Reading Comprehension and Context of the Digital Generation of Secondary Engineering Schools' Pupils in the Czech Republic

Reading comprehension and reading context are in mutual interaction and influenced by several factors, particularly the level of reading literacy and the level of individuals' reading strategies. Reading is part of communication applying the correct (de) coding of written information. An important factor in understanding the information is the set of knowledge and skills elements of a sociological, psychological, ethical and media nature. Language as a tool for the transmission of information and human thinking concurrently reflects the values of the individual and society. This study aims to characterise the level of reading strategies of secondary vocational school students in the Moravian-Silesian Region in connection with the findings of an international survey of reading literacy of 15-year-old students (PISA 2018), which pointed out that Czech students (especially boys) achieve a below-average level in analysed reading strategies. Fifteen-year-old pupils of the region are among the worst regional groups in the Czech Republic. The second goal of the research was to find out which factors influence the development of pupils' reading literacy, during and after working with the (e)text, reading comprehension and the effectiveness of reading comfort. An analysis of the responses of 488 students of three secondary schools of engineering showed that students who read for knowledge prefer a particular topic when reading and that students who ask questions while reading or after reading a text also look for new information to discover a context of information. Another important finding was that reading comfort and reading context are in mutual interaction. To develop an individual's language culture, it is significant to support reading not only as a part of school duties but as an integral part of everyday life.