Abstract:
The aim of this study is to assess Grade 10 Students experiences of learning reading skills
challenges and opportunities in Goro Secondary School in Adama Town. To attain this
objective, descriptive survey study research design in which mixed methods- quantitative and
qualitative were employed to collect and analyze the data, to interpret the findings and draw
inferences. The data were collected from 90 grade 10 Students who were chosen randomly form
the total population of 900 students. Secondly, five grade 10 English teachers who taught EFL
in this grade level were included by using random sampling and three administration bodies were
taken by purposive sampling techniques for the sake of additional data to the study. The
researcher used questionnaires as the major data collection form student‟s, interview from
teacher‟s, from administration bodies and from classroom observation check list as supportive
data collecting tools. The data obtained through these tools were analyzed and discussed by
integrating quantitative and qualitative method in order to compensate the limitation in either
method. The data obtained through questionnaire were analyzed and integrated qualitatively
employing descriptive structural techniques such as frequency counting percentage; whereas data
obtained from interview and classroom observation checklist were analyzed, descripted and
interpreted qualitatively.
The finding of the study revealed that students have very limited reading experiences and did not
use some important opportunities, therefore, they have deep rooted problems or challenges in
reading skills; among those majority of students have the problem of extracting meaning from
the reading comprehension and unable to infer gist from the text.
The data collected from classroom observation showed that students encouraged to read aloud
reading rather than silent reading, it influences on understand of the text. Students also have lack
of cognitive strategies and meta cognitive awareness of reading comprehension. Then students
could not resolve their reading difficulties or problem they encountered during reading lesson,
therefore; reading activities become challenging for them.
