PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: AUTOMATIC WORD RECOGNITION SKILL BUILDING THROUGH ANIMATED GAMES

Abstract

Reading skills need a lot of practice to gain automaticity for fluency and comprehension. This requires repeated skill honing. Nevertheless, it can be painstaking for students, especially those with learning difficulties and short attention span. This paper aimed to report an action research conducted to enhance reading skills and motivation of five Year 1 remedial students who were identified as poor and unmotivated readers. Instead of using only flashcards and worksheets, captivating games were designed and developed using various tools in Microsoft PowerPoint software. It fully utilized the multimedia interactive elements in the software combining visual and auditory properties for optimum learning effects. Based on the Malay Early Literacy Instructional Model, the literacy content in the games were systematically arranged and matched with the respective games in a progressive manner from phoneme-grapheme recognition (Vowel Balloon Popping), to syllable recognition (Consonant Star Shooting) and word recognition (Kiki’s Coconut Collection, Wheel of Fortune in Mini Zoo). These games were played after the introduction of the selected graphemes, syllables and words at the participants’ own pace. The intervention was conducted for 6 weeks, 4 days a week and 1 hour per day. Data were gathered through Literacy Motivation Profile (LMP), direct observations as well as decoding and spelling tests. LMP reported an increase of composite scores for all participants after the intervention. Direct observation supported findings in LMP and revealed that participants displayed active participation in learning. In addition, analysis of decoding and spelling assessments showed constant and satisfactory mastery of skills learnt. The results were encouraging and demonstrated a viable alternative to incorporate technology use in the classroom for fun and effective skill drilling. The upcoming action suggested is to further develop the interactive multimedia games to teach subsequent skills such as sentence and short storyreading.