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Library's collection Library's IT development CancelIn this study, the writer investigated the kinds of reading skills that English
Department of Petra Christian University (PCU)?s students have difficulty with
and the most difficult reading skill for them. The theory of reading skills by
Nuttall (1996) and McWhorter (2002) were used as the main theories of this
research. In her study, the writer used descriptive-qualitative approach with
quantitative data. She developed two reading tests which covered seventeen kinds
of reading skills. The reading tests were administered to ten students from English
Department of PCU batch 2003 to find out the answers of her research questions.
The result of the analysis showed that each reading skill had different level of
difficulty for the respondents. Recognizing text organization skill with difficulty
level reaching 72.5 % was the most difficult reading skill for English Department
of PCU?s students. Others two skills which had difficulty level more than 50%
were paraphrasing (65%) and inference from context skill (57.5%). On the other
hand, scanning skill in which the difficulty level reached 5 % was a reading skill
which was least difficult for the students. In conclusion, this study showed that
English Department of PCU?s batch 2003 students still had difficulties in
activating some reading skills effectively.