The Use of Interactive Digital Phonics Show (IDPS) to Enhance Phonological Awareness among Young Learners

Authors

Frederick Gon, Melor Md. Yunus

Abstract

While looking forward to the Fourth Industrialised Revolution, the impulse to cater to the needs of Alpha-generation has been put forward in term of industries, economics and education. However, the holistic incorporation of technology especially in education is still lacking due to the gap in adjusting the skills, needs, acceptance and exposure to technology advantages. Therefore, this action research aimed to identify the use of IDPS as a teaching and learning tool in enhancing English phonological awareness among young learners. This study was conducted in a rural school located in Kapit, Sarawak which involved 20 Year 1 pupils and the findings were based on the obtained data from the observations conducted by the four non-participant observers during the three cycle of intervention implementation. The intervention was employed within three cycles and the researchers were focusing on three major themes which were suitability, pupils’ reaction and implementation process. Based on the findings, one notable result that can be seen in Cycle 3 was the percentage numbers of excellent level seemed to be majority compared to Cycle 2 and Cycle 1. For Item 1 – 10, 97.5% of percentage numbers were on the excellent level. Meanwhile, Item 11 -20 showed 75% of percentage numbers on the excellent level. In addition, Item 21 to 30 showed that the increment of percentage numbers compared to Cycle 2. The table shows that 82.5% were on the excellent level. Thus, it could be concluded that this intervention helped the pupils to improve on their phonological awareness especially in identifying and manipulating units of oral language. Therefore, young leaners’ phonological awareness could be positively assisted by using IDPS as it acted as a self-learning tool with guidance based on the underlined social constructivism theory.

Keywords

social constructivism, phonological awareness, phonics, ICT, young learners

The Use of Interactive Digital Phonics Show (IDPS) to Enhance Phonological Awareness among Young Learners. Frederick Gon, Melor Md. Yunus. 2019. IJIRCT, Volume 5, Issue 1. Pages 1-8. https://www.ijirct.org/viewPaper.php?paperId=IJIRCT1902001