Empowering literacy and analytical thinking skills of basic education students in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces: a case study of Chiang Rai Rajabhat University (CRRU) / Sornchai Mungthaisong

This project mainly aims to empower literacy and analytical thinking skills of basic education students in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces that underpins the 20-year Rajabhat University Strategy (2017-2036) for local development on education. The project was implemented by lecturers and students from Thai Language and Culture Program, Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Rai Rajabhat University (CRRU), Thailand. The implementation was delivered by an integration of project activities into Creative Writing for Children’s Book Preparation and Fiction Writing. These courses are offered in the B.A. Thai Major at Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Rai Rajabhat University (CRRU). The objectives of this project were: 1. To survey literacy and critical thinking skills of basic education students in schools under the Office of Primary Education Service Area in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces; 2. To develop instructional materials empowering literacy and analytical thinking skills of basic education students in schools under the Office of Primary Education Service Area in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces. The results revealed that: 1. The literacy and critical thinking skills survey among basic education students in schools under the Office of Primary Education Service Area in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces indicated that Grade 1-3 students showed literacy difficulties classified by each grade level as follows: Grade 1, students showed reading difficulties that were 1) unable to read consonants, vowels and words with tonal and no tonal form 2) unable to convert tonal form 3) unable to read words with corresponding final consonants, words with non- corresponding final consonants, words with diphthongs and words with omitted-replaced vowels and 4) unable to read for main ideas of fables, short stories, signs, or symbols in daily life. Besides, students also showed writing difficulties that were: 1) writing Thai consonants and vowels; 2) writing basic words in the lesson; 3) writing rhymes; 4) writing omitted-replaced vowels; and 5) writing sentences. Grade 2 and 3, students showed similar reading difficulties i.e. reading, spelling or reading words with omitted-replaced vowels, deformed words, prefixes, diphthongs, compound words with consonants due to phonetic constraints influenced by their mother-tongue dialect including difficulties with reading for comprehension skills, summarizing and answering questions. In regard to writing, students showed difficulties with hand-writing, dictation writing showing deformed orthography, writing without connection with the story, writing without punctuation and writing incorrect compound words. 2. The project team developed 3 sets of instructional materials empowering literacy and critical thinking skills of basic education students in schools under the Office of Primary Education Service Area in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces. The developed instructional materials comprised 3 sets for Grade 1 to 3 students and each set contained 2 books, that is, student book and teacher manual. The implementation results indicated that the literacy and critical thinking skills of students were better improved after using the developed instructional materials.