Componential Analysis Approach To Identifying Sources Of Reading Comprehension Difficulties Among High School Students

Reading ability is an essential part of students' component abilities and also an important part of teaching. Students with reading comprehension difficulties are not capable to accomplish reading goals which they are supposed to. There are many sources of reading comprehension difficulties. Factors of physiology, psychology,intelligence, cognition and teaching all can bring a consequence. Proper intervention can be effective ways to prevent reading comprehension difficulties. This study explores sources of reading comprehension difficulties among high school students in China. The participants are 50 high school students from one intact class. 42 participants are regarded as students with mild difficulties, the most capable and the least capable excluded. Method of self-report was administered to the participants to collect data for stage 1 analysis. Mixed-methods analysis was applied to detect students' perceptions of sources of reading comprehension difficulties and nine themes (making inferences, word decoding, text structure integrating,sentence parsing, self-regulating, inhibition problems, detecting error, integrating information,and working memory) emerged. The prevalence rate of each theme was calculated based on students' responses. The implications of these results were explored.Metacomprehension strategy index, general vocabulary comprehension, word reading efficiency,oral reading fluency,decomposition and derivation were tested to collect data for stage 2 analysis. Struggling readers' componential skills were tested and five skill profiles (automatic word callers, word stumblers, slow and steady comprehenders, slow word callers, and disabled readers) were found among the participants. It indicates that there are distinct skill profiles among the participants and this has important implications for instructions. The implications and reasons of these results were explored.