CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the study

Reading is the basic skill that is closely related to other skills such as writing,
speaking and listening. Students are required to read lots and understand the
reading material in order to achieve better result in learning process. According to
Grabe and Stoller (2002), reading can be taught as a way to draw information from
text and to form an interpretation of that information. It means reading is also a
gateway for students to get information and knowledge in educational process.
A student who loves reading and spends a lot of time in reading activity also
has ability to write well. By reading, students can improve their vocabulary and
writing skill. On the contrary, a student who has low reading ability will find
difficulty in learning process. Moreover, the students will feel ashamed in adapting
themselves with their school environment. Conversely, a good teacher must be
more skilled in mastering grammar and vocabulary understanding. The importance
of teaching reading is to build the ability to read various texts in English, ability to
adjust reading styles according to the purpose of reading (i,e skimming, scanning),
and ability to have critical perspective on the content of the texts ( Hedge, 2003, as
cited in Alyousef, 2005).
Reading well means to understand what writer tres to presents in his/her
writing. This means that a reader needs background knowledge and competence
while reading
Reading comprehension is considered as one of the prominent English skills for
learners. In this skill, students are required to catch some implied and stated
information from the text by interpreting or analyzing the sentence to really get the
answers for the questions.
Students have various problems in doing reading comprehension test related to
their level of mastery. Students with rich knowledge of vocabulary will find that
reading comprehension is easy. So will those with good knowledge on grammar.
Each student may face different difficulty from others causing different needs on
teaching methods and learning activities.
This study aims to determine the difficulties faced by students in doing
reading comprehension and academic performance to decide which methods and
learning activities are applicable in the classroom to enhance their skills.

1.2Statement of the Problem

1. What is the demographic profile of the students in terms of :

a. Sex
b. Reading material
b.1 books
b.2 magazine
b.3 dictionary
b.4 others (specify)
 c. gadgets used
d. parents’ highest educational attainment

2. What is the extent of reading comprehension difficulties among students?

3. What is the level of the academic performance among students?
4. Is there significant relationship between the extent of reading comprehension
difficulties and academic performance among students?
5. Is there significant difference on the extent of reading comprehension
difficulties among students is when grouped according to……
1.3.1 General Objectives
This study…….
1.3.2 Specific Objectives
1. To identify the demographic profile of the students in terms of :
a. Sex
b. Reading material
b.1 books
b.2 magazine
b.3 dictionary
b.4 others (specify)
c. gadgets used
d. parents’ highest educational attainment

2. To determine the extent of reading comprehension difficulties among students.

3. To assess the level of the academic performance among students
4. To ascertain the significant relationship between the extent of reading
comprehension difficulties and academic performance among students.
5. To ascertain the significant difference on the extent of reading comprehension
difficulties among students is when grouped according to……

1.4Conceptual Framework

In the study of Ab Rashid Radzuwan, Mohammed Qrqez “The Source of Reading

Comprehension Difficulties among Saudi EFL Learners” (2019) there are several
difficulties in reading such as lacking of vocabulary and useful reading strategies,
because of this difficulties they have some problem when it comes to
comprehending an English text. The study discusses the sources of EFL reading
comprehension difficulties that re faced by the students at a university in Saudi
Arabia. Their study revealed that the students mainly felt that their reading
difficulties relates to some factors such as lack of support from their parents,
teachers and society, they have some problems in their reading textbooks which
makes them uninterested, they also have some problem in their classroom
environment. Their finding suggested that most of the students in the university
have little interest in reading English.

Capin et al, (2022) in their study “Understanding the nature and severity of
reading difficulties among students with language and reading comprehension
difficulties” revealed that there are distinct word reading and listening
comprehension profiles emerged within the samples and the extent to which there
group varied in performance on cognitive and demographic variables. Their
findings shows that almost all of the students (51%) with language and reading
comprehension difficulties demonstrated significant risk in word reading, even
though there are some screening procedures did not examine word reading
directly. There are three latent profiles emerged when students are classified into
subgroups based on their performance in listening comprehension (LC) and word
reading (WR): (1) severe difficulties in LC and moderate difficulties in WR (39%).
Even though. The students are identified for participation in terms of basing the
poor oral language and reading comprehension abilities, all of the profiles
demonstrate some degree of word reading difficulties. Findings revealed that there
are some differences when it comes to age and performance on measures of
working memory, nonverbal reasoning and reading comprehension performance
between profiles.

General Academic words are those which are typically learned when exposed to
school texts and occur across disciplines. It examined that that the Academic
Vocabulary Assessment Data from a group of English- Speaking middle students
they have tested on how the word frequency, complexity, proximity, polysemy, and
diversity that relate to the students’ knowledge of target words across ability levels.
The result contend that there is a strong relation between vocabulary and reading
at the individual level. The researcher found out that strong readers were more
likely to understand the meanings of words than struggling readers were, anyhow
of the features of the academic word tested. Words with more meanings are said to
believe that are easier for all students, on average. The relation between word
frequency and item difficulty was stronger among less proficient readers. Joshua F.
Lawrence[….](2021)

Wanjiku Karanja(2010) shows in his study the Effects of Reading Difficulties on

Academic Performance that the relationship between the student’s reading
comprehension and academic performance. It is known that there are specific poor
academic performance to lack of mastery of a particular subject skills. It is possible
that due to this poor performance and poor mastery of a particular subject, it is said to be due to
oor reading comprehension ability. There are local studies that call out the importance reading
academics but it also kept students's ability to decode. The study shows that the relationship
between scores that are obtained in the reading comprehension test and pupil's academic
performance in some areas. It shows a positive correlation between reading comprehension and
performance in all subjects.

In the study of Nathan H. Clemens et al.(2017) “The prevalence of reading fluency and vocabulary
difficulties among adolescents struggling with reading comprehension” sought to understand more
the prevalence of concurrent and difficulties in terms of reading fluency and vocabulary among
adolescents with low reading comprehension. The researcher used Latent class analysis to identify
the sample of 180 students in sixth through eight grades who experienced reading comprehensions
difficulties. They identified a subgroups of students with the same patterns of strengths and
weakness in reading and vocabulary fluency. The results shows that there are more than 96% of the
students who experience difficulties in fluency and vocabulary. Those students who have low
reading comprehension but they have adequate scores in reading fluency in the small portion of the
sample. Another findings from the students is that large numbers of adolescents who experience
reading comprehension difficulties are more likely to it need of intervention in terms of foundational
skill and area of knowledge which are not viewed as relevant among Secondary educators.