Abstract:

Most of the South African learners are caught-up in the eye of a poor reading storm. The results from Progress in International Reading Literacy Studies (PIRLS) confirm that South African learners lack the ability to read with understanding. To put it differently, it is a challenge for South African learners to extract meaning from text when they read, yet reading to learn is a requisite in their later years of schooling. To shed light on learners’ possible reading challenges, this study focuses on the Grade 8 learners’ reading comprehension self-reflective views and their actual reading comprehension abilities in the English Second Language (ESL) classroom.

This study used a quantitative research approach informed by a non-experimental descriptive design. The purposively selected research sample consisted of 165 Grade 8 ESL learners from two high schools in a South African Township. A survey questionnaire and a reading comprehension activity measurement and evaluation instrument were used to collect data. Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), data was analysed to understand and describe learners’ reading comprehension self-reflective views, in conjunction with their actual reading comprehension abilities.

The results recorded by the survey questionnaire showed that although leaners’ reading comprehension self-reflections indicated that they could extract meaning from text when they read, the reading comprehension activity measurement and evaluation instrument revealed that the learners could not effectively read with understanding in the ESL classroom. Thus, learners’ self-reflections about their own reading comprehension ability was not automatically an accurate indication of their actual reading comprehension ability. Finally, the findings suggest that the learners had a misconstrued view of their own reading comprehension ability, which could be attributed to the ineffective reading comprehension instruction at school level.

Keywords:

Reading, Reading comprehension, Reading comprehension self-reflective views, Reading comprehension ability, English Second Language learners.