| The main objective of the study was to explore the cognition and metacognition of English reading strategies in successful Taiwanese comprehensive high school student readers. In particular, the study examined the similarities and differences between Chinese and English cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies, the challenges of unknown English vocabulary, and English oral reading fluency. Eight 11th grade Taiwanese students participated in this study, ranging from 16 to 18 years old. A general readers' interview protocol, two teachers' interviews, an English oral reading fluency assessment, pre-reading assessments (vocabulary and prior knowledge), and the think-aloud assessments were also conducted in this study. The above interviews and assessments were all audiotaped as subjects carried out these tasks. The main findings of the study are as follows: (1) All eight readers achieved the 4th grade level of oral reading fluency according to the standards of the Multidimensional Fluency Scale; (2) From the qualitative perspective the Chinese reading strategy methods were similar to the English reading strategy methods, such as monitoring comprehension, inferring, evaluating the text information, summarizing, recognizing the text structure, looking for key word, activating prior knowledge, looking for main idea, re-reading, and underling a certain part of the text; and (3) The strategy of using context clues was ranked as first in terms of the most frequently used when readers dealt with unknown English vocabulary. The results of this study provide effective guidelines and solid evidence for improving English reading curriculum and instruction in Taiwan. |
