The Use of Contextualized Storytelling to Enhance Malaysian Primary School Pupils’ Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This study was an attempt to compare the use of contextualized storytelling with the text with picture stimulus approach and the text only approach to enhance Year 5 pupils’ reading comprehension. The study was carried out in a public co-educational school in Penang, Malaysia. A quasi experimental research design was used with 90 Year 5 pupils. The pupils were placed into three equal groups of 30 participants each, according to their school First Term Assessment results. Two short stories were used and two comprehension tests were developed to evaluate pupils' comprehension of the short stories. Comprehension test scores were analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. The results indicated that the pupils who participated in contextualized storytelling performed significantly better than those in the other two groups in reading comprehension. There was no significant difference between the scores from the text with picture stimulus approach and the scores from the text only approach. The findings of the study have implications for the teaching of reading comprehension especially in the Malaysian primary school context.