Retelling in Enhancing Oral Reading Comprehension Among Senior High School Students

Abstract

This action research explored the effectiveness of retelling as an instructional strategy to enhance oral reading comprehension among Grade 11 HUMSS students at Laoac National High School. Oral comprehension remains a persistent challenge in Philippine education, with national assessments such as PHIL‑IRI and international benchmarks like PISA consistently reporting low performance. To address these gaps, the study employed a true experimental design with pretest–posttest control and experimental groups. The control group received conventional instruction, while the experimental group engaged in guided retelling activities over four weeks. Results showed that the control group’s posttest mean (M = 12.73) reflected negligible improvement, whereas the experimental group achieved highly significant gains (M = 24.47, p = .000). Statistical analyses confirmed that retelling fostered sequencing, summarizing, inferencing, and metacognitive monitoring skills, enabling students to move beyond literal recall toward deeper comprehension. Beyond quantitative results, qualitative observations revealed that students in the experimental group demonstrated greater confidence, fluency, and engagement in oral communication tasks. These outcomes align with curriculum competencies in Oral Communication in Context and highlight retelling as a learner‑centered, evidence‑based intervention. The study concludes that retelling is a powerful strategy for bridging comprehension gaps and promoting higher‑order processing of oral texts. It recommends that teachers integrate retelling regularly into oral communication lessons, curriculum developers embed it in literacy modules, and future researchers expand its application to written text comprehension and other subject areas. By fostering active reconstruction of meaning, retelling strengthens critical thinking, oral fluency, and lifelong literacy skills essential for academic success.