Reading Strategies and Reading Comprehension Level of BSED English Students

Reading is a foundational skill essential for academic success, particularly in higher education where students are expected to engage critically with complex texts. Although the Philippines is one of the largest English speaking nations, reading comprehension remains a persistent educational concern. Recent national and international assessments including the EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI, and the 2024 Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) revealed that many Filipino learners continue to struggle with understanding and analyzing texts, especially in English related components. These findings raise serious concerns about the readiness of future educators to model and teach effective reading strategies, with long term implications for both learning outcomes and instructional quality. This study focuses on BSEd English students at King’s College of the Philippines, who are academically trained in both language and literature and are expected to develop strong reading competencies for their future profession as high school (even tertiary level) English teachers. Given their dual training and curricular exposure, they are in a unique position to both model and teach effective reading strategies and develop reading comprehension. However, the extent to which their own strategy use correlates with their actual reading comprehension levels remains underexplored. Addressing this gap, the study investigates the most commonly used reading strategies among these students and examines how these strategies relate to their comprehension performance across literal, inferential, critical, and creative levels.