Abstract:
The study explored the influence of reading on the writing of students in selected
Junior High Schools in the Adentan Municipality. The objectives of the study were to
explore how reading influenced the vocabulary span of students, the influence reading
had on paragraph development of students, and to identify the difficulties students
encountered with writing if they do not read. To achieve this, a convergent parallel
design was adopted. This design enabled the researcher to adopt a mixed-method
approach using questionnaire and interviews to undertake an in-depth exploration of
the study variables. A total sample of eighty-two (82) teachers and twenty (20)
students were engaged in the study. The findings revealed that reading influences the
vocabulary span of students in the area of word recognition and word usage,
punctuation awareness and paragraph development in the writing of students who
read. Challenges such as struggle for words, spelling errors, poor sentence structure,
inappropriate punctuation use, vocabulary repetition and poor command over
language among others were identified as difficulties encountered when one fails to
read. To encourage reading among students’ measures such as making reading fun,
allocation of enough reading time at home and school, giving awards to students
found reading were recognized. The outcome of the study influenced the
recommendation that, teachers should develop the interest at the early stages and
engage their students in reading activities.
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign
Languages Education and Communication, submitted to the School of Graduate
Studies, University of Education Winneba, in partial fulfillment
of the requirement for the award of
Master of Philosophy
(Teaching English as a Second Language)
in the University of Education, Winneba
AUGUST, 2020
