Abstract
Reading comprehension is one of the basic skills of the English language that enables ESL students to comprehend textual material appropriately. This study aims to assess reading comprehension abilities of primary school students studying at private schools. A reading comprehension test, based on Barrett’s and Day and Park’s taxonomies of reading comprehension, was developed by focusing on literal, reorganization and inferential reading comprehension skills. ESL students of grade 5 were targeted in the study. A sample comprising of 375 students was selected from 25 primary schools from District Vehari, Pakistan. Fifteen students were randomly selected from each school. Mean scores, standard deviation and percentage were calculated in order to analyze the data. T-value was calculated to make comparison between the performance of male and female students in reading comprehension skills. The results indicate that the respondents showed better performance in literal and reorganization comprehension as compared to inferential comprehension. The calculated t-value (0.04162) reflects that there was a significant difference between the performance of male and female students. Some implications were made to enhance ESL students’ reading comprehension abilities.
Keyword(s)
ESL students, comprehension, literal, reorganization, inferential, assessment