PHONEME- GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE IN READING SKILLS OF GRADE SEVEN STUDENTS: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS

The purpose of the study was to determine the reading skills of students using phoneme-grapheme correspondence reading. This study will benefit grade seven students since they are the center of the learning process. Extensive and careful descriptions of the time, place, context, and culture of the study was thoroughly discussed to develop transferability, which is the qualitative parallel to external validity in postpositivist research (Mertens, 2005). All of the participants are teachers in selected public schools in Davao City. These participants are currently teaching in the school year 2022-2023 with more than five years of experience in teaching English. A total of 10 participants are considered in this study who will join the in-depth interview and focused group discussion. Seven of them will join the in-depth interview (IDI) while the remaining three will be subjected to the focus group discussion (FGD). The theory of Perfetti (1992) revealed that verbal efficacy must be developed with the aid of teachers efficacy and determination in teaching. This theory will support to the overall confession of the participants when they revealed that students will recognize words as a single piece of language rather than using decoding skills. Supporters of whole language do not believe that words should be broken down into singular sounds as they do not assist in the context or meaning of the word at the phonics level.