School Age Gender Gap in Reading Comprehension

Abstract

Students’ reading comprehension was found to be one of the major concerns with all teachers worldwide. It is essential to optimize students’ performance in all courses. Yet, we claimed that gender, and reading attitudes and practices could influence reading comprehensibility. We utilized descriptive-correlational design of quantitative research. Descriptive design was used to obtain the attributes of students’ reading attitudes and practices. Moreover, we used a correlational design to determine the relationship or association between and among attributes and their level of reading comprehension skills. We found out that students have a positive attitude towards reading when reading materials are educational and entertainment. In terms of the significant relationship between reading attitudes and practices, results reveal that reading attitude does not always affect reading practices. In terms of the relationship between student’s reading attitudes and practices and their levels of reading comprehension skills, student’s reading attitudes and practices have no significant relationships to all levels except between their reading attitudes and their comprehension skills in the Inferential Level. Lastly, in terms of the significant difference between male and female students’ reading comprehension skills, there is a statistical difference in the Literal and Evaluative Levels between the male and female. Thus, reading comprehension skills vary in these two levels. On the other hand, they showed no statistical difference in the Inferential and Critical Levels between the male and female. Therefore, the Literal and Evaluative Levels of male and female to reading comprehension skills are due to their reading attitudes and practices individually.