Addressing the Difficulties of Learners in the Reading Class

Abstract

This study evaluates reading comprehension instruction at senior high schools in Accra. Classroom observation was used to identify the techniques used by teachers in the reading class and questionnaire was used to collect information from learners about the difficulties they have in understanding text. It reports that the difficulties of learners include their inability to understand unfamiliar words, recognize main ideas and grasp the relationship among sentences and ideas ( how one sentence relates to another sentence) for a better understanding of what they read. It also reveals that teachers do not teach learners comprehension strategies. Therefore, it suggests that teachers teach learners how to identify main ideas, guess the meaning of unfamiliar words using context clues and use transitions to help them understand the relationships among ideas in a text.