An Analysis of Students’ Difficulties in Reading Comprehension at the Eleventh of Senior High School 2 Kendari in the Academic Year 2023/2024

Abstrak

This study aims to analyze students' difficulties in reading comprehension and the factors contributing to these difficulties in Class XI IPS 4 at Senior High School 2 Kendari during the 2023/2024 academic year. A mixed-methods approach was employed, involving 39 students as participants. Data were collected through a multiple-choice test consisting of 40 items, covering key aspects of reading comprehension: determining the main idea, understanding vocabulary, making inferences, and finding detailed information. Interviews were also conducted to identify the factors contributing to students' difficulties.The findings revealed that the most dominant difficulties faced by students were making inferences (23%) and finding detailed information (22%). Other challenges included determining the main idea (30%) and understanding vocabulary (25%). Interviews uncovered six main factors contributing to these challenges: low interest in reading, limited vocabulary, lengthy and complex sentences, ineffective reading strategies, grammatical confusion, and poor paragraph structure knowledge. This study concludes that students' low interest in reading and limited vocabulary mastery are the primary barriers to reading comprehension. Therefore, teachers need to develop more engaging and effective teaching strategies, such as using texts aligned with students' interests, enhancing vocabulary instruction, and introducing advanced reading strategies like skimming, scanning, and inference-making. The findings of this research are expected to serve as a valuable reference for educators to improve students' reading skills and for future researchers interested in exploring similar issues.

Kata kunci

• reading difficulties
• readning comprehension
• students reading difficulties