Chapter 1

Rationale

Reading is important because it develops the mind .The mind is a muscle. It

needs exercise .Understanding the written word is one way the mind grows in its ability.

Teaching young children to read helps them develop their language skills. It also helps

them learn to listen. Everybody wants to talk , but few can really listen .Lack of listening

skills can result in major misunderstanding which can lead to job loss, a marriage break

up, and other disaster –small and great. Reading enjoyment is of course one of the holy

grails of reading programs that purport to resolve reading problems. It is a challenging

goal for high school programs as it often requires turning around an aversion to reading

that has developed over several years.

The present problems of the students there is reliable evidence that reading text

difficulty occurs frequently in children who are actually good decoders and spellers. It’s

important to understand that for a child adequalety comprehend on authors written

message it requires them to be able to analyse and short through multiple layers of text.

The problem in our country with regards to poor reading comprehension is the lack of

resources available for the students to practice their reading skills. Reading

comprehension skills is crucial. It increases the enjoyment and effectiveness of reading

and helps not only academically, but professionally, and in a person's personal life.
 Background of the study

Reading comprehension skill is a fundamental skill to obtain further academic

learning success. To get further knowledge, college students are required to have

critical and analytical competence in comprehending academic texts, in searching more

academic information through various types of reading materials such as textbooks,

journals, reports, or electronic messages; however, not all students are good at

comprehending the text being read. Most of them understand the informational of the

text; in other words, they are good in decoding the text but struggling to comprehend

what the underlying meaning and purpose beyond the text are. In this condition Perfetti

(1985) asserts that the reason why some students struggle is due to the lack of reading

comprehension strategies used as parts of background knowledge.

A number of studies (Brown & El-Dinary, 1996; Fisher, Frey, & Williams, 2002;

Wold, 1996) have maintained that reading strategy instruction contributes positive

effects on students’ reading comprehension skill. Readers with reading comprehension

strategy awareness organize, monitor, and evaluate their own comprehension by

constantly questioning and reacting to the texts they read to construct meaning before,

during and after reading process. Some researchers (Dole, Duffy, Pearson, & Roehler,

1991) state that having students generate their own questions accelerates text

comprehension while (Pinnel, 2000) asserts that questioning information in the reading

text is one of reading strategies in which the readers can monitor their thinking process

during interaction with the text to enhance comprehension. According to Massey, the

readers are aware of their text comprehension content because they are mentally active

while going through the process of questioning the text (Massey, 2003). Questioning the
text during reading assists independent students to think critically about the purpose of

reading, to conduct prediction, selection, connection, evaluation, review, and to acquire

future benefits from the text being read (Pressley & Afflerbach,1995)
 Statement of the Problem

This study determined the factor affecting poor reading comprehension of junior

high students in Tabunok National High School S.Y. 2019-2020.

Specifically, this study will lead to answer of the following questions:

1. Do you have difficulty in understanding reading text ?

Yes No

2. Are there available reading , materials in the following areas :

2.1 home ;

2.2 school ;

2.3 electronic devices ;

3. How often do you read every day?

3.1 less than an hour;

3.2 1 to 3 hours;

3.3 more than 4 hours;

4. What materials do you usually use for reading ?

4.1 books;

4.2 magazine;

5. Where do usually read?

5.1 school;

5.2 library;

5.3 home;

5.4 others;
 Significance of the study

The result of this study in determining the factor affecting poor reading

comprehension in junior high students of TNHS in beneficial to the following.

Students to be aware on are the factor affecting causing poor

understanding in reading text a shall they strategies to improve it.

Administrator will help their students to improve poor reading

comprehension by designing school or activities which involve reading so that there will

be inquired to students.

Teachers can be englishtern in identifying the reasons why students have

poor reading comprehension. They may provide enriching activity that allows

students to strength their ability in understanding reading text.

Parents are able to teach their students reading correctly because they

are the on how can guide their students. They may provide also reading

materials at home and will have a strong superism upon their reading activities.

Community must help the schools, and also to the administrator of

schools to aware the students that they must be know how to read.
 Scope and Delimitation

The scope of this study are the Junior High students and the study limited to

grades 7 students in Tabunok National High School.