, p = .001, η² = .245]. The effect of multisensory teaching and socioeconomic status was not significant, however, [F (1, 35) = 0.41, p = .526, η² = .012]; this indicates that the intervention was effective across the various socioeconomic groups. The study results demonstrated that multisensory teaching is effective in improving reading comprehension for students with reading disabilities across socioeconomic status levels. Suggestions involve multisensory approaches in primary schools, teacher professional development, and development of intervention programmes, combining multisensory approaches with home literacy support activities.
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