The study is an evaluation of two common methods employed in the teaching of reading in the second language (English) at the early grade vis-a-vis the simple view of reading. The work examines the appropriateness of the common teaching strategies employed by early grade teachers in teaching reading in the second language (English) in public schools in Ghana. Data for this work was gathered through interview, observation, instruction and assessment of 30 lower primary school pupils of three public schools in the Central Region of Ghana, as well as one hundred teachers selected from ten regions of Ghana. The thirty (30) pupils were put in three (3) groups of ten (10) and instructed using the look and say method, word association, and the simple view of reading for groups A, B and C respectively. The effectiveness of the various methods was assessed using the trends in the scores from the test. The study showed that while pupils who were instructed using the look and say method and the word association could not actually read, pupils instructed using the simple view of reading were able to read.
Keywords: Evaluation, Second Language, early grade, reading Ghanaian, teaching methodology
