Difficulties in Reading Critical Essays in Japanese Language High School Classes

Improving high school Japanese language reading comprehension is important. However, as the difficulties students have with reading have not been sufficiently clarified, this study sought to identify the specific reading comprehension problems of Japanese high school students during classes. Initially, a class was designed and implemented to teach reading strategies based on the five reading skills outlined in the reading comprehension model. Then, a survey based on the abovementioned model was conducted to evaluate the students’ reading comprehension class results. It was found that the students who had reading difficulties lacked fundamental reading skills and were unable to benefit from reading classes, and the students who had fundamental reading skills lacked deep reading abilities. In the future, these reading difficulties need to be further clarified and support activities developed to promote better reading outcomes