A Study of the Comparison of Learning Development in Reading Skills of Students from Grade 2 to 4 of Bilingual Education (Thai - Patani Malay) in the Four Southern Bordered Provinces of Thailand

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study the factors of the learning development in reading skills of Bilingual Education (Thai and Malay dialects) of the students in grade 2 to 4 in the four southern bordered provinces; Pattani, Yala, Narathiwas, and Satun, to compare the reading achievement of the students in grade 2 to 4 in reading skills between the eight experimental and comparison schools, and to demonstrate the learning development of the students in grade 2 to 4 of the experimental schools. The research project was conducted by Yala Rajabhat University in 2013 as the fourth consecutive year research project. In the 4 provinces, 159 respondents who used Malay as their mother tongue completed the tests. The data were analyzed by using software packages. In reading skills, most students of the experimental schools outscored the comparison schools. Their learning achievement of the experimental schools was lower than the past years significantly, but the comparison school students met the cutoff scores more than that of the comparison schools.