An analysis of students’ reading difficulties; a study at the first grade of SMKN 1 Simpang Pematang

Abstract

This research aims to find out the students’ difficulties faced in comprehending English reading text and to know the factors of contributing to the students’ difficulties in comprehending English reading text. Furthermore, in this research used a descriptive qualitative study. In collecting the data, the researcher used reading test and interview. The data were analyzed based on five classifications to find out students' difficulties in reading comprehending and four factors of contributing to the students’ difficulties. The result of this study showed that there were difficulties were faced by students in their reading, namely determining main idea 63 mistakes (16.4%), understanding vocabulary 89 mistakes (23.1%), making inference 88 mistakes (22.9%), locating reference 86 mistakes (22.3 %), and detail information 59 mistakes (15.3%). In addition, based on students' interview result, the factors of contributing to the students’ difficulties in comprehending English reading text were students’ background, vocabulary problem, sentence problem, and rhetorical structure. In this case, by knowing the students’ difficulties in comprehending English reading text, the English teacher should learn better and be more creative in applying the techniques of teaching reading skill. It is used to solve the students’ difficulties in comprehending the reading text. Keywords: Comprehending, reading text, reading difficulties.