Investigating the Use of the Language Experience Approach at La Anglican Basic School

Abstract

The importance of reading cannot be overemphasized. It is one of the means through which most of the knowledge we possess now was acquired. Due to the importance of reading, its acquisition must be given a special attention. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the Language Experience Approach on the reading performance of primary three pupils at the La Anglican Basic School in Accra. The focus was to ascertain whether the use of the Language Experience Approach could facilitate pupils‟ acquisition of reading skills. A sample of 52 pupils, comprising 23 girls and 29 was used for the main study. A pre-intervention test was conducted to assess the reading performance of the participants. There was also a post-intervention test after the intervention. The results of both the control and experimental classes were used to test the hypothesis using the t-test. The findings of the study show that the experimental class performed significantly better than the control class. The use of the Language Experience Approach, thus, improved the reading skills of pupils and may, therefore, have some advantage over the traditional way of teaching reading. The study recommends that further investigations could be conducted on a larger scale to support the findings in this study.