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Reading comprehension is generally divided into literal, interpretative, and critical skills (Collins and Cheek, 1993) and these three skills are interrelated and semi-hierarchical (OECD, 20013). This paper examined the Thai EFL learners’ reading comprehension abilities focusing on their literal, interpretative, and critical comprehension skills to see how efficient they are in English L2 reading and how their literal, interpretative, and critcal skills correlate with one another. The sample group included third-year undergraduate students (n = 36) majoring in English in a Thai university, selected by the purposive sampling technique. The instrument used was the PISA sample reading test and the data were analyzed by using percentage, mean, and standard deviation. Pearson Product-moment correlation coefficients were computed to investigate the statistical relationship between the students’ literal, interpretative and critical comprehension skills. The results of the test revealed that the students were highly proficient in the literal comprehension of the reading texts as their literal scores were quite high. They could reasonably interpret the texts, but they hardly ever showed critical comprehension skill. The study thus implies that the students are proficient in literal comprehension, but they have limited critical thinking skill. In terms of correlation between literal, interpretative, and critical skills of the students, it was found that the three skills were highly correlated. Those students who did well in literal comprehension also did well in interpretative and critical comprehension respectively and those who did poorly in literal comprehension could harldly do interpretative and critical comprehension respectively. The results supported the well-known assumption that literal skills are the foundation of the interpretative and critical reading skills.

 

Keywords: L2 Reading Comprehension, EFL learners, Literal, Interpretative, and Critical comprehension skills