Abstract:
The ability to extract meaning from text is an important skill. Yet many students struggle with effectively comprehending what they read. The learners‘ reading comprehension skill problems have been encountered by the researcher throughout his teaching career. The researcher was worried by students' problem of extracting meaning from that they read. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of this study was to assess factors that affect students‘ reading comprehension skill. The researcher adopted both the qualitative and the quantitative approaches for the collection of data for this descriptive study included interviews and questionnaires. From the total of 563 students, the study was conducted on a sample of 50 students which were randomly selected from grade nine students of Seladingay secondary preparatory school in North Shewa zone. The responses were analyzed through descriptive analysis using frequency and percentage. The finding of the study revealed that lack of vocabulary knowledge, lack of prior knowledge, students inability to use reading comprehension strategies and lack of interest are factors that affect students' reading comprehension skill. The researcher recommends that cultivating vocabulary by rote memorization and repetition, using strategies related to ascertaining the meaning of unknown words such as guessing words in context, word structure analysis, structural analysis etc. Activating prior knowledge by doing activities such as prereading discussions on the topic which aim at making develop background knowledge on the topic of the text and reading extensively is essential for students. Besides, great attention is essential in material selection especially for younger readers for better understanding the text meaning and in improving way readers interact with what they are reading. As a result, the current problem could be improved.
