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Effectiveness of the learning support programme in a primary school
Author
Yang, Tommy Peck Chiong
Supervisor
Lee, Ong Kim
Abstract
This study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the Learning Support Programme that is implemented in a neighbourhood primary school in Singapore.
Learning Support Programme (LSP), regarded as a flagship programme by the Ministry of Education (MOE), is an early intervention language and literacy programme. It was first introduced in Singapore primary schools in 1992. Its prime purpose is to provide additional support to students in Primary 1 and 2 who are educationally "at risk" of failing in school due to their inadequacy of age-appropriate English literacy skills.
Eighty-eight pupils who were identified as "at-risk" out of a total of 316 children of the 2002 Primary One cohort in the school were put through this 10-month intervention programme. All the 88 "at-risk" children (whom we termed "LSP children") underwent the LSP. There was no "control-group" as such for comparison purpose. An alternative way of comparison was used whereby a sample group each from both the LSP and the Non-LSP children were selected for the purpose of comparing their school examination achievement. Selection was done such that group means for their first School Examination (ie. CA1) are "equivalent". This ensures that the groups are equalized and comparable at the on set of the programme.
The study made use of Equivalent Group, pre-test and post-test design to examine the difference in improvement on the school examination results of the two comparison groups. Separate analysis using paired-sample t-test was done on the entire LSP children (n=88) whereby the hypothesis on their improvement on reading abilities was tested. This reading ability was measured using MOE's standard tool: "Singapore Word Reading Test" (SWRT), both pre-test and post-test for the SWRT were taken before and after the programme respectively. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient statistical methods were used to examine the correlation between the final school examination results (SA2) and the final score of the "reading age" of the entire LSP children (n=88).
The results of the study suggest that the LSP children had made a significant improvement in the reading abilities, which saw a mean-gain of 2 years & 7 months in the "Reading Age" by the end of the calendar year. This implies that the Learning Support Programme has indeed been helpful to the LSP children in this aspect. On the other hand, even though the improvement made on the school examination was not statistically significant at the alpha level of 0.05 (2-tailed test), it was significant at an alpha level of 0.1. This, to the school is worth every amount of effort and resources put in. Significant correlation was found between the final school examination results (SA2) and the final score of the "reading age" for the LSP children.
As a whole, this study has demonstrated to the stakeholders that the intervention programme has served its purpose and has accomplished what it intended to, that is to improve the English language literacy for the targeted group of Primary One pupils who were identified as "at-risk" learners. Recommendation was made to fine-tune the programme implementation to focus resources on increasing the children's reading abilities and for future research to cross-examine samples from neighbouring schools of the same cluster.
Learning Support Programme (LSP), regarded as a flagship programme by the Ministry of Education (MOE), is an early intervention language and literacy programme. It was first introduced in Singapore primary schools in 1992. Its prime purpose is to provide additional support to students in Primary 1 and 2 who are educationally "at risk" of failing in school due to their inadequacy of age-appropriate English literacy skills.
Eighty-eight pupils who were identified as "at-risk" out of a total of 316 children of the 2002 Primary One cohort in the school were put through this 10-month intervention programme. All the 88 "at-risk" children (whom we termed "LSP children") underwent the LSP. There was no "control-group" as such for comparison purpose. An alternative way of comparison was used whereby a sample group each from both the LSP and the Non-LSP children were selected for the purpose of comparing their school examination achievement. Selection was done such that group means for their first School Examination (ie. CA1) are "equivalent". This ensures that the groups are equalized and comparable at the on set of the programme.
The study made use of Equivalent Group, pre-test and post-test design to examine the difference in improvement on the school examination results of the two comparison groups. Separate analysis using paired-sample t-test was done on the entire LSP children (n=88) whereby the hypothesis on their improvement on reading abilities was tested. This reading ability was measured using MOE's standard tool: "Singapore Word Reading Test" (SWRT), both pre-test and post-test for the SWRT were taken before and after the programme respectively. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient statistical methods were used to examine the correlation between the final school examination results (SA2) and the final score of the "reading age" of the entire LSP children (n=88).
The results of the study suggest that the LSP children had made a significant improvement in the reading abilities, which saw a mean-gain of 2 years & 7 months in the "Reading Age" by the end of the calendar year. This implies that the Learning Support Programme has indeed been helpful to the LSP children in this aspect. On the other hand, even though the improvement made on the school examination was not statistically significant at the alpha level of 0.05 (2-tailed test), it was significant at an alpha level of 0.1. This, to the school is worth every amount of effort and resources put in. Significant correlation was found between the final school examination results (SA2) and the final score of the "reading age" for the LSP children.
As a whole, this study has demonstrated to the stakeholders that the intervention programme has served its purpose and has accomplished what it intended to, that is to improve the English language literacy for the targeted group of Primary One pupils who were identified as "at-risk" learners. Recommendation was made to fine-tune the programme implementation to focus resources on increasing the children's reading abilities and for future research to cross-examine samples from neighbouring schools of the same cluster.
Date Issued
2004
Call Number
LB1050 Yan
Date Submitted
2004