Arab Educational Information Network

Reading plays a significant role in academic achievement, particularly when learners have to work over a huge amount of foreign language materials for their own specialist subjects. Nevertheless, not all learners have the same levels of reading proficiency and mostly learners of English as a foreign language face some difficulties in practicing the reading skill especially in most Arab countries and Palestine is not an exception. Thus, this study aimed at investigating EFL students’ levels of reading proficiency at Al-Quds Open University in addition to identifying difficulties facing them in practicing the reading skill. The participants involved a random sample of 116 undergraduate students (males & females) who specialize in TEFL for their bachelors' degrees at QOU in Palestine. The descriptive method was used by means of quantitative methods through a 33- item questionnaire to identify EFL reading proficiency levels in addition to identifying the difficulties facing students when practicing reading English texts. Results revealed that EFL students’ at QOU scored high levels of reading proficiency and there were no statistically significant differences at (α =0.05) on the total degree of EFL students’ reading proficiency due to gender, age and level of study. There was no statistically significant relationship between taking the two courses in reading and students ' levels of proficiency. (Published abstract)