Abstract
This study assessed the reading comprehension difficulties encountered by 245 Grade 10 learners at Pinamungajan National High School in the Philippines to develop a comprehensive intervention program. Despite the students exhibiting a strong academic foundation (88.57% achieved a Grade 9 Filipino average of 85 or higher), the findings indicate significant challenges rooted in lexical nuance and linguistic complexity. Learners reported difficulties (rated "Agree") with misinterpreting sentences due to single unfamiliar words (WM = 3.62) and differentiating literal versus figurative meanings (WM = 3.44), which subsequently contributed to moderate difficulties in Inferencing (WM = 3.18) and Understanding Literary Devices (WM = 3.15). At the same time, students reported the frequent use of reading strategies across all phases (e.g., re-reading was rated "Always," WM = 4.62), the correlational analysis revealed that the majority of strategies were ineffective, showing no statistically significant relationship with difficulty reduction. Only the use of Pre-reading strategies showed a weak, significant benefit for higher-order skills. The conclusion is that the difficulties stem from the quality and complexity of the curriculum materials (specifically archaic words, idioms, and complex structures), combined with an inadequate quality of strategy application. It is recommended that the school implement a focused intervention program prioritizing the explicit teaching of figurative language, contextual vocabulary, and structured analytical reading techniques to ensure strategies are not just used frequently but effectively.
