Investigation And Study On Relationship Between Reading Strategies And Students' Reading Ability-Among Students In Senior 3

With the development of information society, education is expected to cultivate students' ability of assimilating and processing information as well as spread information. As a chief means of input in English language learning, English reading in senior high schools occupies an important place in the aspects of skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Therefore, reading is regarded as the most basic way in absorbing information, being engaged in learning and going in for entertainment. But unfortunately, the phenomenon of "high input and low output" is still in common in English reading teaching. When probing into the reasons, it is related to the reading concept which is unilateral and unrealistic, and at the same time, it is because learners can not grasp and use reading strategies properly. Thus, in order to obtain good effects of reading and ideal reading speed, it is necessary to make a clear picture of structures and features of psychology in the process of reading, and on the basis of it , there is great need for developing the reading habits and effective reading strategies consciously, but to reach the goals, learners are required to be trained necessarily in the application of reading strategies. Only in doing so, is it likely that learners can use the effective reading strategies correctly. Reading strategies in English are an organic part of English learning strategies, there have been 30 years in studies on learning strategies. Making a general survey of studies on learning strategies abroad, main problems are referred to in the following aspects: 1) strategies applied by good language learners; 2) differences between good learners and poor learners; 3) relationship between use of strategies and learning results of L2; 4) language learning training and its effect. Compared with studies on learning strategies abroad, studies on learning strategies in China are more focused on introduction and description of learning strategies theoretically, as for the effect of strategy training, it is mostly concentrated on the phase of universities. As far as studies on English learning strategies and strategy training in middle schools are concerned, they are still in the beginning stages. So, this thesis intends to make an attemptable study of the English reading strategies and strategy training in middle schools so as to see whether the Senior 3 students' application of reading strategies is more effective in enhancing their reading comprehension when they get trained in reading strategies.In the present study, about 100 Senior 3 students for making up lessons were chosen as the subjects from two intact classes (Class One was randomly assigned as the controlled class, Class Two as the experimental class) in Ying Cai School in Dingxi City. Based on the results of initial investigation on the students' learning strategies by using Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Oxford, 1989), and the model of Brown andPalincsar(1984)'s training in reading, reading strategy training was performed in the experimental class for 24 weeks, while in the controlled class, the conventional reading teaching method (grammar-translation method) was conducted. The data collected were students' initial investigation and post investigation on reading strategies, pre-test and post-test in reading. And all the data were calculated by SPSS (Statistical Program for Social Science) 11.0. The results indicate that the Senior 3 students can obtain enough effective reading strategies after reading strategy training, and that the effective reading strategies can help students improve their reading comprehension and reading speed.The present thesis is composed of seven parts. Part One is an introduction which mainly depicts the purpose and the significance of the present study. Part Two is literature review which chiefly looks back on the development of researches on English learning strategies abroad and in China. Part Three is about theories of reading, reading strategies and reading strategy training. Part Four covers details in the experiment, which consists of the hypothesis of the present study, the materials used in the experiment, subjects, the procedure, the method and the model in reading training. Part Five is the data collection and the data analysis. Part Six is the discussion, which indicates that the reading strategies play an important role in improving English reading comprehension, and that the reading strategy training is an effective way in enhancing students' reading comprehension. Part Seven is the conclusion, which covers enlightenment of English teaching in senior middle schools, limitations and implications.