| Reading word-by-word or failing to read in correct sense groups is a common phenomenon to EFL beginners. Although this phenomenon has been mentioned and sense-group reading is advocated by many scholars, few practical methods have been put forward. This paper attempts to seek ways to develop good reading habits and improve reading comprehension of EFL beginners by means of teacher's sense-group reading aloud.From different theoretical perspectives of language learning such as linguistic schemata and reading comprehension, reading automaticity and comprehension, propositions and working memory, psychological theories have been linked to the teacher's sense-group reading aloud. With the support of these theories, the four research questions under investigation are: 1) whether the teacher's sense-group reading aloud can help EFL learners to develop sense-group reading habits; 2) whether the teacher's sense-group reading aloud can help EFL learners to acquire linguistic schemata and activate them in reading; 3) whether the teacher's sense-group reading aloud can help EFL learners to read automatically; 4) whether the teacher's sense-group reading aloud can help EFL learners to extract the propositions and memorize the content better.The experiment was conducted in four weeks with two classes; 121 junior middle school students who were in Grade Two participated. Before the experiment, a lot of work was carried out. At first, a questionnaire was given to all the subjects to investigate their reading habits and attitudes towards reading. The causes of the existing reading problems were analyzed. The subjects' reading speed was measured. It was used by the trainer to adjust her reading aloud speed in the training period and to set a time for subjects to read in the checking period. Finally, the teacher's sense-group model function was standardized so as to ensure the validity of the experiment.In addition, tests were carried out before and after the experiment. The texts in the experiment were mainly narratives. The same English teacher who taught these two classes conducted the experiment. The purpose and requirements of the experiment and the amount of reading materials were all the same in both groups. One difference was that subjects in the experimental group received daily training of the teacher's planned sense-group reading aloud, while the control group did not receive any reading aloud training and read the materials on their own.Four tests were carried out to give answers to the above research questions.Test One: Sense Group Chunking. Subjects in both groups were required to chunk the same text before and after the experiment while they were reading it. The number of correct sense groups was counted. By comparing the total number of correct chunkings of both groups before and after the experiment, we could observe whether the training could help subjects develop good reading habits. At the same time, there were various sense groups formed in theteacher's reading aloud, which could help subjects acquire their linguistic schemata. The process of sense group chunking is the process in which readers activate their schemata. This test could give answers to the above first two questions.Test Two: Blank Filling. In the reading process, readers must activate their linguistic schemata to predict what comes next. Mcleod & McLaughlin (1986) believed that the activation of linguistic schemata could be checked by means of a cloze test, so a cloze test followed the reading. Each blank was placed at the end of each line and it belonged to the same sense group as the previous words. This test aimed to give supplementary proof to the first test.Test Three: Letter "a" Crossing-out. Attention is one of the important markers for distinguishing the automatic and controlled processing. The method of Hatch et al. (1970, cited from Mcleod & McLaughlin 1986) was adopted to investigate the degree of reading automaticity. Subjects were required to cross out the occurrences of letter "a" in their reading. The n...
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