The desire to develop the full potentials of all learners has been the utmost concern of Special Education. This study was out to investigate the effect of visual discrimination training on reading among struggling readers in primary five in the Buea Municipality. It made use of three primary schools (government, mission and private) in a quasi-experimental study. Twenty-four struggling readers were used to verify if visual discrimination training on letter, word, number, geometric shapes and pictures recognition has any effect on their reading ability. They were selected sequentially through teacher nomination, classroom records and a standard oral reading test. The 24 most severe cases were subjected to ballot to distribute them into two groups (experimental and control). Each group had 12 participants including boys and girls between the ages of 10 -11years.The pre-test-post-test techniques were used to measure the progress made by each group within a period of 8 weeks. Only the experimental group received the treatment exercise. The instruments used for data collection were a master sheet for reading assessment, test score sheet produce by the researcher, an interview guide for pupils and their teachers. Data were analysed using the statistical package SPSS 21.0. They were analyzed and presented descriptively using frequencies, percentages, tables and charts, while hypotheses were tested using the Chi-Square test of equality of proportions comparing the aggregated scores of the experimental and control group. Interviews were analysed using the thematic and case approach, and summarized in code-grounding-quotation tables and conceptual diagram. Results revealed that, there was a significant positive progression in the experimental group. Letters and words recognition stood at the 27.1% as against 6.2% respectively. Then, the progression for numbers that stood at 20.8% as against 4.2% in the control group. Thus the null hypothesis was rejected while the alternative was retained. This implies that visual discrimination training has a positive effect on reading among struggling readers. This knowledge will lead to improvement in pedagogic practices in primary schools. The study therefore recommends that visual discrimination training be introduced as earlier as possible, and reinforced in all classes in primary schools to give all children the possibility to improve.
Assessment, Visual, Discrimination, Training, Recognition, Letters, Reading, Struggling, Readers, Primary, School, Buea, Municipality
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