Abstract

 Reading is a great source of knowledge. Reading is one of two receptive skills of a language that requires understanding in order to get the whole meaning of the text. The understanding here, which can also be said as comprehension, cannot be separated from the reading itself. If we read a text without understanding them, the activity of reading may be done, but we could not get the information or the message. The objective of this research is to find the students’ ability and the factors influencing students’ ability in reading comprehension of English Department of FKIP ULM Banjarmasin in academic year 2017/2018.The researcher took 65 students as a sample in this research.Moreover, this research uses descriptive quantitative and qualitative data analysis.The findings of this research showedthat the highest percentage of students’ reading comprehension ability is good ability 40% of the total students.There were 6.15% students who had very good ability. Next, there were 36.92% students who had fair ability, 9.23% students who had poor ability and 7.70% students who had verypoor ability. Furthermore, through questionnaire students’ attitudes toward readingand students’ strategies use in reading there are dominant factors. While from interview new vocabulary is the factor influencing students’ ability in reading comprehension.Based on the result of the research, it is suggested to the lectures of the English Departmentespecially in Reading Course to improve the students’ ability in reading comprehension into very good ability. It can be done by using various strategies for teaching reading comprehension.It is also suggested for the students to keep practicing in doing reading comprehension activityto find and read as much as possible many reading materials despite the materials given by the lectures’ Reading Course and practice reading in free time.

Keywords: Reading Comprehension, Ability, Factor