Currently in Korea, the within-school achievement gap among elementary students is getting wider because of various causes(such as COVID-19 situation, private education experience, parental educational care and so on). This situation makes it difficult for low-level students to learn English. So, this study is to focus on the students called English underachievers and to find teaching and learning method to improve their early literacy. Since self-regulated learning(SRL) has already been validated in several studies, this study examines the effects of SRL program on underachieving elementary students'' early literacy development focusing on word recognition, word memorization and reading fluency.
First of all, a research class applied with SRL program was designed and 7 storybooks were selected as teaching materials. A multiple baseline across subjects of a Single Subject Research was employed in this study, and the criteria to evaluate the research participants'' early literacy development and change of learning attitudes were determined. The research purpose of the study is that "How does the classes with SRL program using storybooks affect the students'' basic literacy skills such as 1. vocabulary learning ability, 2. reading sentences, 3. fluency development, 4. learning attitude?".
Two 5th grade and one 6th grade elementary school students were participated in this study, and it was conducted at the Educational Counseling Center after school. The duration of the entire study was eight weeks and the study classes were conducted three times a week. Each session was about 60minutes on average. During the intervention period, three students studied seven storybooks and learned English vocabulary and read texts, and also word tests(korean/English) and passage reading test were administered to them for data collection. The researcher of this study observed the three students'' task performance and affective changes during the intervention. The results indicated as follows.
First, the classes applied with SRL program using storybooks had a positive effect on three English underachievers'' vocabulary learning ability among the basic literacy skills. Vocabulary tests were taken each session, and the scores were recorded for verifying development in students'' vocabulary learning ability. At the beginning, all of the students had difficulty to memorize words because of their low literacy level. Although the scores were up and down, they gradually increased for all three students in the end.
Second, the SRL application classes using storybooks had a positive effect on three students'' reading ability among the basic literacy skills. The students could not read words well and could not understand the meaning of sentences. At first, They couldn''t read words well and couldn''t understand the meaning of sentences. However, while performing SRL application repeatedly, word learning had got better and sentence reading had improved during the intervention period.
Third, word reading accuracy of reading fluency was increased, and sentence reading speed(Words Correct Per Minute: WCPM) was also improved for all three students. The result of the word decoding accuracy was positively influenced by increasing word recognition through the vocabulary tests and repetition of SRL program. In addition, it can be interpreted that the speed of reading sentences was improved through the repetition of SRL program, and this gave the reading speed a positive effect.
Lastly, the classes applied with SRL program used storybooks had a positive effect on the learning attitudes of three English underachievers. Before starting the research classes, the students showed low motivation, helplessness and fear for tests. However, as the classes were repeated, not only their learning ability improved, but also the negative learning attitudes of them decreased. This showed that the students felt a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence in English learning because of improvement of learning ability, this led positive attitudes toward students'' learning and recognition.
The results of this study indicated that English classes with SRL program have a positive effect on the basic literacy of English underachievers in elementary levels. In Korea, there is a considerable burden on English learning because of the EFL environment. In addition, because it is difficult to operate public school system normally due to COVID-19, low-level learners can experience English learning deficit and are likely to be English underachievers. Therefore, students need to develop their SRL ability because the SRL ability is the power that learners themselves can control and carry out their own learning tasks.
This study has a limitation that it is difficult to generalize the results because of the number of participants. Nevertheless, SRL in English learning had positive effects on English underachievers, thus continuous research on SRL programs which is suitable for English educational situations of Korea is necessary and the study to find specific methods to apply to public education in elementary schools has to be continued.