A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of english majored sophomores at tay do university

TAY DO UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

Research proposal
A STUDY ON THE DIFFICULTIES IN
READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS
OF ENGLISH MAJORED-SOPHOMORES
AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY
Supervisor: Dang Thi Hanh, MA

Student’s name: Tran Thi Anh Khoa
Student’s code: 1652220201026
Class: English 11A

Can Tho, May 2020


A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research proposal could hardly finish without enthusiastic help of many people.
First of all, I want to express my deep gratitude toward my supervisor, Ms. Dang Thi
Hanh, MA at Tay Do University. This proposal could not have been completed without
her enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and informativeness. Actually, she instructed,
commented, and provided me useful references and materials so that I could complete
my research proposal. In addition, she spent her valuable time on guiding and
encouraging me during the time I was conducting the research.
Secondly, I want to show my special thanks to all lecturers in the Faculty of Linguistics
and Literature of Tay Do University for their teaching and helping me widen
knowledge of English over the past four years.
I also would like to extend my special thanks to the Faculty of Linguistics and

Literature of Tay Do University for giving me the opportunity and permission to carry
out the proposal research.
Finally, I want to give my wholehearted thankful words to my family and my friends
for love and support. They have always encouraged and motivated me during my
studying process.

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University

COMMENTS
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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................i
COMMENTS ...................................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... v
CHATER 1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................... 1
1.1

Rationale ............................................................................................................. 1

1.2

The significance of study.................................................................................... 3

1.3

The organization of study ................................................................................... 3

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 4
2.1 The definitions of reading skill and reading comprehension ................................. 4
2.1.1 The definitions of reading skill ........................................................................ 4
2.1.2. The definitions of reading comprehension ...................................................... 6
2.2 The importance of reading comprehension ............................................................ 7
2.3 Difficulties in reading comprehension.................................................................... 9
2.3.1. Grammatical structures.................................................................................... 9
2.3.2. Vocabulary .................................................................................................... 12
2.3.3 Background knowledge .................................................................................. 15
2.3.4 Lack of reading comprehension skills ............................................................ 16
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH AIMS – RESEARCH QUESTIONS – HYPOTHESIS .... 19
3.1 Research Aims ...................................................................................................... 19
3.2 Research Questions ............................................................................................... 19
3.3 Hypothesis ............................................................................................................ 19
CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................................... 20
4.1 Design ................................................................................................................... 20
4.2 Participants............................................................................................................ 20
4.3 Instruments............................................................................................................ 20

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University

4.3.1 Questionnaire .................................................................................................. 21
4.3.2 Interview ......................................................................................................... 21
4.4 Procedure .............................................................................................................. 21
CHAPTER 5. EXPECTED OUTCOME ....................................................................... 23

5.1 Motivation ............................................................................................................. 23
5.2 Grammatical structures ......................................................................................... 23
5.3 Vocabulary ............................................................................................................ 24
5.4 Background knowledge ........................................................................................ 24
5.5 Reading comprehension skills .............................................................................. 24
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 26
APPENDIX A ................................................................................................................ 29
APPENDIX B ................................................................................................................ 37

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University

ABSTRACT

Reading comprehension is often considered one of the most difficult aspects of
language learning. In reality, many language learners find it difficult to express their
thinking in the reading comprehension process because each student has their own
problem. This survey research presents the process of study about "A study on the
difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majored-sophomores at Tay Do
University". The participants of this research are the sophomores from Bachelor of
English class at Tay Do University. In study process, questionnaire and interview are
used as two instruments to collect the data. The results of the research will point out the
difficulties in reading comprehension skills. Therefore, the study is expected to help
students improve their reading comprehension skills.

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University

CHATER 1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the researcher would like to present the rationale, significance and the
organization of the study.
1.1 Rationale
Nowadays, language has become an important tool to connect people from many
different countries around the world. However, different countries have different
language. Therefore, people need a common language to exchange information. As a
result, English is considered as an international language because it is used popularly to
communicate in several areas such as business, diplomacy, tourism and so on. In
Vietnam, English is taught widely as a foreign language in order to help students meet
their own purposes. Certainly, English is one of the necessary requirements for those
who want to get a good job or continue to study in higher education.
When learning English, students often concentrate on four basic skills. They are
listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these skills, reading is an important
skill which needs to be developed, especially reading comprehension ability. This is
because the goal of most foreign language students is to get access to the knowledge
they need through the medium of the foreign language they are learning. In addition,
reading is very important, even the most important source of linguistic input through
which the students acquire the foreign language. Unfortunately, there are many factors,
both linguistic and non-linguistic, that makes reading comprehension a difficult skill
for the students to acquire. According to Carrell (1981) “For many students, reading is
by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in Engish
as a second or foreign language”.
There is no denying that reading is one of the important skills in English and gives a
variety of benefits to us. Reading is the window of the world because of the fact that

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
people can get more knowledge and information from books, magazines, newspapers,
etc. It helps readers to discover new words and phrases that they come across in
everyday conversations. Many foreign language students often regard reading as one of
the most important goals in the learning process and social interaction because, first,
reading is an indispensable communication tool in a civilized society. Second, the
reading materials produced in any period of time in history are most influenced by
social background. Third, the developments over the period of the recorded history of
reading have led to two very different poles. In the process of teaching and learning
English as a foreign language in Vietnam in general, and at Tay Do University (TDU)
in particular, reading has always been paid a great deal of attention from both teachers
and students. Like many other universities in Vietnam, English at TDU is learned and
taught in a non-native environment, therefore, reading is not only considered as a
means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place.
Traditionally, reading is a passive activity, but in fact, it should be active. As Block
(1992: 319-343) indicates, "reading is such a hidden process that it is often unnoticed
in the language classroom. Teachers often believe that reading classes should be
teacher-centered".

However, according to Bedir (1998), if teachers adopt rote

learning, learners are usually expected to tackle comprehension difficulties by
themselves. Moreover, teachers must focus not only on language development but also
on reading strategy practice. English majored-sophomores at Tay Do University are
less exposed to training in reading skills and they do not know how to activate their
schemata. Thus, they encounter difficulties in comprehension. This results in poor
marks in reading sections of their examinations. For the second-year students of
English at TDU, although they have been learning English for at least several years, it
is still often difficult for them to understand the text or passage in English, since they

still lack vocabulary, grammar, reading skills, and poor background knowledge.
Besides, the teachers sometimes have to face difficulties in dealing with the students’

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
learning demands and newly introduced sources of materials. In addition, teaching
methods and teaching techniques in general, are still below the international standard
of education. From these reasons above, the researcher decided to carry out "A study
on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majored-sophomores
at Tay Do University".
It is hoped that the study will make some contributions to improve learning English in
general and reading in particular for the second-years students of English at TDU. The
researcher also hopes that students can recognize their difficulties in reading
comprehension and through it will be possible to make useful suggestions or methods
to help them improve their reading skill.
1.2 The significance of study
The results of the present study can be meaningful in both theoretical and practical
aspects. For theoretical significance, it is expected to supplement previous studies on
the field of learning reading comprehension. Also, it would provide valuable
information and make suggestions for later researchers concerned. For practical
significance, it can be shed light on deeper difficulties in reading comprehension of
English majored-sophomores at Tay Do University.
1.3 The organization of study
The research consists of five chapters
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Literature review
Chapter 3: Research aims – Research questions – Hypothesis
Chapter 4: Research methodology

Chapter 5: Expected outcome

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The current chapter reviews the theoretical framework relevant to difficulties and
reading comprehension. It comprises four sections. The first section states the
definitions of reading. The second section presents the definitions of reading
comprehension. The third section expresses the importance of reading comprehension.
In the final section, the focus is on the difficulties effect reading comprehension skills.
2.1 The definitions of reading skill and reading comprehension
2.1.1 The definitions of reading skill
Reading is referred to as the importance of the four skills for EFL (English Foreign
Language) learners, as it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and
receive valuable linguistic input to build up language proficiency (Erten & Raz1,
2003). We cannot be sure when reading activity begins, but we have to admit that
reading is an essential activity that provides a great contribution to obtaining
knowledge. It is obvious that in real life we usually spend much time reading all sorts
of things like books, magazines, newspapers, novels, stories. However, sometimes we
read but we do not understand what they mean, or cannot understand the text we read.
In this case, it cannot be called reading. So what is reading?
There have been numerous definitions of reading, each of which is the reflection of its
author’s view of the reading process. Anderson (1999: 1) explains this very neatly as
follows: “Reading is an active, fluent process which involves the reader and the
reading material in building meaning. Meaning does not reside on the printed page or
occurs in reading, which combines the words on the printed page with the reader’s
background knowledge and experiences.”
According to Harmer (1989: 153), reading is a mechanical process that “eyes receive

the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message”. In his
definition, Harmer focuses on both two actions dominated by the eyes and the brain as

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
well as on the speed of the process “a reading text moves at a speed of the reader”,
which means that the readers themselves decides how fast he wants to read the text.
Sharing the same opinion, Smith (1985: 102) defines “reading understands the
author’s thought”. He also added that “understanding print or even receiving
communication can hardly be said to explain reading”. The problem still remains how
the reader understands the print or the message. “It means that we – the reader read
the author’s mind, not the author’s words”. Roe, Stood and Burns (1987: 2) describes
reading in a more extensive way. In their opinion, “reading is thinking”.
Another definition of reading was offered by Allen and Valletta (1977: 249). In their
opinion, “reading is developmental process”. We learn reading not only to know how
to read, to master the symbols, the sound, the language, the grammar etc,... that used in
the text but also to understand the ideas, the information expressed in that text or to
develop the ability of reconstructing its content using our own words. One more
researcher called Goodman (1971: 153) considers reading is a “psycholinguistic
process by which the reader - a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a
message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”.
Reading involves a reader, a text, and a writer. Reading skills are developed in an
active process. This process involves the surface representation encoded by a writer
and the reader (Goodman 1969 in Carrell 1988). If the writer is careless, the reader
may not get the message. If the writer makes demands that the reader cannot fulfill, the
message will not be received, even though to another reader it might be clear. If the
reader is careless, reading will result in incomplete interpretation. The reader tries to
interpret the text through his/her own experiences, but they may differ from the

writer’s experiences. This explanation proves that reading is not just an active process,
but also an interactive one. Reading is closely linked with meaning. For this reason,
lack of shared assumptions presents the most difficult problem in reading.

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
To sum up, from all these opinions above, it is obvious that no definition can possibly
capture all the ideas and features of what reading is. Each linguist’s definition reflects
what reading means as seen from his own point of view. However, they all have some
features in common that reading means comprehending written language and it
employs a variety of skills. In addition, they all concentrate on the nature of reading.
2.1.2. The definitions of reading comprehension
In teaching and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading in
particular, reading comprehension plays an important part. It can be understood as the
ability to draw attention to the required information from the text as efficiently as
possible. So what is reading comprehension?
Reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to
integrate with what the reader already knows. Fundamental skills required in efficient
reading comprehension are knowing meaning of words, ability to understand meaning
of a word from discourse context, ability to follow organization of passage and to
identify antecedents and references in it, ability to draw inferences from a passage
about its contents, ability to identify the main thought of a passage, ability to answer
questions in a passage, ability to recognize the literary devices or propositional
structures used in a passage and determine its tone, to understand the situational mood
conveyed for assertions, questioning, commanding, refraining etc, and finally ability to
determine writer's purpose, intention and point of view, and draw inferences about the
writer (discourse - semantics).
According to Richard and Thomas (1987: 9), “Reading comprehension is best

described as an understanding between the author and the reader”. This point of view
concentrates on the reader’s understanding of the message based on the individual’s
background knowledge. They stated that “reading is much more than just pronouncing
words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends: it is the process whereby

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
the printed pages stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an
individual”.
In his book, Swan (1975: 1) pointed out that “A student is good at comprehension. We
mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information
of a text with the minimum of understanding”. For Roe, Stood and Burns (1987: 9),
“Reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation, and evaluation of what
author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life experience”.
Study the nature of reading comprehension, Grilled (1981: 3) indicated that “Reading
comprehension or understanding written text means extracting the required
information from it as effectively as possible”. This means that the student can show
his understanding by re-expressing the content of the text in many ways such as
summarizing the text, answering questions etc.
From these theories above, it can be understood that reading for comprehension is the
primary purpose for reading; raising students’ awareness of main ideas in a text and
exploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension. It is the
process in which the readers – as they read, can recognize the graphic form and
understand the relation between the writing and the meaning. It means that after
reading, student can master grammar structures, words, pronunciation etc and can
understand the content of the text and use it in their real life effectively. Furthermore,
“reading without comprehension is meaningless” (Karolin and Karin, 1988: 2).
Reading means comprehending written language so when understanding breaks down,

reading actually does not occur.
2.2 The importance of reading comprehension
Well, without proper comprehension skills, students lack the ability to understand what
they read. The point of reading isn't to make sounds in your brain or out loud, but

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
rather, to understand important lessons, stories, and arguments. Through the act of
writing, our ancestors have recorded important knowledge that we can understand
simply by reading. By understanding what we read, we pick up important information,
understand scientific theories, past opinions, and new frontiers. (In Layman's terms, it
is through reading that we no longer have to “discover” gravity, or the independence of
182 nations with every new generation).
Having excellent reading comprehension skills is crucial. It increases the enjoyment
and effectiveness of reading and helps not only academically, but professionally, and in
a person's personal life. Imagine your employer has just handed you an important
document to read and tells you he expects a summary of the material on his desk by
tomorrow. You take a look and see it is written in a language totally foreign to you.
After your initial confusion, you may try to make some sense of it and scan the
document. While you may be able to phonetically decipher the words and sound them
out, that’s where your “reading” would end. You wouldn’t have any idea what the
words you just read actually meant.
Obviously, this is an extreme example but sadly, classrooms across the nation are
interspersed with students who experience the same type of frustration every day.
They don’t possess adequate reading comprehension skills to do what is expected of
them. Without comprehension, reading is simply following words on a page from left
to right while sounding them out. The words on the page have no meaning. And while
people read for many different reasons, the chief goal is to derive some understanding

of what the writer is trying to convey and make use of that information - whether for
fact gathering, learning a new skill, or for pleasure. That’s why reading comprehension
skills are so important. The lack of strong reading comprehension skills obviously
affects a student’s success at school. Academic progress depends on understanding,
analyzing, and applying the information gathered through reading. Without them, the

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
reader cannot gather any information and use it to efficiently function and enjoy the
richness of life.
But it goes much further than that. Poor reading comprehension skills have been also
linked to poverty and crime. According to a survey, over 60% of inmates in the U.S
prison system have reading skills at or below the fourth-grade level; 85% of U.S
juveniles in prison are functionally illiterate; 43% set of adults with extremely low
reading skills live at or below the poverty line. And even more alarming, nearly 2/3 of
students who reach the fourth grade without proficient reading skills end up on welfare
or in prison. While these statistics are not meant to shock you, they do send a message
that is loud and clear: developing strong reading comprehension skills is essential for a
rich academic, professional, and personal life. Imagine trying to survive and thrive in a
society where you couldn’t comprehend the basic meaning of your cable bill, your
mortgage agreement, or how to follow road signs. Even worse, imagine not being able
to read the label on a bottle of medicine or a container of dangerous chemicals. Living
safely and productively is only one of the many outcomes of proper reading
comprehension skills. Being able to derive meaning from the written word also enables
students to develop intellectually, socially, and emotionally.
2.3 Difficulties in reading comprehension
In learning English as a foreign language, it is not easy to be a good learner in four
basic skills, especially reading comprehension ability in reading skills. For the

sophomores majoring in English at Tay Do University, they have already faced some
difficulties. In this research, the researcher would like to analyze four common reasons
that most students meet in their reading comprehension.
2.3.1. Grammatical structures
In reading comprehension, the first problem is grammatical structures. Reading
comprehension skill is a complex skill (Kintsch & Rawson, 2005; Perfetti, Landi &

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
Oakhill, 2005). Readers need to recognize or decipher individual words, access their
meanings and interpret grammatical structure. Rarely is a text completely literal:
readers need to draw on general knowledge and an appreciation of pragmatic factors in
order to understand the intended message. Successful reading demands that readers
construct a coherent and integrated mental representation of the text, rich in referential
relations (Gernsbacher, 1990; Kintsch, 1998; van der Broek, 1994).
Besides, readers have to face various difficulties. The first and foremost problem is that
they may have to work with unfamiliar and difficult topics. There are called “text
problem”. The content of the text might be rather strange to the students and the
grammatical structures might be new. Therefore, they cannot understand it. The readers
will find the text very challenging and might not have any motivation left to keep on
reading, students may have difficulty adjusting their reading strategies to match the
author’s intent or purpose. They may not be familiar with a particular story “grammar”
or genre and the literary devises used in text.
Doan (2017) conducted a study on the difficulties in reading comprehension of second
years English majored for specific purposes, department of foreign language studies,
the University of Quy Nhon. The topic of this study is the difficulties in reading
comprehension. She investigated students by questionnaire. In addition, she consulted
some previous research to make her research more reliable. In this research, she used

the qualitative method. She found that about 77% of students had difficulty
understanding and using verb tenses, or word form and sentence format; 21% of the
reviewers said it was appropriate and the remaining 2% said that they did not encounter
any problems with the grammar problems that appeared during the reading process.
Students may lack knowledge of English grammar and syntax and therefore, may read
word by word. They may encounter too much unfamiliar vocabulary to grasp the

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
overall concept conveyed in the sentence. They are also challenged when reading
idiomatic expressions and unfamiliar grammatical constructions.
In addition, students may have difficulty with more complex and compound sentences.
They may lose the meaning of references within the text, such as with frequent use of
pronouns. Pronoun usage may be different or less frequent in the native language.
Connectives may be overlooked or misunderstood so they lose the relationships
between concepts and ideas. They encounter a lot of difficulties in dealing with
proverbs idioms, synonyms, and antonyms, polysemantic, and subtechnical vocabulary.
Metaphor, metonymy and other types of transference of meaning also cause great
difficulty for them.
According to Timothy Shanahan, who is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of urban
education at the University of Illinois in Chicago where he was Founding Director of
the Center for Literacy and Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction,
“There is a lot of evidence showing the importance of grammar in reading
comprehension. Studies over the years have shown a clear relationship between
syntactic or grammatical sophistication and reading comprehension; that is, as
students learn to employ more complex sentences in their oral and written language,
their ability to make sense of what they read increases, too”.
There tends to be a school of thought that when we present grammar to our students in

such a detailed and methodical manner, they lose the creative side of writing. The
cognitive effort spent to make certain their sentence structure is grammatically correct
stifles any of the student’s efforts at being creative with their written expression. There
is also an assumption that students will intuit grammar without direct instruction and
the students are the ones who suffer from this assumption that they will eventually “get
it.” They should be explicitly taught grammar in order to successfully reach the end
goal of reading comprehension.

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
2.3.2. Vocabulary
The second but not less important kind of problem is the vocabulary. As everyone
knows, grammatical knowledge accounts for a great deal of competence in reading,
however, knowledge of vocabulary is a great deal more important as a factor of reading
comprehension than awareness of grammatical structures (O’Donnel, 1961:313-316).
Reading comprehension and vocabulary are inextricably linked together. The ability to
decode or identify and pronounce words is self-evidently important, but knowing what
the words mean has a major and direct effect on knowing what any specific passage
means while skimming a reading material. It has been shown that students with a little
vocabulary than other students comprehend less of what they read. It has been
suggested that to improve comprehension, improving word groups, complex
vocabularies such as homonyms or words that have multiple meanings, and those with
figurative meanings like idioms, similes, collocations, and metaphors are a good
practice.
One of the most persistent findings in reading research is that the extent of students’
vocabulary knowledge relates strongly to their reading comprehension and overall
academic success (Becker, 1977). This relationship seems logical; to get meaning from
what they read, students need both a great many words in their vocabularies and the

ability to use various strategies to establish the meanings of new words when they
encounter them. Young university students who do not have large vocabularies or
effective word-learning strategies often struggle to achieve comprehension. Their bad
experiences with reading set in motion a cycle of frustration and failure that continues
throughout their schooling (Hart &Risley, 2003).
Andrew Biemiller argues that teachers should give out topics with related words and
phrases before reading a book to students, teaching includes topic related word groups,
synonyms of words and their meaning with the context, and he further says to

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
familiarize students with sentence structures in which these words commonly occur.
Biemiller says this intensive approach gives students opportunities to explore the topic
beyond its discourse - freedom of conceptual expansion. However, there is no evidence
to suggest the primacy of this approach. Incidental Morphemic analysis of words prefixes, suffixes, and roots - is also considered to improve understanding of the
vocabulary, though they are proved to be an unreliable strategy for improving
comprehension and is no longer used to teach students.
There’s a lot going on in reading, from the letter and word recognition to understanding
meaning at the phrase, sentence, and paragraph level. When a beginner reader
encounters vocabulary they do not know or do not recognize due to inaccurate
decoding, they are likely to skip ahead. The more blanks in a line of text, the harder it
is to make meaning and the more cognitively challenging and frustrating the reading
task becomes. That’s why poor comprehension can result when a student struggles with
decoding, has a limited vocabulary or attempts to read a text that is at too high of a
level. However, reading also requires being able to pay attention to the narrative.
Students need to identify gist, main ideas, and specific details and even make
inferences about what they are reading. If a student has problems staying focused, it
can impact on comprehension.

It has been known for a long time that vocabulary knowledge and reading
comprehension are strongly correlated (Davis, 1944, 1968; Thorndike, 1973).
Jabberwocky indicates that the relationship between reading comprehension and
vocabulary is likely to be rich, interactive and complex. On the one hand, it is clear that
vocabulary is needed for comprehension. Without a doubt, our lack of knowledge
concerning the meaning of individual words impedes our understanding. At the same
time, however, it is equally clear that we can construct some meaning from the text,
despite the fact that many of the words are nonsense. In turn, this constructed meaning

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
provides an emerging context that helps us construe possible meanings to some of
individual words.
Limitations in vocabulary knowledge have been suggested to be a putative cause of
reading comprehension failure (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007) and many interventions for
poor reading comprehension involve strategies designed to increase vocabulary
knowledge (Beck, 1982). It is very clear that reading comprehension and vocabulary
knowledge are closely associated. What is less clear is how this association is best
interpreted. One interpretation sees individual differences in reading ability being
responsible for individual differences in vocabulary knowledge. According to this
view, students learn the meaning of new words via reading. Consequently, better
readers will develop larger vocabularies over time, whereas poor readers, who read
less, lack print exposure and this serves to hamper vocabulary development
(Cunningham & Stanovich, 1991, 1997; Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Nagy & Scott,
2000). An alternative view sees individual differences in vocabulary knowledge being
responsible for individual differences in reading comprehension. In this view, if
students have limited vocabulary knowledge, or if they are unable to access word
meanings rapidly and efficiently, this will be detrimental to their reading

comprehension (Beck, Perfetti & McKeown, 1982; Daneman & Green, 1986).
According to the results of Doan's research (2017), in the question of vocabulary
difficulties, she gets 90% of the answers saying that they all face a lot of difficulties in
the vocabulary of specialized fields when reading documents as well as the ability to
understand and remember all vocabulary in that specialized field. In addition, most
students do not know the meaning or it is difficult to guess the meaning of idioms or
phrases (such as verb phrases, noun phrases, adjective phrases, etc.) that appear in the
reading 8% of students, they rated the number of vocabulary words in such a reading as

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
moderate, they could fully guess the meaning of words based on context, or based on
the specialized knowledge they had learned and only 2% for that is easy.
In fact, lack of vocabulary is a reason why students cannot show what they are
thinking. They just keep it inside because they do not have enough vocabulary to
fluently think and express ideas.
2.3.3 Background knowledge
In addition, students meet difficulty to show their opinion because of lacking general
knowledge. Background knowledge is essential to have a good reading comprehension.
A recent article “Why American Students Haven’t Gotten Better at Reading in 20
Years” in The Atlantic addressed the critical role that background knowledge plays in
the ability to comprehend. The article subtitle was “Schools usually focus on teaching
comprehension skills instead of general knowledge – even though education
researchers know better.” The piece suggests that educators have treated
comprehension as a set of skills, when in fact comprehension depends primarily on
what readers already know. The article refers to a panel of literacy experts convened by
officials who oversee the National Assessment of Educational Progress. As a member
of the panel, Daniel Willingham explained: “Whether or not readers understand a text

depends far more on how much background knowledge and vocabulary they have
relating to the topic than on how much they’ve practiced comprehension skills. That’s
because writers leave out a lot of information that they assume readers will know. If
they put all the information in, their writing would be tedious. But if readers can’t
supply the missing information, they will have a hard time making sense of the text.”
Willingham and like-minded literacy experts posit that the best way to boost students’
reading comprehension is to expand their knowledge and vocabulary by teaching them
history, science, literature, and the arts, using curricula that guide kids through a logical

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
sequence from one year to the next. Willingham has been making this point for a long
time. I first read a piece he wrote about this in 2006 “How Knowledge Helps” around
the same time I read E.D. Hirsch’s book “The Knowledge Deficit”, in which Hirsch
claims that the solution to improving reading comprehension is to teach a core set of
content topics over the grades. Through Willingham’s 2006 piece, we have gained a
better understanding of the complex factors that contribute to reading comprehension
and have a greater appreciation for the role that background knowledge plays.
In reading comprehension, background knowledge consists of many aspects of
practical life such as culture, society, custom and so on. With poor background
knowledge, students cannot build good ideas and they do not know information about
the new topics.
2.3.4 Lack of reading comprehension skills
According to a survey of Doan's research (2017), there are 97% of students do not
understand reading skills well and do not know how to use reading skills to suit each
exercise of the reading. This leads to the fact that it is difficult for them to understand
the content of the text as well as process-related information to do the homework. The
remaining 3% said that they know how to use appropriate reading skills such as

skimming skills to get main ideas, quick reading to find detailed information.
Failure to understand the methods of reading comprehension makes it difficult for
children to understand the content as well as process information related to the reading
such as homework or answer comprehension questions. Most of the students
interviewed admitted that they did not know how to guess new words and conjecture
based on context. Especially, students are not used to reading skills such as skimming
methods to get main ideas or quick reading methods to find detailed information or
method to guess text content from titles, subtitles, pictures, illustration.

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
 Scanning
Scanning is a technique you often use when looking up keywords or ideas in a
particular text. In most cases, you know what you are looking for, so you are
concentrating on finding a particular answer. Scanning involves moving your eyes
quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when
you first find a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. You pass
your vision speedily over a section of text in order to find particular words or phrases
that are relevant to your current task. You can scan: the introduction or preface of a
text; the first or last; paragraphs of chapters; the concluding or summarising chapter of
a text; the book index. Once you have scanned the document, you might go back and
skim it. When scanning, look for the author's use of organizers such as numbers,
letters, steps, or the words, first, second, or next. Look for words that are boldfaced,
italics, or indifferent font size, style, or color. However, not everyone knows the
scanning strategy and uses it effectively.
Le (2010) conducted a study on the difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao
Viet Centre. He investigated students by a questionnaire. This study was carried out
with the cooperation of the 10 teachers and 50 students, who were working and

studying in the Sao Viet Centre. Data collected were analyzed statistically. The results
of the survey indicate that only 19% students of them choose scanning through the text
as the way of reading. A large number of students (80%) are in the habit of reading
slowly and try to understand every word. Translating the text into Vietnamese the
approach that is chosen by most of the students (90%) while reading. The number of
students chooses reading the text aloud and reading the text in silence is quite similar
with 37% of students read aloud and 34% of students read silently.

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
 Skimming
Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text and it is done at a speed
three to four times faster than normal reading. People often skim when they have lots
of material to read in a limited amount of time. Use skimming when you want to see if
an article may be of interest to your research. There are many strategies to be used
while skimming. Some people read the first and last paragraphs using headings,
summarizes and other organizers as they move down the page or screen. They might
read the title, subtitles, subheadings, and illustrations and consider reading the first
sentence of each paragraph. This technique is useful when you are seeking specific
information rather than reading for comprehension. Skimming works well to find dates,
names, and places. It might be used to review graphs, tables, and charts. Also
according to Le's study (2010), only 16% of students know how to apply skim the text
to find main ideas quickly. Through research, we see that very few students know how
to apply reading strategies. Skimming is a quick reading process for common meaning.
If students lack the ability to skim, they will ignore words or phrases that contain the
main idea and cannot identify the content and main idea of the text.
In summary, reading comprehension describes the ability to understand and interpret
written words. The lack of reading skills will lead to many difficulties in the process of

reading and understanding the text of students. The lack of reading skills will take
students a lot of time to find the main idea in a reading, even if they cannot choose the
main idea. Moreover, poor reading will reduce students' reading speed as well as make
them unable to concentrate, understand and grasp the information of that reading.

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A study on the difficulties in reading comprehension skills of English majoredsophomores at Tay Do University
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH AIMS – RESEARCH QUESTIONS – HYPOTHESIS
In this chapter, the researcher would like to present the research aims, research
question and hypothesis.
3.1 Research Aims
The general aim of this study is to identify the difficulties in reading skills experienced
by English majors-sophomores at Tay Do University.

In addition, the study is

expected to give some solutions for students to deal with their reading difficulties.
3.2 Research Questions
To achieve these purposes, the study will focus on the following research questions:
1. Do second-year students majoring in English at Tay Do University have difficulty
in reading comprehension skills?
2. What are some difficulties faced by English majored- sophomores at Tay Do
University when reading English?
3.3 Hypothesis
According to most of English majored students at Tay Do University, reading
comprehension skills is the most difficult. Although they have been learning reading
comprehension subjects in four terms, they still have faced some difficulties in English
reading. Through the literature review and research question, it is hypothesized that

English majored-sophomores at Tay Do University could face difficulties in reading
English including grammar structures, vocabulary, background knowledge, and poor
reading comprehension skills.

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