FACTORS AFFECTING FIRST-YEAR AP STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION AT THAINGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

This paper presents a study on investigating the factors affecting first-year AP students’ reading comprehension at Thai Nguyen University of Technology (TNUT). It is more reasonable to compare and contrast the effects of some specific variables against each other to see whether specifically vocabulary knowledge, syntax knowledge, reading strategies or background knowledge was a more influential issue to academic reading comprehension. 30 students from K53AP participated in the survey questionnaire. The findings reveal that syntax knowledge and reading strategies are not strong predictors of reading comprehension for students. It is vocabulary and background knowledge that have more influence on students’ reading comprehension. It is advisable for the teachers to choose reading materials suitable for students’ level of competence, design vocabulary exercises at pre-reading stage and learn how to activate their background knowledge before any reading task.