Linguistic receptive skills among middle school students and their relationship to reading comprehension

Abstract

This research aims to identify the language reception skills of intermediate stage students and their relation to reading comprehension for the academic year (2024-2025). To achieve this goal, the researcher selected a sample of 100 third-grade intermediate students. The researcher prepared two research tools: a test for language reception skills and a test for reading comprehension, following the necessary steps and procedures to construct the tests. As a result, the language reception skills test consisted of 20 questions, while the reading comprehension skills test contained 18 questions, both covering the relevant skills in the form of multiple-choice and descriptive questions. The researcher extracted the psychometric properties of the items, including distinguishing power, item validity, the correlation of each item’s score with the total test score, and item reliability.The results for the first and second objectives showed a difference between the mean scores of the research sample in language reception skills and reading comprehension skills, indicating that the sample possesses both skills. For the third objective, the Pearson correlation coefficient between language reception skills and reading comprehension skills was found to be 0.78. To determine the significance of this relationship, the calculated t-value was 2.88, which is greater than the table value of 1.98 at a significance level of 0.05, indicating a significant correlation between reading reception skills and reading comprehension in the sample population.In light of the results, the researcher recommended several suggestions, including directing curriculum developers to create a list of language reception and reading comprehension skills, and tests to measure these skills, providing students with diverse reading materials to enhance their skills, and engaging them in activities that make them prominent in production. Additionally, creating a vibrant learning environment that fosters the development of reading reception and comprehension skills, introducing them to suitable teaching methods, and clarifying that language skills are interconnected and influence one another, thus students must be trained in both sending and receiving skills