An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Graded Readers On English Reading Motivation Of Junior High School Students

As one of the most important influence factors of English learning,reading motivation has gained great attention by scholars and educators at home and abroad.Most of the researches focused on the constructs of reading motivation and its correlation with reading achievement.Few researchers concerned about the influence of reading materials on reading motivation.However,English graded readers,as a practical extensive reading material,have become very popular in English-speaking countries.But they are still new in China.Most of the previous studies focused on the characteristics of graded readers and their influence on students’ language knowledge.Little attention was paid to the relationship between graded readers and learners’ reading motivation in junior middle school.This thesis attempts to look into the impact of graded readers on junior high school students’ English reading motivation.It aims to answer the following four questions:(1)What are the differences of junior middle school students’ English reading motivation before and after applying graded readers?(2)Are there any differences of students at different learning levels on their reading motivation before and after using graded readers? If yes,what are they?(3)To what extent do English graded readers affect students’ reading motivation?(4)What are the main reasons for English graded readers affecting students’ reading motivation?Thus,the author conducted an experiment on 60 students in 8th Grade for a school year in MG Middle School,Shantou,Guangdong.In this study,the researcher adopted Bookworm Series(junior high school students edition)and Good English(level6-8)as the graded reading materials.With the teacher’s instruction,students chose the books they like to read in class for thirty minutes four times every week.The participants completed the pretest questionnaire and post-questionnaire about their reading motivation before and after graded reading.All the collected data were analyzed by SPSS23.0.Meanwhile,the author interviewed six students before and after the experiment to have a deeper understanding of how the students’ reading motivation affected by English graded readers.On account of the analysis of the questionnaires,interviews as well as reading reports,main findings of this study are presented as follows.(1)Before applying graded readers,students’ English reading motivation is relatively at a medium level.However,their English reading motivation has been enhanced to a higher level after the application of graded readers for a school year.(2)Students with different learning levels have different reading motivation.The higher the students’ learning levels are,the stronger reading motivation they get.Students with medium level and low level have distinctly increased their English reading motivation after the experiment.While students with high level,the improvement of their reading motivation is less significant.(3)Applying graded readers has significantly improved students’ reading motivation.When analyzed in detail,students’ reading motivation is mufti-dimensional,and students’ reading efficiency and ability,reading goals as well as their social purpose for reading have distinctly improved after the experiment.(4)Three main reasons can be used to explain the improvement of students’ reading motivation.First,the content of graded readers can meet learners’ current reading ability and needs.Second,students have developed a good reading habit during the experiment.Last,the teachers’ guidance also contributes to the improvement of students’ reading motivation.In the end,the author put forward some practical suggestions on the choice of English reading materials and English reading teaching methods.Limitations of this thesis and future study directions are pointed out as well.