Enhanced Project Peer-Assisted Intervention for Reading (PAIR) and Reading Comprehension Skills of Grade 4 Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of enhanced project peer assisted intervention for reading (PAIR) on learners' reading comprehension skills specifically in literal, inferential and critical comprehension areas for grade four learners from Beti Elementary School during the academic years of 2025–2026. A pre-experimental one group pretest – post test was used as the research design to evaluate learners' performance. Learners who are classified as non-grade level ready based on their Phil – IRI results were selected as the participants. Purposive sampling was used to select Seventeen non-grade level ready learners. The pretest and post test results were analyzed by computing the mean, standard deviation, and paired sample t-test. The result showed that learners have poor overall comprehension with a mean score of 13.71 before the intervention. There was an improvement after the intervention with a mean of 18.00 which can be described as satisfactory. Statistically, there were significant improvements in both literal (t = -6.96, p = .000) and critical comprehension (t = -3.03, p = .008), however, no statistical difference was observed in inferential comprehension (t = -1.38, p = .188). Therefore, the findings of this study indicate that Enhanced Project PAIR is effective in enhancing learners’ literal and critical reading skills through structured peer assisted activities and immediate feedback. In addition to longer periods of interventions, developing learners’ ability to make inference require explicit instructional support to develop learners’ higher order thinking skills to include questioning. This study also demonstrates how important it is to integrate peer-assisted strategy along with target activity that supports learners to reason while addressing unevenness of skill development in reading comprehension.