An Evaluation of the Reading Comprehension of Grade 8 Students Using Digital Texts

This study was conducted to evaluate the reading comprehension of Grade 8 students in Pedro T. Mendiola Sr. Memorial National High School in K-12 Enhanced Basic Education Program. As computer technology is on the rise, new interventions can be put into place so that struggling readers are supported in more suitable and motivating ways. The researcher's study arrived at these findings: Based on the result of the pretest and posttest, the test of significance that resulted to 0.00 which is less than the level of significance of 0.05 indicates that the difference in pre and post test score is significant. With this, students prefer making connections by reading books, articles, and pieces of writings and understand easily the events, people, or issues in the story when reading traditional print texts. Moreover, students prefer visualizing through the use of the senses to connect the characters, events and ideas to clarify the picture in mind while reading the story when reading traditional print texts. Additionally, students prefer determining importance in looking for things that help to identify the big ideas and why they are important in reading digital texts. Also, they prefer inferencing infinding information from the story using multimedia when reading digital texts. Lastly, students prefer to visualize through the use of the senses to clarify the images in mind while watching the story using multimedia tools in reading digital texts. Based on the findings, the conclusions of the study were drawn. Students prefer to use digital format texts than traditional print books. The student respondents have better comprehension in reading digital text format than traditional print texts. Using digital format texts are more effective mode of instruction in digital format texts than traditional print books. Digital format text is considered to create interest and arouse the motivation levels among students since they are free to learn at their own pace. On the whole, using digital format text is more effective as a teaching learning process as compared to traditional print books, although the results in this study is non conclusive.