Readability index assessment of non-prescribed supplementary English language textbooks selected Ghanaian Private Senior High Schools

Abstract

Considering students’ reading level when choosing text is a crucial decision for teachers and authors to make if, their goal is to get their readers to read with ease and comprehend the text that match their readability levels. The ability to match texts to the readability levels of readers requires knowledge of the readability levels of reading materials. Readability of English Language textbooks has thus attracted the attention of researchers and textbook evaluators. In Ghana, a number of studies have been conducted on readability of prescribed textbooks however, those studies did not focus on supplementary English Language readers in private SHSs. This study thus assessed the readability levels of non-prescribed supplementary English Language textbooks used by some private Senior High Schools (SHSs) in Ghana and how they affect the learning outcomes of their students. To achieve this, the study adopted the mixed method approach specifically, the concurrent nested design. The sources of data used were responses from interviews conducted for with twelve participants from five private SHSs, three Monitoring and Supervision officers from GES-Adentan and a Curriculum Officer for Languages. The study subjected ninety-one comprehension passages from four commonly used supplementary English Language textbooks to seven readability formulas to determine their readability levels and age appropriateness for SHS students. The results were further subjected to descriptive statistical analysis using SPSS version 21 and compared to comprehension tests scores obtained from a test administered to a sampled size of 492 SHS 1-3 students from five selected private SHSs. It was found that most of the comprehension passages were either too high or too low for the readability levels of the SHS students. In addition, the criteria used by National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) and private SHSs to prescribe and select the textbooks are not scientific. It was also found that readability could not predict the overall performance of SHS students based on the comprehension tests. Based on these findings it is recommended that NaCCA should collaborate with the District Education Offices to enforce the use of prescribed textbooks in all pre-tertiary institutions especially private schools.