A Study on Reading Comprehension Ability in Bengali among Standard IX Students...... 187 A Study on Reading Comprehension Ability in Bengali among Standard IX Students of North 24 Parganas, West Bengal : Related to Location of School Biswajit Patra 1 , Abhijit Guha 2 and Debiprasanna Mukherjee 3 1 M.Phil scholar, Ramakrishna Mission Sikshanamandira, Belur Math, Howrah, Email: biswajitp88@gmail.com 2 Assistant Professor (Sr.), Ramakrishna Mission Sikshanamandira, Belur Math, Howrah Email: abhi.guha68@gmail.com 3 Professor, Ramakrishna Mission Sikshanamandira, Belur Math, Howrah ABSTRACT : Reading comprehension is the procedure of making meaning from text. The goal, therefore, is to gain an overall understanding of what is described in the text rather than to get meaning from isolated words or sentences. The objectives of the study were to compare the reading comprehension ability between rural and urban students through two types of tests. Tests were administered on 520 samples from 10 schools (rural-5, urban-5) of North 24 Pgs. The collected data were analyzed by Mann- Whitney Test. The major findings were observed that in all section urban students scored better than rural students. The probable causes behind this type of result were discussed. Keywords : Reading comprehension, ability Sikshachintan, Vol. 8 : 187-192 (July, 2014) ISSN–0973-5461 Introduction Reading comprehension is a highly interactive process that takes place between a reader and a text. Individual readers will carry variable levels of skills and experiences to these interactions. These include language skills, cognitive resources and world knowledge. Any act of reading occurs within a particular socio- cultural and emotional context. This consists of essentials such as the child’s home culture, their previous experiences of reading and being read to, their expectations that reading should carry meaning, their motivation, their view of themselves as a reader, the intention for reading