The Relationship between High School Students' Reading Proficiency and Their Engagement in Reading '

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship bet.veen high · school students' reading proficiency and their eng~gement in reading. In this study, 580 Grade 11 students from Yangon and Bago Divisions were selected. To gather contextual infmmation, students \Vere al\ked to respond to b~ckground questionnaire including student's engagement in reading, (SER) and student's family e'ackgrounds (SFB). The results shuwthat, on average, female stu.dents are more engaged in reading than males with regard to students' attitude toward reading imd are . more able to communicate ·.vlth their· family member than males: Next, home educatiOJlal resources are more available and parental education are also better for the students of Yangon than that of Bago. To find out how reading proficiency (RP) of Orade 11 students is affected by their family bac~ground and engagement in reading, simultaneous multiple regression analyses were conducted. Both family background and engagement in. reading are found to have · powerful influence on students reading proficiency. The internal consistency of the SFB is 0.67 and. SER is 0.87 respectively. In order to point out specific variables in family background affecting RP, simultaneous rimltiple regression· analyses were used. This combination. of variables (parental education, home educational resources, and cultural communication) significantly predicted RP. In order to point. out specific variables of engagement in rea