WORLD EDUCATION CONNECT MULTIDISCIPLINARY E-PUBLICATION
Vol. V Issue VIII (August 2025)
International Circulation
This is an open-access, peer-reviewed, and refereed international publication in online & printed versions that features research papers, abstracts, theses, dissertations, and journals. It is registered to the ISSN National Center of the Philippines, and ISSN International Center, the Global Index for Continuing Resources with ISSN (Online) 2799-0842 and ISSN (Print) 2799-130X.
World Education Connect Multidisciplinary e-Publication, Vol. V, Issue VIII (August 2025), pp.62-87
Lourven F. Bragado
Teacher I- Balbaloto Elementary School, SDO Tarlac Province
1. INTRODUCTION
Reading literacy skills for kindergarten students remain a concern in early childhood education. The majority of children beginning school are already literate to some degree, yet scores indicate most are below what is acceptable for their age. There is empirical evidence that most kindergarten students struggle with critical reading skills, including letter identification, phonemic awareness, and basic word recognition, which are fundamental to literacy development (Berry et al., 2022). In addition, studies also demonstrate that literacy difficulties at an early stage have been correlated with socioeconomic disadvantages; hence, pupils from low-income backgrounds face more challenges in acquiring these skills (Casey, 2024).
These gaps in phonetic awareness are often linked to limited exposure to language-rich environments, books, and storytelling before formal schooling, factors that have been shown to impact early reading skills significantly. Consequently, educators are tasked with addressing these diverse literacy needs, which underscores the importance of targeted instructional approaches that can enhance phonetic proficiency in early childhood. According to Piasta et al. (2020), without early intervention, these literacy gaps can widen as children progress through school, affecting their academic success and overall learning potential in later grades.
The Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) is a visual literacy approach that uses images to stimulate vocabulary development, word recognition, and reading comprehension in young learners. Developed by Emily Calhoun, PWIM is grounded in the idea that children learn words more effectively when they can connect them to familiar visual representations. The model encourages pupils to observe and identify objects or actions in a picture, label them with words, and use these words to build sentences, thereby enhancing their language and literacy skills.
The Picture Word Inductive Model was an innovative method for teaching literacy skills in early childhood education, as it motivated students to interact with images and the corresponding word vocabulary in a manner that utilized their curiosity and observational skills. Research into the last few years confirms that PWIM serves to develop children's connections between visual cues and words, which supports their further foundational literacy skills, such as vocabulary acquisition, phonemic awareness, and reading comprehension. The value of this model lies in its ability to differentiate instruction, as it supports both beginners and those in the process of learning English by enabling them to connect the visual context with language (Huynh, 2019; Tan & Huynh, 2022).
In the Philippines, the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) aligns well with the Department of Education’s (DepEd) initiatives that emphasize interactive, student-centered, and inclusive teaching approaches to address reading challenges. As part of its MATATAG Agenda and Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP), DepEd promotes early literacy interventions designed to ensure that all learners achieve basic reading proficiency by the end of Grade 3. The K to 12 curriculum, particularly under the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs), emphasizes the importance of developing foundational literacy skills, such as phonemic awareness, vocabulary building, and comprehension, at the earliest stages of schooling.
PWIM’s visual, participatory approach directly supports these national goals by engaging learners in meaningful literacy activities that stimulate curiosity, critical thinking, and language development. It also helps cater to the diverse needs of Filipino learners, including those from indigenous groups, multilingual backgrounds, or marginalized communities, where home literacy environments may be limited. Furthermore, PWIM complements DepEd’s push for differentiated instruction, which encourages teachers to use varied strategies to meet students’ unique learning needs and improve classroom outcomes.
In addition, PWIM’s emphasis on collaboration and interaction resonates with DepEd’s Brigada Pagbasa program. This nationwide reading advocacy campaign involves schools, parents, and community stakeholders in promoting a culture of reading. By integrating PWIM into classroom practice, teachers are better equipped to help learners develop early reading proficiency, ultimately supporting national efforts to improve literacy rates and educational outcomes.
At Balbaloto Elementary School, kindergarten pupils face challenges in achieving reading proficiency levels that align with early literacy standards. Many young learners struggle with phonetic awareness due to limited exposure to literacy activities at home. This gap in foundational skills often results from socioeconomic factors, with some families lacking access to books, storytelling, or other early literacy supports. Consequently, teachers at Balbaloto Elementary are tasked with addressing a diverse range of literacy needs in the classroom, emphasizing the need for targeted, engaging strategies to help these pupils develop essential phonetic awareness at a critical stage of learning.
The researcher was inspired to undertake this study due to the pressing need to improve pupils' reading proficiency skills and effectiveness in reading English. This improvement was essential for increasing the literacy rates among Filipino learners. This research aimed to determine the effectiveness of the PWIM approach in enhancing reading proficiency among kindergarten pupils. The gathered data was used to draw conclusions and develop an action plan to address identified needs.
Related literature suggests that reading achievement in early childhood is a crucial foundation for future academic success, and early reading skills, including phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension, form the core of literacy development. Research has shown that early interventions that build these reading skills serve as effective starting points for children as they progress to more advanced literacy in later grades (Zuri, 2024). The Department of Education (DepEd) emphasizes the importance of early literacy in its K to 12 Basic Education Curriculum, which focuses on creating literacy-rich environments to enhance reading outcomes for young learners. Current trends in early childhood literacy prioritize interactive, student-centered learning approaches that engage children through visual and auditory stimuli, aligning with findings that young learners benefit from dynamic teaching strategies to strengthen their literacy skills (Piasta et al., 2020).
The Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) is a highly effective teaching strategy, particularly for early childhood learners, as it promotes active engagement in the learning process through visual and verbal connections. This approach is designed to enhance vocabulary acquisition, phonemic awareness, and reading comprehension by integrating visual stimuli with language development. By starting with a picture, PWIM leverages children's natural ability to recognize and interpret images, linking these visual cues with the written words that label them. This visual-word association helps students build a foundation of vocabulary, which is critical in the early stages of literacy.
In PWIM, students are encouraged to observe and identify various elements within the picture, such as objects, actions, or settings, and then label these elements with words. The teacher facilitates the process by writing these words on the board, helping children connect the spoken and written form of the word. Afterward, the students use the words to construct sentences, reinforcing their understanding of word meaning and sentence structure. This active participation and word manipulation allow learners to internalize the vocabulary and apply it to different contexts.
Moreover, recent research supports the Picture Word Inductive Model as a method of language acquisition and literacy enhancement for young learners, particularly in early childhood education settings. The model's strength lies in using images to support vocabulary development by bringing contextual meaning into the learning of new words, thus making them more meaningful and engaging for children. For instance, a 2023 study exemplifies the impact of PWIM by covering multiple languages, suggesting that visual supports within PWIM can reduce language differences for all learners, whether they are English language learners or dual-language students (Language Magazine, 2023).
Resources on the education of young children emphasize that PWIM can be a valuable addition to bilingual education, as it provides an inclusive learning environment that honors and includes children's home languages while building literacy skills (Alanís et al., 2021). Such adaptability becomes especially crucial in diverse classrooms where language differences may otherwise hinder learning processes (Migration Policy Institute, 2021).
Recent research confirms that the Picture Word Inductive Model is effective in enhancing early literacy skills, particularly in developing vocabulary and improving reading comprehension. Subsequent studies confirm the above effects, indicating that PWIM enhances active involvement and vocabulary development for both mono- and multilingual early years contexts (Alanis et al., 2021). Additionally, PWIM is more effective for various student groups, as it encourages a visual and inductive approach to language, which can help fill gaps for English learners (Language Magazine, 2023).
Sabrina et al. (2021) and Phungphet (2023) emphasized the importance of developing critical literacy skills in students through the use of PWIM. Liu (2019) reveals that in addition to stimulating phonemic awareness and decoding, PWIM also increases students' motivation, as pupils find the associations between images and words enjoyable and memorable. This model is therefore appropriate for diverse learners, even in multilingual settings, since recent findings reveal its ability to bridge language gaps and support vocabulary acquisition for ELLs. The K to 12 curriculum also brings DepEd into focus, emphasizing the purpose that PWIM aims for, which is a student-centered, multimodal teaching and learning approach that actively engages young learners in literacy (DepEd, 2021).
The Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) has been widely accepted as a strong instructional strategy for improving reading proficiency among young children, particularly in kindergarten classes. PWIM effectively utilizes pictures in instruction to help children identify words, utilize context clues to enhance vocabulary, and recognize sentence and paragraph structure, thereby establishing a strong connection between visual stimuli and language learning.
The Queensland Department of Education (2023) offers an overall literature review, emphasizing the use of visual supports in early reading instruction. It elaborates that visual display strategies, such as those incorporated in PWIM, may help enhance students' learning of content-area subjects by supporting retention and comprehension of new information. Further supporting this, a systematic review by Schroeder et al. (2020) examined the effect of visual displays on learning across various disciplines. According to the findings, tasks that incorporate visual elements, such as those used in PWIM, support K-12 students in processing and retaining information more effectively, which is a prerequisite for developing reading abilities.
Aside from visual support, the SVR model suggests that understanding involves both decoding and linguistic comprehension. Villalobos et al. (2022) explored reading comprehension precursors and established that word recognition and language comprehension were crucial components. PWIM relates pictures to words, supporting both decoding and comprehension, which aligns with the SVR framework in promoting a comprehensive approach to reading development.
Use of PWIM in Vocabulary Development: The Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) has been increasingly recognized as an effective tool for vocabulary development in early childhood education. A study by Yaseen (2021) highlighted how PWIM, by leveraging images to trigger word identification, enables students to make strong associations between visual cues and vocabulary. This approach allows young learners to develop language comprehension in a context that feels natural and engaging. Through this method, learners not only enhance their vocabulary but also grasp the meaning and usage of words, which are fundamental to reading comprehension. Visual prompts encourage a more profound understanding, particularly for English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, as they build their linguistic foundations more effectively than traditional methods.
There is an added importance of PWIM in helping students improve their reading comprehension ability because it also provides them with visual and contextual clues. In 2017, a report by the Queensland Department of Education supported the model's importance by integrating visual displays to support language comprehension. By integrating pictures and written words, PWIM supports young readers in decoding and interpreting the meaning of words in context, thereby making it easier for them to form mental images and construct narratives. The outcome is that students can better interpret texts and retain their meaning.
Lubis et al. (2024) conducted a study on the effect of PWIM on the improvement of writing skills among seventh-grade students. The results indicated that students who used PWIM to develop descriptive writing were stronger in organizational skills and better at expressing their ideas clearly. By linking words with images, they learned to construct sentences and paragraphs that not only contained grammatically correct language but also conveyed contextual and in-depth features. This is, therefore, the kind of improvement to be received if PWIM works as a very potent tool by creating a scaffold before actually writing those things.
The use of PWIM also requires a higher level of engagement and motivation among students. As Bermillo and Remollo pointed out in 2022, students who used PWIM had better attitudes towards learning. Being visual, it can capture the attention of the students and maintain their interest in the lesson, which can be very beneficial for young learners in kindergarten. PWIM creates an engaging learning platform that encourages students to explore words and meanings individually; this is why this paper refers to it as an intrinsic motivator, as it enhances vocabulary, which in turn has a profoundly positive impact on learning.
Furthermore, PWIM influences the cognitive skills of a child as they learn and try to be vividly creative in solving problems and thinking analytically. As cited by Jiang (2014), research indicates that students are better equipped to process and organize information through this model. While connecting pictures to words, students use inductive reasoning that moves from small details seen to larger generalizations. This cognitive activity encourages deeper learning, which is, of course, essential for language development. The study concludes that PWIM is helpful not only in vocabulary acquisition but also in developing cognitive strategies that will be useful in various other aspects of education.
Chen (2016) investigated how PWIM can be used as a teaching method for Chinese children in kindergarten classes who are learning English as a second language. The case study was conducted in Beijing, involving 25 learners. The outcome measures demonstrated that PWIM positively influenced vocabulary usage and sentence completion, providing evidence of this method's effectiveness in second language learning.
An experimental study was conducted by Jones (2017) in Canada to understand the impact of picture-based instruction, particularly PWIM, on the development of literacy skills of kindergarten-going children. There were two groups: one was following the PWIM, and the other followed the traditional phonics method. It was found that the results were better retention of words and fluency in reading among the children who followed PWIM; thus, visual word associations enhance early skills.
Brown (2020) investigated the impact of visual prompts, such as PWIM, on the literacy acquisition of 60 children in a specific preschool in Australia. Using a mixed-method approach, where observations and interviews with the teachers accompanied the standardized reading test, the research found that pupils who learned through PWIM developed better word recognition and comprehension. Therefore, the research highlighted that PWIM is an effective means of engaging young learners in developing their reading skills.
In an experimental study conducted in Mexico by Hernandez (2021), English was used to facilitate the second-language acquisition of Spanish-speaking kindergarten pupils. A comparison was made between scores on the pretest and the posttest among pupils who received a lesson with and without the use of PWIM. Findings showed that the PWIM students performed better in pronunciation, spelling, and reading, thus marking its efficiency regarding second language acquisition.
Smith, in 2023, investigated whether PWIM has an impact on reading readiness among 75 American kindergarten students. This study employed a quasi-experimental design, comprising two groups: a control group and an experimental group. The results found that students who learned through the PWIM model were more highly developed in phonemic awareness and letter naming, and had better reading confidence, than those who received a traditional reading instructional approach.
Gonzales focused on the question of how PWIM helped develop phonemic awareness in 30 kindergarten pupils at Batangas (2018). The experimental setting was utilized so that one had been taught using a traditional phonics method, whereas the other learned through PWIM. The outcomes showed that higher scores in phonemic segmentation and blending result from children who have received instruction through the use of PWIM, thereby establishing the effectiveness of PWIM regarding early literacy issues.
Santiago (2019) investigated the impact of visual literacy techniques, such as PWIM, on the early reading skills of 45 preschoolers in Quezon City. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, combining teachers' observations and reading assessments. The outcome was that pictures and words improved word recognition and decoding skills, thus making reading instruction more interesting and effective for young learners.
In 2020, Dela Cruz conducted a study to establish how the Picture Word Inductive Model enhances vocabulary development among 50 kindergarten pupils in Manila. The quasi-experimental design utilized a pre-test and post-test vocabulary recognition assessment of the learners. The findings revealed an improvement in vocabulary acquisition, which would ultimately enhance reading proficiency. It recommended PWIM as an effective early literacy strategy in Philippine classrooms.
Torres (2021) conducted a study on the effect of picture-based teaching approaches such as PWIM on kindergarten learners' literacy development in Cebu. The study employed an action research approach, in which PWIM was introduced into the classroom operations. The study showed improvements in phonemic awareness, word recognition, and sentence formation. The teaching staff also reported an improvement in learner engagement during reading lessons.
Rivera (2022) evaluated the effects of PWIM on the reading comprehension of 40 kindergarten children in Nueva Ecija. A pre-test and post-test design was employed to measure the learners' comprehension skills before and after the implementation of PWIM. The results showed that the method enhanced vocabulary recognition and comprehension skills, as children could relate images to meaningful words.
Bermillo and Remollo (2022) employed the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) to assess students' vocabulary achievement and learner attitude, providing a guide for using the PWIM in kindergarten. The first step of the intervention began with the display of pictures of each of the difficult words on an LED TV. It was followed by the “shaking out,” or letting the students find out five English words that described the objects in the picture, which were written in their picture-word chart. The participants were also reminded to draw a line connecting their answer to the object(s) in the picture. After five minutes, the representatives of each group were instructed to stand and present their answers for checking, which the teacher facilitated. Each group was also instructed to read and spell their correct answers, followed by the whole class. This process initially created a picture-word chart. The second step was to guess what each picture might represent. The teacher then revealed the answers, read each word aloud, and spelled them one by one. The students were also allowed to read and spell them one by one repeatedly.
Lastly, they were instructed to construct the meaning of a word by considering the words related to the picture and the words represented by the picture. The teacher also assisted the students in reviewing the words they had learned and administered a formative assessment. Moreover, they were also given worksheets, which were compiled as their Picture-Word Dictionary. The same procedure was followed in every vocabulary session for the eight-week duration. After the interventions, a posttest on vocabulary achievement and attitude was administered to the two groups to determine if there were improvements and significant differences in their vocabulary and attitude towards learning the vocabulary. Lastly, a retention test was administered to the two groups two weeks after the posttest to determine how far they could recall the concepts learned and whether there was a significant difference in their scores.
Phonemic awareness in the early years plays a crucial role in shaping a child's overall academic success. Still, many kindergarten pupils have limited experience in reading because most children do not receive proper and language-rich experiences to aid their learning. Also, many are exposed to weak instructional methods in their early stages. This study aims to address these issues by investigating whether the PWIM approach, which integrates visual stimuli and word recognition, can improve students' phonetic awareness. This study focuses on the use of images in vocabulary development and comprehension, aiming to provide an innovative approach that can be applied in other early childhood classrooms facing similar issues.
One of the major concerns in most elementary schools, such as Balbaloto Elementary School, is the low phonemic awareness of kindergarten pupils. Although much has been done to enhance literacy, most pupils struggle to identify words, relate them to their meanings, and use them to comprehend the content of texts. Traditional teaching methods are helpful but often fail to fully stimulate young learners or provide the necessary support for vocabulary building and reading fluency.
This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of this model, identify specific areas for improvement in phonemic awareness, and propose an actionable plan for enhancing reading instruction at Balbaloto Elementary School. Through this research, the school aims to develop a more dynamic and effective literacy program to support students on their educational journey.
