Investigating Functional Reading Literacy and Dropout Rate

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the relationship of functional reading literacy and dropout rate. The reading assessment of pupils in the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) and the annual reported dropout rate in the four consecutive school years – (2014 – 2018) were used and applied for the conduct of research. Documentary and data analysis method of research was applied in this study. Qualitative interpretation was done to identify the functional reading classification of students as: frustration, instructional, independent, and non-reader. The status and relation of school dropout rate and functional reading literacy was also investigated. It was revealed that majority of the students fall under the instructional category (33.45%), only a quarter (26.54%) is independent readers. The rest need immediate reinforcement and attention for them to be independent readers. This study found out that functional reading literacy does not directly relate to students’ dropout rate. Careful analysis of the data showed that decreasing dropout rates were noted while students’ functional reading literacy pegged at various levels.