Enhancing Reading Skills and Academic Performance in Grade 7 Students: A Holistic Investigation

The study examined the reading skills and academic performance of 65 Grade 7 students of Santa Maria National High School for school year 2022-2023. The quasi-experimental time series method technique was used in collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. Checklists for the profile and questionnaire for the reading skills of the students were used as data gathering instrument of the study. Frequency and percentage were used in analyzing the profile and level of academic performance, mean and standard deviation for the level of reading skills and to find out the average academic performance, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis H test, and Spearman Rank Correlation to find out the relationship between the students’ level of reading skills and academic performance.  The mean score difference between pretest (M=2.17) and posttest (M=2.48) was 0.3, indicating developing reading skills. Furthermore, the study also revealed that the academic performance of the students was significantly related to their reading skills level. The results of this study saw the importance of reading as an important factor contributory to a student’s academic success. To address this problem, a school-based reading program that would enhance the students reading skills with special focus on the skill of generalizing has been deemed necessary to improve the reading skill level of the students.