Review of Arts and Humanities

Relationship between Reading Attitudes and Reading Comprehension Performance of Secondary School Students in Kwara State, Nigeria
Bola Margaret Tunde –Awe

Abstract
This paper examined the relationship between reading attitudes and reading comprehension performance of secondary school students in Kwara State, Nigeria. The study was a correlational type. Its sample comprised 800 Senior Secondary School II students sampled from 28 co-educational public secondary schools located in the three Senatorial Districts of the state. Two researcher-designed instruments were used: Reading Attitudes Questionnaire (RATQ), which measured learners’ attitudes to three types of reading behaviour; and Reading Comprehension Performance Tests (RCPT), made up of two comprehension passages with 10 multiple choice tests, each. RATQ and RCPT had reliability indices of 0.721 and 0.850 respectively. The analysis was done with Percentages and Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistics. The findings revealed that a total of 65.75% of the students had a generally negative attitude towards reading: 61.13% of them performed well only at the literal level of reading; 38%; 60% and 65.87% at the inferential, evaluate and creative levels, respectively. Also, there was a very high, positive and significant relationship between the students’ reading attitudes and their reading comprehension performance (r=.0835 df 798 P≤ 0.05).These findings implied that negative attitudes to extensive reading could lead to students’ poor performance in reading comprehension, which could in turn lead to poor performance in English language. Consequent upon these findings, it was recommended among others, that teachers should always strive to be efficient facilitators of reading, ensuring that learners maintain enhanced positive attitudes to extensive reading so that other stakeholders will be motivated into supporting the school system fully.

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