A comparative study of reading comprehension skills between the governmental and non-governmental preparatory school students of jimma: grade 12 in focus

Abstract

So as to find out whether there is difference in reading comprehension skill between the governmental and non-governmental grade 12 preparatory school students of Jimma town, necessary and relevant data were collected by using reading comprehension test, questionnaire for students and for teachers. The data so collected were analyzed quantitatively using statistical techniques of percentage and mean. According to the findings of the study the students of Jueps (Jimma university community preparatory school) have obtained a better result in the reading comprehension test than the students of JPS. The fact that the reading comprehension strategies, which the students of Jueps used, such as: being able to guess the meaning of new words in context and from word formation rather than turning to dictionaries now and then and skipping new words, being able to predict the main idea of the whole text from titles and keywords, grasping the gist of the material by quickly reading the first and the last paragraph, background experience and motivation that they got from parents and from their elementary and secondary school teachers, full support and belief of their current teachers to let them use different strategies in their reading comprehension activities every time, were the main factors or reasons that contributed to the difference. Finally recommendations believed to help develop the reading comprehension skill of the students of JPS (who obtained less result in the test) were made. These include: 1. EFLteachers should be made to change their belief about reading comprehension strategies and help their students to use them in any reading comprehension tasks. 2. In order to overcome the problem of shortage of time, EFLteachers should provide ample reading comprehension activities which worth some points to their students to be done as homework so that the students will practice and improve their reading comprehension skill. 3. Parents also should play their role in helping and motivating their children to develop the interest of reading and comprehending a written material. 4. EFLteachers and the English departments of both schools should arrange a program to discuss and share knowledge and experience related to reading comprehension skill between them. 5. Further research should be done to find out more insight into the issue of the difference in the reading comprehension skill between the students of different schools and institutions.