Pupils with reading difficulties who fail repeatedly attribute their failures to their low self-concept and can be discouraged by such failures. This weakness is seen as a factor which results in low effort and concentration, lowered expectations in future academic successes. Therefore, the study examined the Influence of Self-concept on the Academic Performance of Pupils with Reading Difficulties in Primary Schools in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State.

The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population for the study was all primary three pupils in the study area. There are 313 primary schools in the local government with 31,489 primary three pupils in Ilorin west local government area of Kwara state. Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select the respondents. Firstly, the primary schools were divided into two strata; public and private. Thereafter, eight (8) public and eight (8) private schools were purposely selected. Secondly, pupils with reading difficulties were conveniently selected for the study; therefore, 110 pupils were selected as respondents for the study. Three instruments were used in this study, Woodcock Reading Mastery test (WRMT) to screen pupils who have reading difficulty, a questionnaire titled Self-Concept Questionnaire (SCQ) was later administered to the pupils with reading difficulties and pupils' academic record was collected. The instrument was both faced and content validated by the researcher's supervisor and other lecturers in the Department of Early Childhood Education. A pilot study was conducted to test for the reliability of the instruments and a reliability index of 0.78 and 0.76 respectively. The collected data were subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistics. The research questions were answered using descriptive statistics of frequency count, percentage, mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using inferential statistics of linear regression, and independent sample t-test at 0.05 level of significance.

The findings of the study revealed self-concept has a significant influence on the academic performance of pupils with reading difficulty in primary schools in Ilorin West Local Government Area. There was no significant difference in the self-concept of pupils with reading difficulties based on gender (t = -1.40, df = 108, p > 0.05) and also there was a significant difference in the self-concept of pupils with reading difficulty based on school type. This is a reflection that self-concept significantly influenced academic performance of pupils with reading difficulties (F (1,108) = 36.194, P < 0.05). It also found out that There was no significant difference in the academic performance of pupils with reading difficulties based on gender (t = -.610, df = 108, p > 0.05).

The study concludes that self-concept of pupils influence the academic performance of pupils based on gender. Based on the findings, it was recommended that pupils should be exposed to positive self-concept enhancement programs. Also, at school level, mentorship program should be established whereby experienced teachers who teach reading skills at lower grades in primary schools could impact this knowledge to young and inexperienced teachers. Keywords: self-concept, academic performance, reading difficulty. Words count: 500.