Influence of Teaching Strategies on Reading Comprehension of Learners with Learning Disabilities in Selected Public Primary Schools in Kyuso Sub-County, Kenya.

¹Purity Kebebe Wakati, ²Dr. Jessina Muthee, ³Dr. Tom Abuom

¹ Department of Special Needs Education, Kenyatta University, P.O. Box 0538-01200, Kitale, Kenya

²Department of Special Needs Education, Kenyatta University, P.O. Box 43844-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

³Department of Early Childhood and Special Needs Education, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.1105079

Received: 24 May 2024; Revised: 08 June 2024; Accepted: 13 June 2024; Published: 26 June 2024

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the influence of teaching strategies on reading comprehension of learners with learning disabilities in selected public primary schools in Kyuso Sub-County, Kenya. The choice of this locality was based on the fact that it is home to most learners with learning disabilities in the entire County and the performance of these learners in reading comprehension has continuously been poor. The study area also has a mixed demography with some public primary schools located in wealthy areas while majority are in poor areas. The study was guided by Bandura’s Social Learning Theory as advanced in 1977. The study employed quasi-experimental study design. The target population for this study was 420 consisting of 20 class five teachers and 400 class five learners with learning disabilities within the available 20 public primary schools in Kitui County Kenya. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. Primary data was collected by use of structured questionnaires. Data was grouped, coded, cleaned and analyzed descriptively using SPSS version 21.0 to generate frequencies and percentages. The collected data were presented in tables created with SPSS and figures created with Microsoft Excel 2010. The study found that common teaching strategies had a negative effect on reading comprehension test scores of students with learning disabilities, while learners-centered strategies improved these learners test scores in reading comprehension. The study therefore concluded that learners with learning disabilities underperformed in reading comprehension due to the use of traditional teaching strategies which are teacher centered. The study recommends that learners-centered instructional methods be employed to improve reading comprehension among learners in Kyuso Sub-County in selected public primary schools.

Keywords: reading comprehension, learning disabilities, Public primary school, strategies, teaching strategies, assessment and academic achievement.

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Around the world, learners with learning disabilities have been shown to lag behind their counterparts with no learning disabilities in all spheres of education especially in reading comprehension. These learners struggle with basic psychological processes necessary for understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations (Denton & Otaiba, 2011). Such learners require appropriate education which can only be offered through effective teaching strategies at all levels of education.

Many children (and adults) have some type of special needs disability. The four major types of disabilities include physical, developmental, behavioral or emotional, and sensory impaired disorders. As Council for Exceptional Children (2023) holds, common learning disabilities include dyslexia, dysgraphia, perceptual disabilities, and developmental aphasia. It is estimated that approximately 6-8% of school-age children have some sort of LD. Some experts believe that lack of and differences in screening protocols have resulted in LD being under reported.

Abdul(2015) estimated the percentage of incidence of students who are categorized as Learning Disabled in schools of Kerala, along with estimating studying prevalence of students categorized by schools as mentally Retarded (MR), Visually Impaired (VI), Autism, ADHD and Orthopedically Impaired and investigated perceived difficulties of schools in facilitating the inclusive education of these children. Results showed that there was variation among schools in prevalence of students with LD and other impairments. In a school of average size of 850, LD and other categories of SEN have near 40 students. In general, teachers categorize five per cent of students as belonging to SEN categories; half of them being learning disabled (2.23%) and half of them belonging to MR, VI, Autism, ADHD, HI, and OI (2.53%).

Teaching of reading comprehension to learners with learning disabilities has long been a challenge for various educators. Indeed, providing adaptations to reading strategies intended for use with students with learning disabilities is an important way to accomplish the goal of accommodating the learning needs of learners with learning disabilities in reading comprehension (Denton & Otaiba, 2011). According to Denton and Otaiba (2011) appropriate teaching of reading comprehension to students with learning disabilities is especially urgent due to the fact that students who do not have an adequate reading comprehension skills are more likely to have difficulties in other academic areas, drop out of school, commit a crime, or commit suicide.

The skills of phonics and fluency are important to emphasize in kindergarten through third grade. These skills lay an important foundation for reading at all other grade levels (Tolman, 2005). With the skills of phonics and fluency in mind, several researchers have studied the most effective research-based strategies for students with learning disabilities in kindergarten through third grade. Cahill and Gregory (2011) stress the importance of using reading passages at the student’s instructional level in order to build reading comprehension. In the USA, the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000) reviewed studies in the area of reading and concluded that phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension are the major areas of teaching reading that need to be addressed in the classroom. Since students with learning disabilities are likely to have a deficit in the area of reading comprehension (Torgesen, 2002), it is especially imperative that they be instructed using appropriate strategies.

Highlighting the importance of comprehension instruction, the NRP (2000) found research evidence for the following reading comprehension strategies; comprehension monitoring in which the reader learns how to be aware or conscious of his or her understanding during reading and learns procedures to deal with problems in understanding as they arise, cooperative learning in which readers work together to learn strategies in the context of reading, graphic and semantic organizers, which allow the reader to represent graphically the meanings and relationships of the ideas that underlie the words in the text, story structure from which the reader learns to ask and answer who, what, where, when, and why questions about the plot and, in some cases, maps out the time line, characters, and events in stories.

NRP (2000) further reported that other reading comprehension strategies include question answering in which the reader answers questions posed by the teacher and is given feedback on the correctness, question generation in which the reader asks himself or herself why, when, where, why, what will happen, how, and who questions, summarization in which the reader attempts to identify and write the main or most important ideas that integrate or unite the other ideas or meanings of the text into a coherent whole and multiple strategy teaching in which the reader uses several of the procedures in interaction with the teacher over the text.

Evidence show that teaching reading in specific domains, such as science (Barton, Heidema, & Jordan, 2002; Greenleaf, Brown, & Litman, 2004) and social studies (Mosborg, 2002) can improve student understanding and learning. In spite of this evidence, teachers are often reluctant to provide explicit reading comprehension teaching in their classrooms. Teachers point to lack of instructional time and pressure to cover content as barriers to reading comprehension (Deshler, Schumaker, Lenz, Bulgren, Hock, Knight, et al., 2001).

Researchers who study literacy consistently name strategy teaching as a high-leverage instructional practice for students particularly those who struggle with comprehension (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004). Numerous comprehension literature has reached this conclusion as well (Block & Duffy, 2008; Dole, Nokes, & Drits, 2009). However, researchers believe that although teachers and students often use the terminology of strategy instruction to refer to reading comprehension methods instructional, it is rarely used or seen in typical classroom practice (Dennis, 2010).

Sedita (2005) asserts that one of the oldest findings in educational research is the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. The author adds that word knowledge is crucial to reading comprehension and determines how well students will be able to comprehend the texts they read in class. Carlo, Snow, August and White (2011), also found that English language learners who experienced slow vocabulary development were less able to comprehend texts at the grade level than their English-only peers. Wolley (2010) reports that a particular problem for students with poor comprehension is that they have difficulty learning new vocabulary. Wallace (2008) points out that difficulty in reading at the appropriate grade level is perhaps due to the lack of sufficient vocabulary and instructional strategies. Although these studies have extensively explored reading comprehension and strategies for teaching at international level, hardly any relevant study has been done locally in the Kenyan context.

Badriyah, Amrin and Anni (2021) studied the effect of teaching strategies and students’ interest in reading comprehension and findings showed that the mean score of reading comprehension achievement after the students were taught using INSERT strategy was 17.60 and after the students were taught using K-W-L strategy was 16.15. From the two strategies were used to examined the students’ achievement in reading comprehension, INSERT was to be most effective strategy. Malik, Muhammad and Muhammad (2019) assessed the effect of teaching reading strategies on the students’ reading comprehension and findings indicate that teaching reading strategies have a positive impact on the reading comprehension of students at the higher secondary level.

Husni and Nina (2018) in Nigeria examined the impact of teaching strategies and reading habits on students’ reading comprehension and showed that Teams Games Tournaments (TGT) and Student Team Achievement Divisions (STAD) are effective in improving students’ reading comprehension where F ratio (28.846) ˃ F table (3.99), but on the other side, students’ reading habit, both high and low, cannot affect students’ reading comprehension.

According to National Reading Strategy (NRS, 2008), some teachers in South Africa have inadequate understanding of teaching literacy, reading and writing. Many teachers simply don’t know how to teach reading. Too often, teachers know only one method of teaching reading, which may not suit the learning style of all learners. Teachers don’t know how to stimulate reading inside and outside the classroom. For years, many teachers believed that they did not have to “teach” reading, but simply had to “facilitate” the process so that learners would teach themselves to read (National Reading Strategy, 2008). Studies by Barton et al. (2002), Greenleaf, et al., (2004), and Mosborg, (2002) also show that teachers lacked adequate skills to transfer knowledge to learners.

Grace (2010) conducted a study on nature and prevalence of learning disabilities among standard three primary school pupils in Starehe Division of Nairobi Province, Kenya and revealed that there could be pupils with LD majority of whom had a high level of difficulty in the tests administered in English and Math (100% and 63.3% failure respectfully). The common types of errors noted in English included; poor visual-motor coordination, difficulty in copying accurately, spacing of letters and words, letter and word reversals, poor handwriting, repetition of sentences, omission of some words and letters, overprinting to correct mistakes, grammatical mistakes (punctuations, spellings and capitalization), inadequate expression of ideas and vocabulary, poor organizational skills, unreadable letters and words, non-attempt or slowness in completing work. While in Math, most pupils totally failed in items that tested their skills in spatial order and relationships, division, time and money.

Uwezo (2011) has released an assessment for teaching and learning in Kenyan the region indicating low level of learning in the institutions. The children, the report says, are not reading and 1 out of 3 pupils lacks basic literacy and numeracy skill while 2 out of 10 class 7 pupils do not have class 2 competencies. The report further   estimates that only around 50% of children in grade 4 are able to read at grade 2 level, identifying significant delays in the acquisition of reading competency among children in Kenyan primary schools.  Indeed, studies have established that significant number of learners complete primary school cycle without having achieved the basic levels of reading comprehension (Commeyras & Iyenga, 2007; Uwezo, 2011). As a result, a large number of children are going through Kenyan primary school system without adequate mastery of reading skills which is a real concern to the nation if we have to achieve our vision 2030 and our sustainable development goals.

Reading in early years of schooling should, among other things, aim at reading for pleasure through learners’ exposure to a variety of reading materials, to help learners develop a word band of vocabulary and expose them to new ideas and sentence structures that are used later to communicate both verbally and in the written form (Gathumbi, 2008).

Bunyi (2008) laments that for the last three decades, Kenyan newspapers have carried articles that decry the poor English skills of primary, secondary and even college students. In spite of the crucial role reading plays in literacy development, reading is not taught as a subject in our Kenyan schools but as one of the four skills within the English Language. Runo (2010) points out that so much emphasis is placed on passing examinations in Kenya such that, quite a number of learners may be disadvantaged especially if they are poor readers. A number of learners may become reading disabled due to lack of appropriate instructional methods. KCPE results for the last two years in Nairobi indicate that most of the candidates perform poorly in English and the reason could be that they cannot read which affects performance in other subjects and overall performance. It is however not clear whether it is poor strategies of teaching reading comprehension that is contributing or playing a key role in this dismal performance.

One of the most important skills for children is reading comprehension a skill in which learners with learning disabilities are expected to excel in. Teaching learners with learning disabilities require that teachers utilize specialized teaching strategies specifically tailored to cater for unique academic needs of these learners in specialized settings. As already shown, studies have shown the utilization of particular teaching strategies to teach learners reading comprehension, for instance Marima (2014) revealed teachers use two teaching approaches that is phonics and whole word strategies to teach early childhood classes reading. This study does not focus on learners with reading comprehension and deals with ECD whereas the present study dealt with upper primary school learners with LDs. Winfred (2019) in her study established the use of small reading groups which was said to be a more effective teaching strategy reading skills. The strategies of focus by the reviewed study were limited and did not look at self-monitoring, reciprocal teaching, peer assisted learning or concept-oriented instructions as strategies for teaching reading comprehension nor their effects on reading comprehension among learners with LDs.

Bunyi (2008) laments that for the last three decades, Kenyan newspapers have carried articles that decry the poor English skills of primary, secondary and even college students. In spite of the crucial role reading plays in literacy development, reading is not taught as a subject in our Kenyan schools but as one of the four skills within the English Language. Runo (2010) points out  that so much emphasis is placed on passing examinations in Kenya such that, quite a number of learners may be disadvantaged especially if they are poor readers. A number of learners may become reading disabled due to lack of appropriate instructional methods. KCPE results for the last two years in Nairobi indicate that most of the candidates perform poorly in English and the reason could be that they cannot read which affects performance in other subjects and overall performance. It is however not clear whether it is poor strategies of teaching reading comprehension that is contributing or playing a key role in this dismal performance. Therefore, there exist a gap in literature on teaching comprehension strategies used by teachers for learners with LDs in the African region, Kenya and even Kyuso Sub-County, Kitui County that this study sought to address.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

World over, teachers are tasked by governments and parents with the responsibility of educating learners in preparation for future job placements at the end of their education. This process is meant to equip learners with knowledge of all subject contents that address socioeconomic aspects of their lives and offer skills they need to survive economically as individuals once they complete their academic journey. To do this, teachers offer instructions using various strategies to ensure that learners understand and grasp concepts being taught in class. One of the most important skills for children is reading comprehension a skill in which learners with learning disabilities are expected to excel in. Teaching learners with learning disabilities require that teachers utilize specialized teaching strategies specifically tailored to cater for unique academic needs of these learners in specialized settings. As already shown, studies have shown the utilization of particular teaching strategies to teach learners reading comprehension, for instance Marima (2014) revealed teachers use two teaching approaches that is phonics and whole word strategies to teach early childhood classes reading. This study does not focus on learners with reading comprehension and deals with ECD whereas the present study dealt with upper primary school learners with LDs. Winfred (2019) in her study established the use of small reading groups which was said to be a more effective teaching strategy reading skills. The strategies of focus by the reviewed study were limited and did not look at self-monitoring, reciprocal teaching, peer assisted learning or concept-oriented instructions as strategies for teaching reading comprehension nor their effects on reading comprehension among learners with LDs. In Kyuso Sub-County, learners with learning disabilities are found in general classrooms in most public primary schools in Kenya, hence lack specialized instructions that they require to succeed in reading comprehension. This puts learners with learning disabilities at a disadvantage as the strategies employed favour their counterparts with no learning disabilities. To compound the situation, in Kyuso Sub-County Kenya, learners with LDs seriously lag behind their counterparts without learning disabilities in reading comprehension. Therefore, the current study sought to assess teaching strategies being used in public primary schools to teach learners with learning disabilities reading comprehension in Kyuso Sub-County.

OBJECTIVES OF STUDY.

To evaluate the influence of teaching strategies employed on reading comprehension among learners with Learning Disabilities in selected public primary schools in Kyuso Sub-County.

3.1 Research Design.

This study adopted quasi experimental study design. The design was used to collect quantitative data (Mugenda & Mugenda, 2003). The design was chosen as it allowed the researcher to study a large population with only a portion of the population participating. Therefore, using this design, the researcher to assess the teaching strategies being used to teach learners with learning disabilities reading comprehension in public primary schools in Kyuso Sub-County.

3.2 Target Population

The target population for this study was 420 consisting of 20 class five teachers and 400 class five learners with learning disabilities within the available 20 public primary schools in Kitui County Kenya. These groups were selected to participate in this study as they had the much-needed information and were more knowledgeable on the subject matter under investigation. Class five learners were selected because they had been taught and assessed numerously on reading comprehension and they had three years to their final KCPE exams hence assessing them was deemed necessary to find out their level of reading comprehension level in order to find ways of improving teaching strategies to be employed in the subsequent classes and years.

3.3 Sampling Technique and Sample Size

3.3.1 Sampling Technique

Purposive and simple random sampling technique was used to select the required research participants from each of the two target groups of teachers and class five pupils. Simple random sampling provided each possible participant with an equal chance of being selected and participating in this study. Each individual was chosen randomly and entirely by chance, such that each individual had the same probability of being chosen at any stage during the sampling process. To select the 10 public primary schools out of the available 20, plain papers were torn into 20 pieces, and numbers 1 to 10 were written in 10 papers leaving 10 pieces blank. All the torn 20 pieces were folded then placed in a bucket. The researcher visited each of the 20 schools seek for permission to conduct the study from the head teachers. After permission was given the researcher then shook the bucket and asked the head teachers to pick a piece of paper and only those who chose papers with numbers 1 to 10 were allowed to participate in the study. Class 5 teachers (20) from the chosen schools (2 from each school) were purposively selected to participate in the study by virtue of belonging to the sampled schools. Afterwards, to identify the needed sample of 200 class five learners with learning disabilities, a learning disability test was administered (see appendix 1) and only learners who scored less than 35% were considered to have LDs and included in the experiment. To each sampled subject, a research instrument was provided by the researcher and field assistants.

3.3.2 Sample Size

For this study an appropriate formula was used to calculate the required sample size from the target population. Sample size calculation formula proposed by Rodeo, (2005) who argued that a good representative sample should constitute at least 20% of the entire population where a population is small and 10% where the population is large was used.

3.4 Data Collection Techniques

Quantitative methods were used in collecting quantitative data in this study through structured questionnaires and administered` tests. Various instruments were used for data collection; these included teaching reading comprehension questionnaire for teachers which was necessary for capturing quantitative data relevant for statistical tests and also the teachers were well learned to answer the set questions and had ample time to fill in this tool. Other tools  that were used include; learning disability test for pupils and reading comprehension questionnaires for pupils these were needed to first separate learners with learning disabilities from the inclusive classrooms then amongst these learners with learning disabilities a further identification of learners with reading comprehension was necessary as they were the main target group of this study. Data in this study was processed whereby they were entered into the scientific package for social sciences [SPSS] software version 21.0 to generate table format for further analysis. Once the data was processed, in order to remove the remaining or possible errors, tabulated data were matched with information in the instruments in order to ascertain that it was an accurate representation of the collected data. The analysis was done to answer the questions and objectives that guide this study. The analyzed results were in form of frequency and percentages as well as ANOVA which were presented using tables generated using SPSS version 21.0. The analyzed data were presented based on the study objective.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 General and Demographic Information

4.1.1 Demographic Characteristics Respondents

The study had a 100 percent return rate as all the 220 tools were collected during fieldwork. The study gathered various information from class 5 teachers concerning their demographic characteristics which included gender, age, teaching experience, level of education as well as extent to which initial teacher training focused on teaching of early literacy skills. Findings are as follows;

4.1.2 Distribution of Teachers by Gender

Information was collected on teachers’ gender is presented in table 1 that follows.

Table 1: Distribution of Teachers by Gender

The data presented in table 1 established that 50 percent of the class 5 teachers were male while the remaining 50% were females. This data therefore implied that results presented by this study were reflective of all English teachers irrespective of their gender.

4.1.3 Distribution of Teachers by Age

More information gathered from teachers with respect to their age is presented in table 2.

Table 2 Distribution of Teachers by Age

As data in table 2 indicated, 20% of the teachers were aged between 16-25 years, 30% were aged 26-35 years, 35% were aged 36-45 years and the remaining 15% were aged 55 years and above. The findings implied that class 5 English teachers in the study area were mainly comprised of a mixture of young teacher (teachers aged under 35) and aged teachers (teachers aged under 35) also teaching the subject.

4.1.4 Distribution of Teachers by Teaching Experience

The study also gathered data on teachers teaching experience and the findings are presented in table 4.3 below.

Table 3: Distribution of Teachers by Teaching Experience

As shown in table 3, 20% of class 5 English teachers had taught the subject for a year, a quarter had taught for a period of between 2-5 years, a quarter had taught English for 6-10 years while 30% had taught English as a subject for a period of 11 years and above. The findings implied that most class 5 teachers had enough teaching experience as most of them had over 5 years’ worth of teaching experience.

4.1.5 Distribution of Teachers by Level of Education

Information was also gathered from class 5 English teachers on their levels of education and results presented in table 4.

Table 4: Distribution of Teachers by Level of Education

The study findings presented in table 4 revealed that 70% of class 5 English teachers in the study area had college level of education while 30% had university level of education. Therefore, these outcomes implied that there were fewer degree holders compared to diploma/certificate holders amongst the class 5 English teachers.

4.1.6 Learning Disability Test Scores

Class 5 learners were given learning disability tests in order to identify learners with learning disabilities among the 400 pupils and the findings are presented in table 5

Table 5: Learning Disability Test Scores

From the 400 pupils who took part in the learning disability test as shown in table 4.6, 42.5% of the learners scored 20% and below in the test, 7.5% scored between 21-35%, 22.5% scored 36-50% and 27.5% scored 51-65%. From the findings, half of the pupils scored 35% marks and below suggesting that half of class 5 pupils had learning disabilities. These were the 200 learners included in the study. In disagreement with these outcomes, a study by Cevriye (2012) revealed that that less than a quarter of learners had reading problems.

4.2 Influence of Teaching Strategies on Performance of Learners with Learning Disabilities Reading Comprehension

Lastly, teachers were asked to indicate how teaching strategies employed generally influenced reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities in reading comprehension and findings presented in table 6

Table 6: Influence of Teaching Strategies on Performance of Learners with Learning Disabilities Reading Comprehension

Study results presented in table 6 established that most teachers strongly disagreed that traditional teaching methods had a positive influence on learners with learning disabilities reading comprehension. 40% of the teachers strongly disagreed that lecture methods positively improved reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities. Half of the teachers strongly disagreed that group teaching positively improved reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities. A half of the teachers agreed that self-monitoring positively improved reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities. Three quarters of the teachers agreed that reciprocal teaching positively improved reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities. All the teachers agreed that peer assisted teaching positively improved reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities. Majority of teachers agreed that concept-oriented teaching instructions positively improved reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities and also strongly agreed that collaborative teaching strategy positively improved reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities. This implied that in the study area, some teaching strategies employed by English teachers in public primary schools improved learners with LDs test scores whereas others affected the scores of these learners negatively. These results are in line with those of Yali (2010) conducted a case study to explore the role of reading in L2 vocabulary acquisition, and the effect of different vocabulary instructional techniques on the vocabulary learning of ESL students of different levels in Chinese universities and established that though both instructional treatments resulted in significant gains in learners’ receptive vocabulary knowledge, a combination of the incidental and intentional learning teaching led to greater vocabulary gains and better retention. Therefore, focused teaching strategies result in better performance among learners.

4.3 Analysis of Variance on Post-test Teaching Strategies Normally Used and Reading Comprehension Performance among Learners with LDs

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also used to assess the relationship between post-test instructional strategies used during field work and reading comprehension test scores recorded afterwards by learners with learning disabilities and findings presented in Table 7

Table 7: Analysis of Variance on Post-test Teaching Strategies Normally Used and Reading Comprehension Performance among Learners with LDs

Findings presented in Table 7 revealed that there was a statistical significant relationship between guided reading and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05, there was a statistical significant relationship between reciprocal teaching and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05, a statistical significant relationship between whole-class teaching and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05, a statistical significant relationship between small-group instructions and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05, a statistical significant relationship between individual instructions and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05, a statistical significant relationship between concept-oriented instructions and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05, a statistical significant relationship between peer-assisted instructions and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05 as well as a statistical significant relationship between self-monitoring instructions and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-value of p=0.000 was found to be lower than p=0.05. These findings therefore implied that the adoption of these instructional methods by teachers while dealing with learners with learning disabilities would improve reading comprehension test scores among these learners within public primary schools of Kyuso Sub-county. This is supported by post-test reading comprehension test scores of learners with LDs presented in section 4.3 in this chapter.

CONCLUSION

The objective of the study was to evaluate the influence of teaching strategies employed on reading comprehension among learners with LD in public primary schools in Kyuso Sub-County. The study concluded that the traditional methods of teaching used by teachers in teaching reading comprehension were responsible for the low-test scores in reading comprehension amongst learners with learning disabilities where adoption of learner centered strategies improves reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities. Lastly, the study concludes that there was a statistically significant relationship between post-test instruction strategies and reading comprehension among learners with learning disabilities as the p-values of p=0.000 were lower than p=0.05.

5.1 Recommendations

This study recommends that;

• English teachers focus on teaching learners with learning disabilities all aspects of reading comprehension including repeating syllables, mispronouncing words, repeating words, substituting endings, omitting syllables, substituting letters, omitting letters, inserting foreign letters, reading slowly as well as none recognition of letters as it was found that these aspects were rarely being taught.
• There is need to adopt learner centered strategies in teaching reading comprehension among learners with LDs as the study proved that these strategies are able to improve reading comprehension scores among these learners.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

On behalf of all the co-authors I declare that authors have no conflict of interest with the manuscript.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Purity Kebebe Wakati is currently enrolled for a Master’s Degree in Special Needs Education at Kenyatta University. She holds a BED Arts in Special Education from Maseno University. She has worked as a teacher in a special unit in Karen, Nairobi, a secondary teacher of Kiswahili and Geography for the last 13 years. She is now working as a teacher of Kiswahili and Geography at St Brigids Girl’s High School, Kiminini in Transzoia County.

Dr. Jessina Jessica Muthee is a senior lecturer in Kenyatta university. she is a specialist in the area of learning disability and psycho-educational assessment. Her area of research interest includes, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dysphaxia ,attention deficit hyperactive disorder, cognitive psychology , psychometry. And abnormal psychology.

Dr. Tom Abuom (PhD) is a Lecturer in the Department of Early Childhood & Special Needs Education (Speech & Language Pathology Program)-Kenyatta University (Nairobi-Kenya). Area of specialization: Speech and Language Pathology; Clinical Linguistics; Neurolinguistics & Aphasiology. His research interests are in the area of Communication Disorders in Geriatric Population and Aphasia.

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