A Study On The Application Of Graded Readers To English Reading Teaching In Rural Senior High Schools

As an important part of English key competency,reading plays an important role in English learning.By reviewing the researches on English graded readers,graded reading and extensive reading conducted by researchers at home and abroad,the author finds that reading a large number of graded readers helps English learners improve their language ability and reading comprehension.However,in the rural senior high school where there is a big difference in students’ English proficiency,the teaching practice and application research of graded reading with graded readers are insufficient,and the effect of the application of English reading teaching activities based on graded readers needs to be verified.Based on the Input Hypothesis and the Affective Filter Hypothesis,the author carefully selected a series of graded readers to meet the participants’ English competence and carried out a 9-month reading teaching experiment.The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of graded reading applying graded readers among rural senior high school students with great differences in English proficiency,and its effect on cultivating students’ good reading strategies and improving students’ reading scores.The author selected 133 students from two parallel classes in grade two of a rural senior high school as the experimental subjects.The results of reading test before the experiment showed that there was no significant difference between the two classes.Before the experiment,considering that the students with different English levels need to adopt the method of graded teaching,the author selected two sets of encyclopedia readers with different levels of language difficulty for the experimental class according to the students’ reading scores,so that the students can choose and apply them during their self-study time to read freely.In addition,in order to train the students’ reading strategies and the abilities to read in depth,the author and the students jointly selected two novels with interesting plot from the literary works,which are read by both the teacher and the students together in class.Through collecting and analyzing the data of the questionnaires after the experiment,the author finds that students in the experimental class made more significant progress in the application of reading strategies than the students in the control class did after carrying out graded readers reading.Furthermore,by understanding the interview results of the students in the experimental class,theauthor finds that the main reason for students’ reading difficulties before the experiment is the selection of reading materials.After the experiment,the students have a positive feedback on the graded readers.They think that the selected graded readers are ideal reading materials and helpful to the improvement of reading interest.Through reading graded readers,students’ reading preference gradually shifts from paying too much attention to language knowledge in the initial stage of the experiment to experiencing the content.At last,through the analysis of post-test reading score,the test results of the students in the control class are not changed obviously,but the test results of the students in the experimental class are significantly improved.To sum up,the application of graded readers to carry out graded reading is suitable for the actual competence of English reading of rural senior high school students.Through a large number of exposure to comprehensible reading materials and targeted training,it is helpful for students with poor English competence to develop good reading strategies.The improvement of students’ reading interest and the application of good reading strategies will help them to improve their reading comprehension score.