ASSESSING THE LEVEL OF THE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ABILITIES AND ITS DIFFICULTIES

Dita Aulia Rahmah; Junaidi Mistar

doi:10.24127/pj.v12i1.4895

ASSESSING THE LEVEL OF THE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ABILITIES AND ITS DIFFICULTIES

Dita Aulia Rahmah^(1*), Junaidi Mistar⁽²⁾,

(1) University of Islam Malang
(2) University of Islam Malang
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the level of the student’s reading comprehension and the difficulties that the students faced in reading. The writer was conducting this study at Senior High School 2 Pasuruan, especially the 11^th grades students of Language Programs. To bridge the gap, this study focused on the level of the students’ reading ability and the difficulties that the students faced in reading. The writer used survey research designs in conducting this study. The participants of this study were 30 students. In collecting the data, the writer distributed closed-ended questionnaires which consist of 29 questions with 4-point scale (always, sometimes, rarely, and never). The result was showed that the 47% of students faced many problems or difficulties in understanding the reading text. While the 37% of students sometimes found difficulties in reading an English passage and 16% of the students who choose “rarely” which indicate that the level of the difficulty that they faced is not really challenging for them. In conclusion, it was found that there are some factors that could influence the students’ reading performance such as lack of vocabulary, has limited reading skills, working memory, inference production, comprehension monitoring, and do not have prior knowledge.

Keywords

assessing reading comprehension, the level of reading comprehension, reading ability, reading difficulties

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24127/pj.v12i1.4895