From Struggle to Progress: Improving Reading Performance Through Adaptive Differentiated Strategies Among Grade 11 Learners with Special Educational Needs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21154785Keywords:
adaptive differentiated strategies, reading performance, special educational needs, inclusive education, action research, Senior High SchoolAbstract
This classroom-based action research examined changes in the written reading performance of Grade 11 learners with special educational needs after participation in an adaptive differentiated reading intervention in an inclusive Senior High School setting. A one-group pretest-posttest pre-experimental design was used with 10 purposively selected learners enrolled in the Open High School Program of Benigno V. Aldana National High School. Parallel researcher-developed and expert-validated 50-item assessments measured word recognition, decoding and morphology, vocabulary development, main idea and supporting details, inference and cause-and-effect, and applied comprehension. The intervention comprised nine three-hour sessions using word chunking, morphology and vocabulary mapping, guided and repeated reading, graphic organizers, sentence starters, shortened texts, large-print materials, extended time, and teacher-guided support. Means, standard deviations, mean gains, a paired-sample t test, a 95% confidence interval, and Cohen's dz were computed. The overall mean increased from 19.20 out of 50 (SD = 3.97; 38.40%, Limited Reading Baseline) to 37.90 (SD = 4.70; 75.80%, Developing Post-Test Reading Performance). The mean gain was 18.70 points, 95% CI [16.76, 20.64], and the difference was statistically significant, t(9) = 21.82, p < .001, dz = 6.90. All learners moved from limited or emerging baseline categories to developing or strong posttest categories. The findings provide strong local evidence that adaptive, differentiated, and accessible reading support was associated with substantial improvement; however, the small sample and absence of a comparison group limit causal and generalizable conclusions.
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