Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ practices and challenges to teaching
reading. The study was conducted in a sample of 4 teachers were selected purposefully and
64 students randomly selected in grade 9 students of Teppi secondary and preparatory
school. In order to achieve these objective three sub-questions were designed. The first
question focused how to EFL teachers practice teaching reading? The second question focus
on challenges of teaching reading, and the last question focus on what strategies teachers’
used to support students of having reading problem. In order to understand the phenomenon
in depth, qualitative approach was used with case study design. To collect the required data
for the study, classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires were used as an
instrument the gathered data indicated that most teachers used different reading strategies to
practice teaching reading in the classroom. These includes, integrated reading strategies,
read about, depending on the purpose of reading using scanning, skimming and intensive
reading and giving reading comprehension activities were used. Even though there were
good practices in teaching reading in the research school, there were challenges of teaching
reading according this finding. These includes students’ over enrollment students’ back
ground problem with regard to reading, un appropriate use of students centered method of
teaching, lack of motivation lack of text books are major among the conditions. These make
difficult for teachers to teach reading properly. This can be done through minimizing the
enrollment rate of students in the class, using both teachers centered and students’ centered
method appropriately, practicing students to read aloud, identifying and supporting students
of having reading problems using phonics at tutorials program, motivate students to read,
increase cooperative work of parents with school administrators and teachers to improve
their learners’ educational performance in general and a reading particular. In additional
giving trading for teachers especially on how and how often to use students’ centered method
and how to implement teaching of phonics for students who lag behind in reading is the main
concern of MOE as recommended in this study.
