Abstract:
The study was conducted to investigate practices and challenges that hinder students’ learning English reading comprehension at Reji Secondary School. The attempt was to find out practices and challenges that hinder students’ learning English reading comprehension. The subjects of the study were grade ten students and grade ten English Language Teachers. From the total number of 360 students, 30 of them were selected randomly by using lottery sampling and filled the questionnaires. 4 students were taken purposively based on their achievement and interviewed as well as 4 English Language Teachers were taken by using availability sampling. Totally, 38 participants were participated in the study.To collect the essential information from the subjects; various data collection instruments were used. These are: questionnaires, class room observations, and interviews. The collected data was analyzed quantitatively (frequency and percentage) and qualitatively. As a result, the findings of the study revealed that students have a great number of challenges in reading lessons such as in English, one letter can be pronounced differently in different words. This difference confuses students when they read text. Students give low attention to the reading lessons, and they do not practice reading lessons again and again. There is also fear of others when students read text as well as teachers do not properly apply the crucial points to be implemented during teaching pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading, and follow up reading activities. These were found to be the major practices and challenges of students in reading comprehension. Finally, on the bases of findings, the recommendations were drawn: To minimize the practices and the challenges that hinder students’ English reading comprehension, the researcher recommends that teachers should consider the essential points to be considered in pre-reading, in while-reading, in post-reading, and in follow up reading activities which were advisable to be practiced.Teachers should motivate students in reading passage silently and independently. Lastly, continuous research should be conducted by the concerned body.
