Students’ Reading Practices and Comprehension in Urban and Rural Schools

Reading practices provide the bases by which students build their reading skills, particularly reading comprehension. This study aimed to look into the level of students’ reading practices and their comprehension levels. This descriptive-correlational and comparative research was conducted at Pagadian City Science High School, Pagadian City as the urban school and Molave Vocational Technical School, Molave, Zamboanga del Sur as the rural school, during the school year 2018-2019. It utilized Grade 7 learners as research respondents. Findings revealed that students’ reading practices in the urban school were high in terms of reading motivation and reading materials exposure but low in terms of social influence in reading. On the other hand, students’ reading practices in the rural school were high in terms of reading motivation but low in terms of social influence in reading and reading materials exposure. In the urban school, 84% of the students fell in independent level, 16% fell in instructional level and no students fell in frustration level. In contrast, in the rural school, 64% of the students fell in independent level, 36% fell in instructional level and no students fell in frustration level. A significant difference existed between the reading practices of students in urban and rural schools and reading comprehension of students in urban and rural schools. A significant relationship existed between students’ reading practices and their reading comprehension. These findings indicate that the students’ reading practices are of great help in improving their reading comprehension. An appropriate action plan was proposed to improve the reading practices as well as the reading comprehension of the students in the rural school.