Literacy Reading Nigeria

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Study of the Reading Difficulty Level of

Comprehension and Summary Passagesat Certificate Examinations

SAMUEL O. AYODELE

Literacy And Reading in Nigeria264

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a:

Samuel 0. Ayodele 265

Introduction

Of all the yardsticks for assessing the suitability of a text for a level of readers,

probably the most vital is the level of linguistic difficulty. Other factors, such as the

cultural relevance, the thematic difficulty, and moral or ideological factors, pale into the

distance when we realise that inability to obtain a firm grasp of the language of

discourse bars a reader’s access to the cultural, moral or ideological milieu themselves.

It is the linguistic factors, above all others, which determines one’s degree of success in

obtaining a control of these other factors. And this is perhaps why, in selecting a class

text for young readers, the readability level plays a prominent role.

In assessing the readability level of a text, the yardsticks most often used are the

length of sentences, and the length of words (usually decided by calculating the averagenumber of syllables per word). Other yardsticks, such as those suggested by Johnson

(1973), have been particularly popular with assessors. These include directness of

sentences, number of ideas per sentence, use of lead sentences per paragraph, presenceor absence of irrelevant thoughts, and continuity of thought.

Johnson (1973), like most other scholars in the area of reading, holds that

passages with long sentences are judged to be difficult while the number of syllables perword is contributory to the difficulty of words. Thus, simple words are assumed to be

usually monosyllabic, while the more difficult ones polysyllabic. However, this may not

always be so. As Perera (1982) has stressed, polysyllabic words are not necessarilydifficult and longer sentences may be more easily understood, whereas shorter ones maybe ambiguous. To back up her claim, Perera cited the two words gneiss and television.

The monosyllabic word is definitely more difficult because of its relative degree of

unfamiliarity while the second. although it is polysyllabic, is simple in view of its

household usage.In spite of these observations, however, it appears that we cannot get away from

using the two yardsticks of sentence and word lengths. This explains why virtually all

hitherto known readability formulae use these two variables, either solely or in

conjunction with others. We shall briefly consider three of the most often usedformulae.

The Fry Readability Formula, developed in the 19405 by Edward Fry,incorporates only the two variables of sentence length and number of syllables. To applyit, one has to select three paragraphs, one each from the beginning, the middle, and the

end of the text. In each paragraph, one counts one hundred words and then finds out

how many sentences and also how many syllables there are within these 100 words. The

figures are then referred to the Fry readability graph from which one can chart off the

grade level of learners for which the text is most suitable. The Flesh Readability Index

again incorporates the two variables of length of sentences and number of syllables perword. However, a formula is used, rather than a graph, to obtain the grade level for

which the text is most appropriate. Finally, the Modified Fog Index gives a direct

measure of the reading age of readers for whom the text is most suitable. Again, it is

arrived at by selecting a typical 100 word passage from the text, determining the average

266 Literacy And Reading in Nigeria

sentence length and percentage of the difficult words (decided by counting the number

of words with 3 or more syllables), and applying the Fog formula.

We shall, in this study, apply the Fry and the Modified Fog formulae in decidingthe dificulty level of passages used by the public examining bodies in Nigeria.

A Review of Literature

Since Brimer conducted in 1959 what is generally believed today to be the first

Nigerian study in the area of reading, scholars have expressed much concern about the

particularly low level of performance by Nigerians in this area of language usage. That

study established that Nigerian undergraduates were particularly slow in reading, and

that their comprehension ability was poor. Though other studies like those by Mckillop& Yoloye (1962), Chapman-Taylor (1963), Unoh (1972), and Abiri (1973) established

that Nigerian undergraduates had little problem with respect to vocabulary, their overall

rate of reading remained very low and their comprehension ability very poor. Of course,

some of these studies also established the fact that the learners’ reading problems could

be traced to the kind of education they received at the earlier levels (primary and

secondary), to the lack of parental encouragement at home, and to the partiCularly poorsocio-economic background.

At the secondary level, fairly similar trends have been established by Ayodele

21978),Fasuhon (1979), Ayodele (1984, 1985, 1987), and Ayodele and Adesemowo

1986). With particular reference to performance in English Language Comprehension at

the Certificate Examination Level, studies by Ayodele (1985) and Ayodele &

Adesemowo (1986) have established that learners have a particularly severe handicap in

Summary and Comprehension, and in fact, that this problem is more severe than in

essay/letter writing. In all, therefore, it appears established that of all the four areas of

language study, this poses the greatest degree of problem to Nigerian learners at the

secondary level.

In spite of the severity of problem, however, we know that it is not geneticallyor racially determined. One of our studies, (Ayodele, 1987) has demonstrated that

Nigerian learners who have a sound start in life and who have the advantage of very

good eduration, would perform as well as any British boy or girl of equivalent grade. In

that study, form one students in a university staff secondary school were involved in a

reading improvement project and their reading rates and comprehension performancewere recorded for the ten days of the project. Later, the same exercise was repeated in

a conventional secondary school in the Ibadan metropolis. While it was established that

theadvantaged pupils at the university secondary school performed better in each of the

ten exercises, it was found that the pupils from the conventional secondary school

achieved a higher rate of improvement within the ten days of the exercise. Moreover,it was found that many of the pupils in the university secondary school attained readingspeeds which were highly comparable to, and‘in some arses, a little higher than, the

levels established by the British students involved in an earlier exercise by the researcher

in Britain (Ayodele, 1984).


From all these, it would appear that we would still need to probe various other

variables in our bid to establish the sources of problems for our student in readinggenerally and in the certificate examinations in particular. We need to establish, for

instance, the degree to which the nature of the passage used contributes to the problemas well as the role of the teaching variable. The present study is addressed to the former,i.e. the degree to which the passages used in public examination constitute a problem.

The Present StudyThe assumption we have to make at the beginning is that the more readable

and easier a passage is, the more the students would understand it, and the higher their

levels of performance in it. The converse is equally assumed, that the less readable and

more difficult a passage is, the more likely it is that students would find it difficult. If

these assumptions are accepted, it is then pertinent to ask to what extent the perenniallypoor performances of students in summary and comprehension tasks are to be tracedto the readability levels of the passages used. If the passages are highly readable, couldit be that the passages are contextually and culturally inappropriate for the students?

Specifically, the following two research questions are raised for attention:

(a) Do the passages used by the public examining bodies for comprehension and

summary tests in Nigeria have the right readability indices for the level of

students for which they are set?

(a) Are the passages generally suitable for the students from the point of view of

the Nigerian cultural climate?

Method of StudyThere are, today, two examining bodies for examinations at the secondary level,

the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), and the National Teachers Institute

(NTI). The former takes care of examinations at the school certificate and GCE levels,while the latter is specifically for the Teachers’ Grade-Two examinations. For the

present study, passages were selected from the examination papers used by each of thetwo bodies. Because the WAEC is by far the older agency, and since it conducts two

examinations in a year, as against once by the NTI, more passage were selected fromthe WAEC than from the NTI. Pmages selected from the WAEC were those forNovember exams of 1968, 1971, 1987 and 1988 and for June of 1977, 1980, 1984, a totalof seven passages spread over two decades. For the Teachers’ Grade Two examinations,passages selected were for June 1983, 1985, and 1987, and for November 1988, the yearthe NTI switched over from June to November examinations.

The WAEC uses two short passages for comprehension exercises and one fairlylong passage for summary. The NTI uses one long passage for both comprehension and

summary task. For uniformity, and because the shorter passages are not long enoughto lend themselves to the Fry Readability computation, only the longer passages for

summary work (in WAEC), and for both exercises (in NTI) were used in the study. Itis our belief that the shorter and longer passages are of comparable linguistic standards.


The passages selected were then subjected to readability analysis. The FryReadability test was first applied. However, for more detailed scrutiny, the Modified FogReadability Formula was also applied to five of the passages already analysed. Becausethe two examining bodies are supposed to deal with learners are from the same

population, it would be interesting to find out if results differ considerably.Finally, five passages from each of the examining bodies were given a critical

appraisal by the researcher with a view to establishing the extent to which their culturalcontexts matched the students’ background experience.

Major FindingsIn Table 1, we present the mean number of sentences and syllables per 100

words in the papers used by the WAEC and also the approximate grades for whichthese mean sentence and syllable lengths would be most suitable according to the FryReadability graph. As the grades indicated on the Fry Graph are those used in theAmerican educational system, to arrive at the approximate ages of students for whomthe grades would apply, we normally add five to the grade; this is because a child goesto school after five years of age.

Table l: Readability Indices for Passages used by the WAEC.

Year Mean sentences Mean syllables Grade/ageof exam per 100 Words per 100 Words

Nov 1968 3 137 9th — 14yrs.Nov 1971 4 136 9th - 14yrs.Jun 1975 4 143

_

9th — Myra.Jun 1980 5 138 8th — 1'3yrs.Jun 1984 6 153 9th --14yrs.Nov 1987 6 149 9th — 14yrs.Nov 1988 6 125 6th — 11yrs.

It would be apparent from the table that most of the passages selected are

suitable for learners in the American 9th grade, i.e. those of about 14 years of age. Wewill now compare these with those for the teachers’ examinations.

Samuel 0. Ayodele269

Table 2: Readability Indices for Passages used by the N.T.I.

Year Mean sentences Mean syllablel Grade/age

of exam per 100 words per: 100 words

June 1983 5 144 9th - 14yrs

June 1985 5 142 9th - 14yrs

June 1987 5 137 8th - 13yre

Nov. 1988 5 139 8th — 13yrs

It is again clear from this table that the passages used are approximately suitable

for the 8th or the 9th grades, i.e. for students of about 13 or 14 years of age. Generally,

the passages are between 16 and 22 words per sentence, and most words are short and

monosyllabic. The passages could be said to be linguistically simple and, therefore,

expected to be readable.

The passages used are suitable for 13 or 14 years old. This would translate to

mean that they are suitable for our own Junior Secondary School classes 2 or 3. If this

is so, then the passages should be particularly suitable for our Senior Secondary School

students in the final classes as they are between 16 and 19 years. Indeed, this would

suggest that the passages are too simple for them. Could the Fry Readability Index be

faulty, then? We now try the Modified Fog Readability Index for five of the passages

already consulted. These are the latest papers from Tables 1 and 2.

Table 3: Fog Readability Indices for Five Passages.

Exam Sentence Percent Reading

length long words age

WAEC, June 84 15 6 13

WAEC, Nov. 87 18 13 17

WAEC, Nov. 88 17 8 15

NTI, June 85 17 6 14

NTI, Nov. 88 19 7 16

iThis time, there appears to be much more variability than we had from Tables

1 and 2. The Modified Fog Formula tells us that the ages of students for whom the

passages are suitable range between 13 to 17 years. The figures obtained are in most

cases higher than those indicated by the Fry’s Readability Formula, and these indeed

appear to be more accurate in indicating the level of students for whom the passages are

suitable. It is against the figures from tables one to three that we can determine how

linguistically difficult the passages, and hence the papers, are.


Since the candidates for the School Certificate or Teachers’ Grade Two exam are

usually about 16 to 19 years old, we can conclude that the passages should not be too

difficult, whether judged by the Fry Formula or the Modified Fog Formula.

Linguistimlly, therefore, the passages should be suitable.

Why then do most candidates fail? Could it be that the cultural context of the

passages are too strange to the students? To answer this question, we consider the

themes of the five passages already analysed in Table 3 and present the results in Table

4.

Table 4: Cultural Relevance of the Content of Five Passages.

Exam papers Themes Cement

WAEC June 84 The life and behaviour of the Culture

'

chimpanzee; that the primate is Free/

capable of modifying objects Relevant

around him for use as tools

WAEC June 87 vital steps towards weight Largely

control; seven pieces of advice culture

for weight reduction and weight free/

control are discussed. Relevant

WAEC Nov 83 Methods of effective study and culture

meaningful acquisition of free/

knowledge are discussed before, Relevantduring, and after lessons.

NTI June 87 The story of one Mrs Uwaifo who culture

had apparently lost a close free/

relative and whom some relatives Relevant

had come to brief about the loss.

NTI Nov 88 The goings-on during the national culture

football league season, and the free]

excitement generated. Relevant

This analysis would seem to indicate that our students should have no serious

difficulty in understanding the concepts discussed in the examinations papers. For the

November. 1987 WAEC paper, we judged ‘largely culturally relevant’ because there are

references to ‘pudding’ which many of the students might find a little strange. Apartfrom that, it is our judgement that the passages, in themselves, should not pose any

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significant difficulty to learners; at least not to the extent to which,as many as 55%-70% of them would fail, as happened in some of the years between 1981 and 1988.

Discussions and Conclusions

Our purpose in this paper is to find out the extent to which the passages used

by Nigerian public examination bodies might constitute a problem to the candidates inview of theperennial high rate of failure among the candidates. Using both the Fry’sReadability Formula and the Modified Fog Readability Indians, we found that

linguistically, the passages should be suitable for the candidates. Our analysis of thethemes discussed by the passages also reveals that learners ought not to find the

passages significantly difficult.

The question then remains: ‘Why do students stumble en mane at publicexaminations in questions based on reading of passages?’ At this stage, we can onlyconclude that the problems are not inherent in the passages as such. We, therefore, can

only offer tentative opinions which future researchers might like to probe further.First, as any seasoned examiner for the GCE papers would know, the fate of

candidates depends not only on the passages themselves but on the questions too. Ifquestions are ambiguous, obscure, or particularly involved, then candidates may farepoorly. Moreover, if the time available is not adequate, candidates would put up a poorperformance. Secondly, there is the variable of the scoring technique. If the markingscheme is too stringent, chances are that performances would be poor. Thirdly, there isthe factor of the preparation for the reading task by the candidates themselves. We needhere to consider the kind of teaching given our students for the tasks before them. Howintensive is the teaching over the years? How thorough is the teacher in getting learnersto consider the passage from various possible perspectives? To this researcher, thismight be the most pertinent variable, and it needs to be thoroughly investigated.‘

References

Ayodele, 5.0. (1978). A Study of Amects of Reading Characten’m‘cs of I’m-UniversityStudents. Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, University of Ibadan.

Ayodele, 8.0 (1984). Reading characteristics of learners from two widely differingbackgrounds. Journal ofReading, 18,(1).

Ayodele, 5.0. (1985). Performance levels and problem areas of Nigerian learners ofEnglish as a second language. Adeyemi College Journal ofEnglish Studies, 1(1).

Ayodele, 5.0. (1985). Comparative reading achievements by two sets of socio-

economieally, different learners exposed to similar reading improvement courses.

Journal ofResearch in Cum'culum, 4(2).

272 Literacy And Reading in Mgen'a

Ayodele, 5.0. & Adesemowo, P0. (1986). A study of learners’ comparativeperformances in letter and essay writing at the certificate level. In Ayodele, 5.0.et al (Eds), Empirical Studies of Curriculum Issues, CON Monograph No 4.

Abiri, 1.0. (1973). Reading ability as a predictor of performance in university degreeexaminations. African Journal ofEducational Research, 1(2).

Brimer, MA. (1959). Reading difficulty of Nigerian students, Ibadan. 6.

Chapman-Taylor, Y. (1985). Report on Pilot Study. Unpublished Report in the ReadingCentre, University of Ibadan.

Fasuhon, 1A. (1979). A Study of the Reading Efficiency of Form One Students in Some

Secondary Schools in Ogun State. Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, University ofIbadan.

Fry, E. (1965). Teaching Faster Reading A Manual. London: Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, TD. (1973). Reading: Teaching and Learning. London: Macmillan.

McKillop, A. & Yploye, EA. (1962). The reading of university students. TeachingEducation in Developing Countries, 3.

Perera, K. (1982). The assessment of linguistic dificulty in reading material. In Carter,R. (Ed), Linguistics and the Teacher. London: Routledge‘ & Kegan Paul.

. Unoh, 5.0. (1972). The Reading Difficulties of Student: in a Nigen‘izn University: TheirEnvironment Correlates and Psycholinguistics Implications. Unpublished PhD.

Thesis, University of Ibadan.

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