The main purpose of this summary is three fold; to provide a proper understanding of the nature and dynamics involved in literacy and reading comprehension development in general; to stress the significance of using different instructional strategies in the acquisition of literacy and reading comprehension skills among pupils with moderate intellectual impairments; to highlight a cross section of past empirical studies which have been carried out on the area of literacy and reading development in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world. Particular attention was paid to studies that used the modality of the Language Experience Approach (LEA) for investigating relevant pedagogical issues connected to the topic of our study. In doing so, focus was laid on the unique pedagogical relevance of the Language Experience Approach (LEA) to the learning needs of pupils with moderate intellectual disability, in the specific area of literacy and reading development.
From the literature reviewed, it has been shown that a number of relevant studies, from both theoretical and pedagogical points of view, had been carried out in the past on various issues considered central to the subject matter of the proposed study. It has also been shown specific studies on the literacy attainments of individuals with intellectual disability have been documented by different authors in different areas. In the course of the review, three important themes were comprehensively explored, in order to better answer the previously outlined research purpose and questions of the study.
The first theme explored the basic cognitive process underlying both literacy and reading development among early-grade primary school pupils. Since both literacy and reading are ultimately tied to literal comprehension, pupils need to be made aware of the basic cognitive mechanisms involved in phonic awareness and sight vocabulary development as a necessary condition for reading and understanding simple narrative
passages and other simple class text materials. Some of the authors cited in sections of the literature reviewed above have advocated that phonic awareness and sight vocabulary skills are essential prerequisites for attaining other kinds of higher-order reading comprehension in latter grades at the primary school level of education. They also affirm that phonic awareness and sight vocabulary development can be best developed and refined through the use of explicit strategy instruction, particularly as it relates to pupils with intellectual and forms of learning disabilities.
The second theme addressed in the review of literature undertaken above relates to the ways in which strategy instruction has been used to improve reading comprehension for an array of readers. A number of studies cited in the review highlighted specific instructional methods and materials that can be, and indeed have been , used by teachers in order to support early- primary pupils as well as older students in developing reading strategies and ultimately, improving their overall comprehension of text.
The last theme covered in the review has to do with specific instructional techniques that some researchers have studied closely and a few innovative teachers are currently experimenting with in order to help improve their students’ level of literacy development and reading comprehension skills. Ultimately, the reviewed literature highlights the effectiveness of one specific type of instructional approach (i.e. Language Experience Approach: LEA) in improving comprehension, and calls attention to the noticeable gaps between current research and practices in the field.
Although there is no one “super method” for language teaching, it would appear that LEA does offer a useful and effective method for beginning literacy instruction by linking the students’ language and experience in learning. While LEA was initially created and used for one-on-one mother tongue (L1) literacy instruction, its adoption in a
number of recent empirical studies in Nigeria has shown that it can also be readily applied to second language (L2) as well as small-group learning environments. A few of these studies have been covered in the last section of the review above. When used judiciously, LEA can effectively help beginning as well as struggling readers to regain a sense of pride and accomplishment as they become active readers, writers, and contributing members in any target language community. Most of the related literature reviewed in the preceding sections of this study focused mainly on literacy and reading, with only few which adopted Language Experience Approach as a method used in developing various sub-categories of literacy skills. Furthermore, none of the studies reviewed specifically focused on the use of LEA as a methodology in developing the literacy sub-skills of receptive, expressive, literal reading comprehension, writing and sight word recognition among learners with intellectual disabilities.
The knowledge gap that this study was able to ultimately fill was that learners with intellectual disabilities had the opportunity of being taught literacy development through their own thoughts and experiences. While the researcher did scaffold the literacy activities with them, the scaffold was gradually withdrawn as their literacy abilities were perceived to be improving with the passage of time.
CHAPTER THREE METHOD AND PROCEDURE
The research method and procedure used in this study are presented under the following sub-themes: research design, population and sample, sampling technique, instruments for data collection, validity and reliability of the instruments, procedure for data collection, and method of data analysis.
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN
This study was an experimental research that employed pretest-posttest control group design. The research design involved formation of sample (two sets of learners with similar matched characteristics – experimental and control groups). Awotunde, Ugodulunwa and Ozoji (2002) stated that the pretest-posttest control groups design features two groups drawn from the same population. The assignment of subjects was through randomization (R). This design was applied to both mild and moderate learners with educable intellectual disabilities in the experimental and control groups.
The main components of this design are (a) comparison (i.e. compare results of the experimental group to those of the control group); (b) manipulation (i.e. exposing experimental group to treatments or experiences and with holding the treatments from the control group); and (c) control (i.e. ruling out factors that might threaten the validity of the instruments). Awotunde, Ugodulunwa and Ozoji (2002) provided the schematic outline of this particular type of research design as follows:
R O1 X O2 Experimental group R O3 O4 Control group
O1 and O3 stand for the pretest scores for experimental and control groups, O2 and O4 stand for the posttest scores for the experimental and control groups, while X stands for treatment. In the context of this study the independent variable is defined as language
experience approach while the dependent variable is the literacy skills among learners with intellectual disabilities in the study area.