Reading, Get Set, Go: A Digital Game-Based Intervention of Marungko Approach for Kindergarten Alphabet and Phonemic Awareness

Abstract

The Philippines continues to experience challenges in enhancing the foundational skills of kindergarten including literacy. These challenges create opportunities for new, interactive, and contextualized curricular materials, which urgently align with the education needs. This study developed, implemented and evaluated the “READING, Get Set, Go” a digital game-based intervention, to improve kindergarten pupils’ literacy. It integrates digital skills in revised K-12 curriculum competencies which makes every lesson contextualized and age-appropriate aligned with specific learning objectives. To test the effectiveness of the READING, Get Set, Go, the research tools used were of a quantitative, descriptive-developmental design, which involved the target participants, including kindergarten teachers, master teachers, twenty-five (25) kindergarten pupils, professors, and statisticians from Bulacan State University. The study was conducted in one of the public elementary schools in Pulilan, Bulacan from a sample of a kindergarten section through a purposive-convenience sampling. The data based on the findings show a significant increase of the improvement of the pupils before and after the implementation of READING, Get Set, Go, which focuses on their initial sound discrimination, familiar word reading, and listening comprehension through digital game-based learning. These findings were significant as the foundational skills of kindergarten were integrated with digital skills that enhanced their challenges in literacy and promoted interactive and relevant experiences. On contrary, for future research it is recommended to conduct the study with a control group to avoid bias and limitation of the generalizability. On the other hand, the study serves as a foundation for further research and technological advancement for teaching and learning.