Impact of reading comprehension difficulties on the academic performance of students of Tano Odumasi district assembly junior high school

Abstract

Reading comprehension difficulties has been one of the main challenges of students that affect the performance of students for which this challenge has been established as the main problem of students in Tano D.A.JHS. This study therefore sought to investigate the impact that reading comprehension difficulties have on the academic performance of the students of Tano–Odumasi D/A J.H.S and to determine appropriate reading comprehension strategies that would improve the academic performance of students with such difficulties. The study therefore adopted a quasiexperimental and descriptive research design with the study area being Junior High School pupils of Sekyere South District in the Ashanti Region. A sample size of 30 students took part in the study consisting of 18 males and 12 females selected through purposive sampling technique. The cloze test procedure was also adopted. Findings indicated that word omission was the most common comprehension difficulty encountered by students followed by word mispronunciation, word substitution and word addition. It was established that these reading comprehension difficulties affected the academic performance of students through the various tests in the close procedure test carried which was confirmed by the end of term examination results of the students. As part of the strategies to improve on the performance of these students, it was established that the reader must adopt planning and identifying strategies, monitoring strategies, and evaluating strategies so as to improve the academic performance of these students.