An Assessment Of Students‟ Attitudes, Practice And Challenges Of Using Reading Strategies In English Language Texts: Grade 11 Students Of Green Lake Secondary School Infocus

Abstract

The prime objective of the study was to explore, students’ attitudes, practices and challenges of using reading strategies in the case of Green Lake secondary school grade 11 students. The researcher employed a descriptive research design to conduct the study. The subjects of the study were English teachers and grade 11 students in the stated secondary school. In order to select the teachers, a purposive sampling technique was used while simple random sampling was used to select students. Two data collection tools were used to conduct the study. These were interview and questionnaire. Questionnaire was used to collect data from students while interview was used for interviewing English teachers. Quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and qualitative data was analyzed by using words. The finding of the study identified that students developed moderate attitude towards reading skills which affected their use of various reading strategies (aver. Mean= 3.4). The study also identified that learners highly use problem solving strategies (aver. Mean=3.5), synthesizing strategies (aver. Mean score=3.52) while questioning strategies (aver. Mean score=3.4), summarizing strategy (aver. Mean score=3.4) and paraphrasing strategy (aver. Mean score=3.4) were moderately implemented in the study area. The result of descriptive statistics and interview result also confirmed that there were learner -related challenges (aver. Mean=3.8), reading comprehension- related challenges (aver. Mean score=3.56), teacher- related challenges (aver. Mean score=3.74) and language- related challenges (aver. Mean=3.84). Based on the major finding of the study and the problems addressed the researcher recommended that teachers need to modify their teaching methods and use learner- centered method while presenting reading lessons, and students should develop better attitude towards reading lessons because it plays key roles for their academic success.