A comparative study of reading comprehension skills between the governmental and non-governmental preparatory schools in Jimma town: grade 12 in focus

In order to find out whether there is difference in reading comprehension skills between the governmental and non-governmental grade 12 preparatory school students of Jimma town, necessary data were collected by using reading comprehension test, questionnaire for students and for teachers. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively using statistical techniques of percentage and mean. According to the findings of the study the students of Jimma University Community Preparatory School (JUCPS) have obtained a better result in the reading comprehension test than the students of Jimma Preparatory School (JPS). The fact that the reading comprehension strategies, which the students of JUCPS used, such as: being able to guess the meaning of new words in context and from word formation rather than turning to dictionaries now and then and skipping new words, being able to predict the main idea of the whole text from titles and keywords, grasping the gist of the material by quickly reading the first and the last paragraph, background experience and motivation that they got from parents and from their elementary and secondary school teachers, full support and belief of their current teachers to let them use different strategies in their reading comprehension activities every time, were the main factors or reasons that contributed to the difference.