The effect of phonics instruction on reading skills among primary school students in a rural district in Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

Phonics instruction is widely recognised as essential for early literacy development, yet its effectiveness for upper primary remedial learners in rural districts of Sarawak, Malaysia, remains under-researched. This study examined the effectiveness of structured phonics instruction in improving reading skills among upper primary school students in this context. Sixty Year 4 and Year 5 pupils with low English proficiency (Pre-A1 and Low A1) were selected using purposive sampling. A quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test control-group design was employed. The treatment group received five weeks of phonics instruction based on the Remedial Instruction Toolkit, while the control group followed the standard English curriculum. Reading performance was assessed using the measures Recognising Sound Patterns, Recognising Individual Letter Sounds, and Reading Comprehension. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests, namely the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test and Mann-Whitney U Test. Results indicated significant within-group improvements across all three reading components in the treatment group, with the strongest gains observed in individual letter-sound recognition. Between-group comparison revealed a statistically significant difference only for Recognising Individual Letter Sounds. The findings suggest that structured phonics instruction is particularly effective in strengthening foundational decoding skills among struggling readers in rural and semi-rural English-as-a-foreign-language contexts.