Developing a learning management with local wisdom integration to improve reading and writing skills

Language leaning involves many complex processes. To motivate learners to learn, teachers need to implement different methods and strategies. This present study attempted to develop a learning management that involves the integration of the local wisdoms to improve the reading and writing skills for upper-primary school students in Thailand. The purposes of this research were to create effective reading and writing lesson plans with the integration of local wisdoms for upper-primary school students in Thailand, to investigate the effectiveness of the designed lesson plans in improving the students’ reading and writing skills, and to examine the attitude of the students towards the designed teaching and learning activities in the lesson plans. The sample group consisted of 44 upper-primary school students, randomly selected from Wangbuasamakkhiwittaya School in the first semester of the 2016 academic year. The instruments used in the research were 4 reading and writing lesson plans designed by integrating the Thai wisdom knowledge into the lessons and a learning achievement test with 30 multiple choice questions and 2 written questions having the item discrimination ranging from 0.23 to 0.74, the item difficulty ranging from 0.21-0.85 and the reliability of 0.81. Descriptive statistics including percentage, mean, and standard deviation were used for data analysis. The results revealed that the E1/E2 of designed lessons plans were 85.13/81.36, which was higher than the 80/80 criteria. After the intervention, the students had shown significant learning improvement with the E.I. of 0.6901 and their posttest scores were significantly higher than pretest scores at the significance level of .05. In terms of their attitude towards the designed lessons, the students showed the positive attitude at the high level. It can be concluded that the designed lessons were effective in improving the students reading and writing skill abilities and the students were satisfied with the designed lessons. The findings are useful for teachers who may adopt this model of teaching for their reading and writing class.


Introduction
One qualification of upper-primary students after graduation is that they must be able to read aloud both proses and verses, write passages with appropriate words and expressions, know how to use concept maps and mind mappings to enhance their writing ability (i.e.composition writing, summarizing, writing on imagination), have good writing manners, understand and realize the importance of literature and literary works, able to retell local tales and sing local songs, and have the ability to apply knowledge or concepts from the text they read in their real lives (Ministry of Education, 2009).Local-related content is regarded as anything that learners can find around them, and it is something that needs to be learned so that individuals will realize how important local wisdoms/knowledge are.Integrative learning is the process of making connections among multiple contents into one unit.Integrative learning combines related skills and processes to create knowledge and ability so that learners can make use of such knowledge in their real life.So, it is hoped that the arrangement of local-related activities for a Thai language class on the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" through the integration of reading and writing would provide some practical guidelines on how to integrate local knowledge to enhance students' reading and writing skills.


To develop lesson plans for a Thai language class under the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" based on the integration of reading and writing skills, that comply with the 80/80 criteria


To find out the effectiveness index for the learning achievement of the upper-primary students on the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" designed on the basis of reading and writing integration


To compare reading and writing abilities of the upper-primary students before and after learning


To find out the satisfaction of the upper-primary students toward the arrangement of the learning activities on the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" that were designed on the basis of reading and writing integration

Research Hypothesis
The upper-primary students enrolled in a Thai course where the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" that was designed on the basis of reading and writing integration is taught have better reading and writing abilities than before learning.

Population and sample
The population comprised 303 upper-primary students from 33 different classes at 11 different schools of Muangtha School Group under jurisdiction of The Office of Mahasarakham Primary Educational Service Area 1, who were enrolled in a Thai language course during the first semester of the academic year 2016.The samples, selected through cluster random sampling, included 44 upper-primary students at Wangbuasamakkhiwittaya School under jurisdiction of The Office of Mahasarakham Primary Educational Service Area 1.


Four Thai lesson plans, covering 12 hours, under the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" that were designed for upper-primary students on the basis of reading and writing integration


An achievement test comprising 30 items with four choices to select and two items of a written test


A satisfaction form comprising 20 items based on a 5-point scale


A pretest to determine the ability to read and write in Thai under the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham"


Teaching in accordance with the lesson plans designed, scoring behavioral learning, record of reading and writing scores, and checking all worksheets


A posttest to assess reading and writing abilities of the sample group  Data collection and data analysis

Data analysis
The dependent sample t-test was used to compare student learning before and after the intervention.

Results
An analysis of the effectiveness index for the Thai lesson plans under the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" designed for the upper-primary students on the basis of reading and writing integration based on the 80/80 (E1/E2) criteria in terms of mean, percentage and standard deviation can be shown in Table 1 below.1, the mean score, based on the evaluation of behavioral learning, completion of assignments and the evaluation of reading and writing skills, was 153.25 out of 180 which equals 85.13%.The mean posttest score was 22.88 out of 30 which equals 81.36%.This indicated that the Thai lesson plans on the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" that were designed on the basis of the integration of reading and writing skills obtained Effectiveness of Process (E1) and Effectiveness of Outcome (E2) of 85.13/81.36;this figure met with the specified 80/80 criteria.
An analysis of the effectiveness index for learning achievement of the upper-primary students on the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" through the integration of reading and writing can be demonstrated in Table 2.As can be seen in Table 2, the effectiveness index for learning achievement of the upper-primary students on the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" through the integration of reading and writing was 0.6901.This indicated that the designed lesson plans helped in improving student learning by 69.01 percent.
An analysis of the comparison of reading and writing abilities of the upper-primary students before and after learning is presented in Table 3.According to Table 3, the upper-primary students who had learned through the lesson plans under the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" based on the integration of reading and writing skills obtained the posttest scores which were higher than the pretest scores statistically significant at the .05level.
To analyze the satisfaction of the upper-primary students toward the arrangement of the activities in the Thai language class on the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" through the integration of reading and writing, a 5-point scale form covering 20 items was used.It was found that overall satisfaction of the upper-primary students who learned through the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" based on the integration of reading and wr

Discussion
The Thai lesson plans under the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" based on the integration of reading and writing for the upper-primary students had an effectiveness of 85.13/81.36.This indicated that the designed lesson plan met the specified 80/80 criteria.The activities included in the lesson plans were arranged in accordance with the learning objectives mentioned in The Basic Education Core Curriculum and the local curriculum that emphasizes autonomous learning.Besides, the activities were arranged systematically based on the information gained from a survey on the learning problems encountered by upper-primary students and study of curriculum and related documents.The learning content was integrated with the local context to make it more appealing to the students, and at the same time the students had the chance to practice and improve their reading and writing skills.This finding was consistent with the idea of Dechakhub and Yindeesook (2008 ).They stated that 'integration" can be referred to as bringing small related units into one complete unit.Pangput (2007) viewed local-based content as detailed information combined with the knowledge about different aspects of local communities as of required by a specific educational institute.Such information and knowledge will be embedded as part of the learning activities in which students will have a chance to get to learn about their own community.
The effectiveness index for learning achievement on the topic "A Tour in Mahasarakham" by integrating reading and writing with local-related content was 0.6901 or 69.01%.Integrative learning is a kind of learning activities that covers all aspects of learning.As a result, the students had better knowledge and understanding about the content being taught when compared with before receiving treatment.Thus, it could be said that their earning was successful as their reading and writing abilities improved a great deal, and so did their knowledge and understanding about their community.This finding was consistent with the study by Ruerang (2012).Ruerang (2012) developed lesson plans with the efficiency of 95.80 / 88.96, and the effectiveness index of the lesson plans was 0.8037.The students' posttest scores were higher than the pretest scores by 80.37%.The results of this study was also consistent with the findings from the work by Hongbinma (2012) whose lesson plans for the Thai subject on the topic "Creative Writing by Prathosuksa 2 Students" obtained the effectiveness index of 0.7578.This indicated that the students who had learned through such lesson plans obtained the posttest scores which were higher than the pretest scores by 75.78%.
The posttest scores of the upper-primary students were higher than the pretest scores at the significance level of .05due to the fact that the designed lesson plans involved processes that were suitable to student's age and level of proficiency.Reading and writing skills were integrated with students' prior knowledge of their community.The students showed interest and eager to learn and, thus, their posttest scores were higher than the pretest scores.The findings of the present study were also consistent with the findings from the study by Ruerang (2012) titled "The Effects of the Arrangement of Learning Activities for the Thai Subject on Reading and Writing Omission and Replacement of Vowels for Prathomsuksa 1 Students Through the Use of Mind Mapping".Reurang found that Mathayomsuksa 1 students' posttest scores on analytical thinking were higher than the pretest scores at the significance level of .01.The findings of Reurang's study were consistent with the work by Hongbinma (2012).Hongbinma (2012) studied the effects of the arrangement of Thai learning activities on the topic of creative writing by Mathayomsuksa 2 students and discovered that the students' posttest score on analytical thinking were higher than the pretest scores at the significance level of .05.
The upper-primary students who had learn through the lesson plans for the Thai subject on the topic A Tour In Mahasarakham based on the integration of reading and writing showed satisfaction at the -based content and reading and writing skills created students' sense of happiness and engagement in learning.So, they were satisfied with the arrangement of the learning activities.Similar results were reported by Srimongkol (2011).Srimongkol (2011) developed the local-based curriculum belonging to the Thai Division at Nonghaiwittaya on the topic "Phaya" for Mathayomsuksa 2 students, and the students' overall satisfaction toward the curriculum was at the high level.

Suggestions for implementation
Teachers should carefully study and have a clear understanding about each step of the activities included in the lesson plans before implementing them in their classroom.Besides, they should provide suggestions to the students and monitor or look after them closely while they are doing each activity.

Suggestions for future research
Teachers shall use or implement the lesson plans on the topic "A Tour In Mahasarakham" designed on the basis of the integration of reading and writing with other groups of students, with different