An Analysis of English Reading Texts Readability Used for Grade XI Students of SMAN 1 Bukittinggi

This article aimed to investigate the readability of the English reading texts used by the grade XI students of SMAN1 Bukittinggi, to investigate the students’ perception toward the English reading texts in their textbook, and to investigate the teachers’ perception toward the English reading texts in the students’ textbook. The instruments used in this research were the Flesch reading ease formula, questionnaire, and interview. The result of the readability formula showed that there were three of six texts used which were inappropriate to the XI grade students where one of them was categorized as difficult since it was appropriate for college or university students. Meanwhile, the two other texts were categorized as easy for XI grade students because those texts are actually appropriate for students in grade 8th-9th. Based on the students’ perception, there were two texts categorized easy, three texts categorized moderate and one text categorized difficult. There were some factors that cause the barrier to comprehending the text. It began with a lack of vocabulary, lack of knowledge about syntactic complexity and the length of the text which was unfair. Then, according to the teachers’ perception, there were five texts categorized moderate and there was one text in which both teachers disagreed with. One of them stated it moderate and the other stated it difficult.