A Survey On Obstacles Of Reading Among High Middle School Students--Reading Strategies Under Direction Of Social Constructivism

Reading has been emphasized in L2 teaching, because it is not only the content of language learning, but also a measure of language learning. But the achievements are not satisfying. In recent years, the test paper of university entrance examination contains more words and vocabulary and becomes more and more difficult. In this situation, student's abilities in reading seem to be lower, they have many problems, such as reading speed, the ability of getting more information and so on. They can only understand the shallow meaning of materials or they are in the state of reading without understanding.In the New English Curricula Syllabus, there are nine classes. High school students are required to reach the level of class seven. Compared with the aims, students now have many problems in reading, especially strategies problems.In the article an investigation into the obstacles of reading of middle school students was carried out, and the results are among the following aspects: vocabulary structures of sentences; the understanding of language in different situations; the understanding of different types of literature and so on. So it is these obstacles that lead to the failure of reading or little information getting.By analyzing these obstacles in reading, the reasons for this are clear:Both teachers and students' false perceptions about English reading; lack of the instruction of English reading strategies; lack of self-directed learning ability; the quantity of English reading is not enough.After knowing about the reasons for the obstacles, how to solve the problems iscrucial.Theoretical guidance to English reading teaching activities is necessary. The theory is social constructivism, that is, "knowledge is constructed by the individual through the interaction with other people". The paper explores the nature of reading and points out that reading is negotiation of meanings between writer and reader through interaction and reading is the regeneration of meaning when the negotiation is threatened or unable to be accomplished. So in nature, reading is meaningful only when it is based on the interaction between reader and writer.With the help of social construction, students can understand the real meaning of English reading. Reading is no longer word-by-word reading, no longer structure of sentence or grammarBut without practice theory can't solve all the problems. So the teacher should give some direction of useful reading strategies, such as guessing strategy, deducing strategy, predicting strategy and so on..The practice of reading strategies which are the instruction of social constructivism is effective. It just meets what social constructivists call for:" effective education is based on that learners are engaged in actively making sense of the information provided to them". Teachers, as mediators, are supposed to provide to them, a variety of language learning activities which allow for different learning styles and individual preferences and " personalities, from which learners construct knowledge meaningful for themselves; the long term goal is to make students learn how to control direction and continue their learning andbuild up the foundation for their life long education.