STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD READING MATERIALS AT SMA NEGERI 1 PALANGKA RAYA

Reading is an essential skill in English language learning, offering students access to new vocabulary, information, and broader perspectives on the world. The success of any reading activity, however, is not shaped by the quality of the text alone it is equally determined by how students perceive the materials placed before them. This study aims to describe students’ perceptions of reading materials at SMA Negeri 1 Palangka Raya.
This study employed a qualitative descriptive approach with 21 students of class XI-11 as the research subjects. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using the Miles and Huberman interactive model. Students’ perceptions were examined through four factors proposed by Bernstein and Nash (1999), experience, interest, environment, and motivation.
The findings indicate that students’ perceptions of reading materials were shaped distinctly by each of the four factors examined. Experience built the perceptual foundation meaningful encounters outside the classroom fostered favourable views, while repeated difficulty with vocabulary and text length created barriers that persisted into new reading situations. Interest emerged as the most dominant factor, with genre preference, format inclination, and personal curiosity consistently determining whether students engaged with or withdrew from a given material. The environment factor revealed that classroom noise disrupted focus for several students, while digital platforms had become significant voluntary reading spaces beyond school. motivation, operating in both intrinsic and extrinsic forms, further shaped how persistently students engaged with materials over time. Collectively, these four factors confirm that students’ perceptions are personal, layered, and continually reshaped by each reading encounter.