An Experimental Study Of The Effect Of English Newspaper Reading On Senior High School Students' English Reading Proficiency

Reading is a necessary skill to English learners,and English reading teaching is the project that language teaching workers have been researching.The improvement of students' reading skills is mostly associated with the choosing of reading materials and guidance of the teachers.However,in the information explosion age,students are more interested in the intenet information including current affair,sports news,and even celebrity gossip than the reading materials in the textbooks.In allusion to above characteristics,and to meet the students' demand,the teacher should add to the students some quantitative appropriate reading materials as well as giving some guidance of reading strategy,which can inspire the students' reading interest and at the same time improve their reading ability.?21st Century--Teens?can meet the demand of students'interest with wide material and authentic language,which can appeal to students.The author Chooses?21st Century--Teens?to be supplementary reading materials,to enrich teaching materials,and develop the students' reading ability by cultivating the reading strategies of the students.Ordinary High School English Curriculum standards requires(test)issued by Ministry of Education in 2003 requires that Senior High students should be equipped with the abilities of acquiring information,dealing with information as well as analyzing and solving questions by using English,and at the same time,they should have critical thinking ability.The acquisition of all these abilities is closely associated with language input---English reading.To develop the students' reading skills is the essential task of English educators.This research reports on 18-month program of reading strategies training via using?21st Century--Teens?as supplementary reading materials for 97 students in two elite classes in No 2 High School.By observing the students' reading ability differences before and after the research,I hope to develop the students' reading ability by supplying appropriate reading materials and appropriate reading strategies training.This research was designed to answer the following two questions.First,What is the result after using the newspaper as supplementary reading materials?Second,How to lead students to change their reading habit and improve their reading ability by making full use of the materials in newspaper and magazine?The research consists of three stages-guidance learning stage,autonomous learning stage and imitation output stage.Most students have changed their reading habits through the program,and they have learned to read autonomously instead of being entangled with new words and grammar.This kind of reading habit has active effect on their reading.Meanwhile,there exist some drawbacks in the research:the effect is apparent and ideal to the students with the average score between 115-125,while the effect is not so good to the students with the average score above 125,and there is almost not much progress to the students with the average score below 110.The research shows to train the students' reading ability via using the supplementary materials in?21st Century--Teens?has a positive effect on students,reading comprehension and general English level.Most of the students' reading comprehension ability has been improved.The research has important and productive implication for Senior English rending teaching.The author hopes that the research can help teachers to be aware of the importance of choosing appropriate reading materials and developing reading strategy and that more teachers should devote themselves to teaching reform.