SKKN Using Reading Progress Tool in Tracking Tenth Graders’ Reading Fluency and Progress at Upper Secondary School

PART I. INTRODUCTION

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.1. Rationale

English has been the common language of the world for decades. It plays an

important role in all aspects of society such as communication, science,

technology, education, etc. Especially, English becomes an official and effective

international communicative language. Therefore, learning and mastering English

would greatly give advantages to the person concerned. As a result, more and more

people are studying English in order not to be left behind in the development of

society.

In education, English subject now is of great importance. It is compulsory not only

in teaching and learning but also in many examinations. However, it is not easy to

master a foreign language. Becoming proficient in English is not an exception.

Learning English means that students have to learn many sub-skills such as

speaking, listening, reading and writing. Like other skills, reading is a very

important skill. Reading not only helps students widen their knowledge, but also

enables them to develop other language skills.

Like other English skills, reading skill, especially reading fluency, is paid much

attention to when being taught at school. However, there is not enough time for

teachers to let all students read out loud during class and give feedback to their

reading speed, fluency and pronunciation accuracy. It raises a question for the

teachers: “How to track and support students’ reading fluency and progress at

home?”. Using Reading Progress Tool- aꢀfreeꢀtoolꢀbuilt into Assignments in

Microsoft Teams- is a great way for this problem. It not only motivates students

into reading, helps students build pronunciation accuracy, fluency and confidence

through personalized reading experiences, but helps teachers to evaluate students’

progress, and therefore, to encourage them in time as well.

In addition, according to the new general education program 2018 issued by the

Ministry of Education and Training, one of the common competencies required to

be formed and developed for student is autonomy and self-study ability. This tool

will provide students with a method to practice and consolidate these abilities at

home, which has opened up a more flexible learning space and more comfortable

study time. Therefore, students can absorb knowledge more easily, skip the

distance limit, save time, improve efficiency. Furthermore, the application of this

tool has perfectly exemplified the digital transformation in education, which helps

create a safe learning environment where everything connects, as a result,

contributes to bridge geographies, create learning experiences and increase

students’ interactions. This is also the duty of teachers in the era of digital

transformation, which has been set out by the Ministry of Education and Training

recently.

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Last but not least, the authors have applied this Reading Progress Tool as Reading

assignments at home for the students in different classes of grade 10 at Quynh Luu

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Upper Secondary School. The effectiveness of this method encourages the

authors to share this teaching experience with other colleagues, hoping to receive

many comments from them.

For the reasons mentioned above, the authors decide to choose the topic: “Using

Reading Progress Tool in Tracking Tenth Graders’ Reading Fluency and

Progress at Quynh Luu 1 Upper Secondary School” for their teaching

experience.

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.2. The New Factors of the Study

The study suggests a refreshing combination of technology and a free way for

teachers to apply in helping high school students improve not only their reading

skill but also their speaking skill and vocabulary. Besides, this tool automatically

marks students’ performance, which helps teachers save time while tracking

students’ attendance as well as their improvements.

The study is expected to research the effectiveness of this tool in helping students

improve their reading skill (especially reading fluency). Theoretically, this study

will be helpful and have a contribution for further researches in the field of reading

fluency teaching. Practically, this study will give general description about

students’ reading ability at high school level and their improvement after practicing

reading through the tool. The result of this study can be used as a consideration to

improve language teaching to students, especially for teaching reading.

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.3. Scope of the Study

This study focuses on applying Reading Progress Tool to improve reading skill. Due

to the lack of time, in this study, we will just focus on the effectiveness on the 10th

graders (based on the text provided in the textbook English 10 Global Success) in

the school year 2022- 2023.

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.4. Organization of the Study

The study is well organized with 3 main parts: the rationale of the study, the

content and the conclusion. Hopefully, the study provides a useful access to most of

the teachers in teaching language.

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.5. The Feasibility and Science Validity of the Study

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In terms of economy, this is a completely free tool, so both teachers and students

do not need to make an economic investment to be able to use it.

In terms of technique, the application is easy to use, because it has been

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integrated into Ms Teams, which students have used before, or students only need

to register for an account to be able to use it.

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In terms of universality, just know how to hold the mouse, anyone can access it,

so it can be used for all levels, all ages