Enhancing Learners' Reading Comprehension Skills through Short Stories

This study examined the effect of using short stories on the reading comprehension performance of second-year Bachelor of Secondary Education English major students. Using an experimental design, 28 students were divided into control and experimental groups. A validated researcher-developed reading comprehension test was administered as pre-test and post-test. The experimental group was exposed to selected short stories, while the control group received conventional instruction. Data were analyzed using mean scores, independent samples t-test, and dependent samples t-test at a 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed no significant difference between groups in the pre-test, indicating baseline equivalence. However, a significant difference was found in the post-test, with the experimental group showing significantly higher performance. Furthermore, only the experimental group demonstrated significant improvement from pre-test to post-test. The findings suggest that short stories are an effective instructional tool for enhancing reading comprehension.